The AMS has recently published its demands for the 2024 Federal Budget in cooperation with the Undergraduates of Canadian Research-Intensive Universities (UCRU).
UCRU's seven demands prioritize international students. It also aligns student unions across the country’s largest 15 research universities that represent the needs of over 240,000 students.
As part of UCRU, the AMS is responsible for releasing a set of annual demands to be integrated into the following year’s federal budget in preparation for provincial and federal lobby weeks that occur each fall.
This year’s implied plan outlines seven demands according to their impact, feasibility and relevance on Canadian post-secondary campuses.
“Streamlining demands … involved an assessment of the actions to prioritize the most critical students' demands that needed the most attention, especially post-pandemic and looking into the other economic and wellbeing factors,” said Bandhul Vikas Khanna, AMS associate vice-president external affairs in a statement to The Ubyssey.
The Canadian Experience Class (Express Entry) program allows temporary Canadian residents with one year of skilled work experience to apply for permanent residency. However, the program currently prohibits full-time students from gaining permanent residency status, even if they have gained work experience through co-op. Co-op does not meet the official Express Entry program requirements.
“We aim to discuss the expansion of this program to include the full-time work experiences of international students with the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship during Federal Lobby week,” Khanna wrote.
This demand looks to amend the Express Entry program so full-time international students can put part-time employment experience towards permanent residency requirements.
Another demand is to dismantle the 20-hour workweek cap, which limits the number of hours of hours students from outside of Canada can work off-campus and was previously temporarily eliminated in October 2022. A permanent stop would grant international students more work-life flexibility and help tackle the nationwide labour shortage.
The AMS also included renewing the Building on Success: International Education Strategy. Originally a five-year plan (2019–2024), the strategy has a $147.9 million budget and supports up to 11,000 undergraduate students in their studies and work abroad.
With the growing number of international students, however, many of which are looking to apply their local studies to regions outside the country, the AMS is demanding a five-year extension for the plan with an increased budget of $165.6 million.
“International students often face unique challenges related to tuition costs, work opportunities, housing, scholarships [and] funding, and settlement services in Canada,” Khanna wrote.
“For 28% of the UBC population which is an evolving demographic, advocating for [international students’] needs was a response to the growing concerns and challenges faced by them,” continued Khanna.
The AMS also proposed a four-year post-secondary mental health infrastructure fund that would “provide direct capital and short-term operational funding to post-secondary institutions” to establish high-quality, affordable and accessible mental health resources for students, according to an AMS Instagram post.
The demands also look to establish a federally funded initiative to support the construction of student housing on post-secondary institution campuses with $800 million in mixed funding models.
“Federal funding for student housing offers a promising solution by granting universities greater financial independence in managing housing," wrote Khanna. "This independence can reduce reliance on tuition fees and provincial grants, promoting sustainable and accessible higher education."
“Unlike institution-based funding, which can limit oversight, federal funding empowers institutions to address the affordability crisis effectively.”
The plan also lays out the demands to continue the post-secondary student support program after 2024 and maintain the maximum funding of the Canada Student Grant Program at $4,200 per year.
Khanna wrote that challenges and disagreements between the AMS and legislation could arise due to budgetary constraints or conflicting policy priorities.
“We hope our advocacies, with ongoing engagement with relevant stakeholders, bring positive changes for the UBC student community.”