Editorial

As Bad as it Gets

OpinionsThe Link — Published September 25, 2012

Can’t speak English but want to study in Canada? We’ll get you in—for a price. And please have a thick wad of cash ready for us upon your arrival. In the case of the cover story’s subject, David, you’ll pay $900 a month for an empty stomach and no personal space in a foreign country, neither of whose official languages you can speak.

Faced with this reality, there are two possible scenarios we can imagine:

At best, the university simply neglected to do their due diligence, somehow not knowing that someone who’s been on the university’s payroll for years advertised these homestays as the best way for Chinese students to learn English and integrate into Canadian culture.

Meanwhile, he was swindling them of their money in an extensive scam involving a network of associates and underlings all pressuring vulnerable young people undergoing culture shock and abuse into keeping quiet about their problems. At worst, upper administration has knowingly kept silent, allowing these callous actions to transpire in the name of quick and easy cash—transactions that have not only harmed these students, but our university as a whole.

Concordia’s official defence is that they’re not liable for anything outside of the actual recruitment of students.

But it seems to be that the only reason to go through the university’s recruiter, Peter Low, for admission is a language loophole.

Concordia’s logo is on the application form and the university’s admissions website links to this scam. And, unlike Concordia’s admissions page, the Concordia Chinese Recruitment website is offered in Chinese. It includes the usual lines, about how great it is to study here.

The only thing is, it’s not so great to study here if you’re living with 12 other people and have only moldy hot dogs and bread to eat.

Since at least 2009, Chinese students unable to speak English or French have been conned into paying huge sums of money for living conditions that would be objectionable anywhere, let alone in a city with some of the strongest tenants’ rights legislation in Canada.

Concordia, you need to fix this.

If not for the betterment of the lives of your students, then you need to fix this for our university’s reputation.

Swift, decisive, no-nonsense action is the only thing that can make this right. There’s a lot that has gone wrong here, so there’s a lot to be righted. There is a lot of trust to be regained.

Confronted with these issues on one of the first days of his new term, it seems that Concordia’s new director of recruiting has taken steps to remedy the situation, in at least one of the homestay locations. But why did it take this long for the university to start paying attention?

An external report is needed, because with Concordia’s higherups either ignorant of or complicit in this scam, it’s hard to have faith in the university being able to deal with this internally.

The man at the centre of this storm is Low. His contract is currently being re-negotiated, so if there were a time to remedy this regrettable situation, it’s now.

International students are a crucial part of our university. They add a richness to our community and reflect the greater globalized world; we all benefit from the variety of experience they bring to the university.

China is particularly important to this school—the many trips there by Concordia VPs and presidents certainly suggest the admin thinks so. But what kind of message are we sending to these students?

They matter more than this.

This week’s cover story was a hard thing to keep quiet while we gathered the facts. But it’s a much worse thing for Concordia to have kept quiet if they had any idea what was going on.

All of our degrees are tied to this school and its name. All the amazing, tireless people who work and study here get this mark of shame pinned to this place where we spend so much of our time.

But our consciences are clean—it’s the university that’s dirty here.