Tension is rising between some of Ontario's post-secondary institutions as they prepare to fight for their share of international student permits handed out by the province.
Tempers flared Tuesday afternoon when Conestoga president John Tibbits and University of Waterloo economist Larry Smith defended the college against allegations that it is a bad actor in the international student crisis.
"We've hired 500 full-time people in the last three years and this won't make the front page. Meanwhile, you get some MP meet somebody at a food bank and they're all starving, they're dying, who knows what's going on, but it's BS a lot of it," said a fired-up Tibbits, likely referring to Cambridge MP Bryan May.
May was at Trinity Community Table in December and told CambridgeToday he was shocked to see an overwhelming number of students at a free holiday lunch event.
Tibbits had been asked about comments made by Sault College president David Orazietti in a recent episode of the Inside the Village podcast. Orazietti, a former Liberal MPP, accused Conestoga of being one of the bad actors the federal government was talking about when it announced the cap.
"How do you take 20,000 students into your community and have housing for them, services and everything they need without creating chaos?" Orazietti said.
Tibbits took exception and fired back, noting Orazietti had only been on the job for a few months and saying he needed to learn to "shut his mouth."
"Like Orazietti, why are his goddamn students in Toronto? Why not up there? Talk about a whore, I mean, he's taking a percentage of the profits of an operation," said Tibbits. "I can't stand the guy, by the way."
While Conestoga has a high number of international students at its Cambridge campus, the majority of Sault College's international students are at satellite campuses in the Greater Toronto Area run by a private college partner.
Tibbits and Smith were holding an event to discuss a report by Smith and Conestoga College that aimed to prove the school's impact on the local community. Both men were adamant the school was doing nothing wrong with international student enrolment.
"I'm not into public relations, I will not alter a single fact, for any version of marketing. And there was no need to do so. This story is rock solid. Don't believe it, read the technical notes," said Smith.
The report argues that Conestoga is the single largest service provider in the region, having educated at least 50 per cent of the adult population in Waterloo region.
Smith said rising misinformation about the college has taken over social media and has started to paint the college in a negative light, dismissing all of the positives the school brings to the community.
The college is reporting that its graduates add more than $6.2 billion annually to the province's economy and nearly 85 per cent of both international and domestic graduates are employed.
"We are the most popular college in Canada for international students. Now, why would that be? Are they all fools?" asked Tibbits. "If we were a disaster, the applications would dry out."
One of the college's biggest criticisms is that they admitted close to 30,000 international students and only had 900 residential units available.
Tibbits admitted that the school grew faster than expected but maintained that students are finding places to live and choosing to live in packed houses.
"Why are they all applying here? Why are they applying if there was no place to live?" he asked. "Some of them live like that because they don't want to pay more than $400."
Tibbits said students choose to live like they do to keep their costs down and avoid paying high rents.
Some international students have spoken about their living conditions in Cambridge. They're forced to live in are often overcrowded and ripe for slumlords who are taking advantage of the students, CambridgeToday has reported.
"The problem is you get someone who goes and talks to an international student, and he said, I had a tough time finding a house, but the truth of the matter is not one international student could not find housing. Not one," Tibbits said.
He blames the federal government for allowing so many students to come in knowing the housing system could not support this many newcomers in such a short amount of time.
"We've cut our admissions by 9,000 and they still let in more students, we're not asking for this many," added Tibbits. "If the feds are so worried about housing, this is their government, why are (they) admitting so many people?"
Tibbits and Smith both took aim at colleges in northern Ontario that are outsourcing their programs to places like Toronto and handing out diplomas like "puppy mills."
"You should ask Orazietti what he's doing up in Toronto. Ask him how many beds he built in Toronto? How many beds have they got in Toronto? Zero," said Tibbits.
"This guy has been on the job eight bloody months up there and he's offering project management in a couple of programs like that in Toronto and he's offering no services."
Conestoga College has said it is willing to work with the province on a deal to cut international student admissions but will not disclose the number of positions it is willing to lose.
Thousands of students at Conestoga have come to the college from abroad and are now in limbo, unsure if their study permits for next year will be approved.
Tibbits noted they should have a better idea of the number of study permits in six to eight weeks, but in the meantime, the country is looking foolish for making a rushed decision without ironing out the details.
"This is a world business, and we're operating like this is a banana republic."
