OTTAWA — International students are demanding answers after four private Quebec colleges abruptly closed, leaving their diplomas, internships and immigration status in limbo.Hundreds of students marched through downtown Montreal on Sunday after the province suspended or declined to renew the operating permits of the Collège supérieur de Montréal and three other institutions.Video published by Global News showed students gathering outside the Montreal college before marching to the provincial immigration ministry’s offices..Many of the affected students are foreign nationals who paid tens of thousands of dollars to study in Quebec.Samia Chraibi, an international student from Morocco, said she was only weeks away from finishing her program.“This summer, in two, three weeks, I would have had my diploma,” she said.That diploma and her legal status in Canada are now uncertain.The closures occurred as some students were preparing to graduate or begin internships required to complete their programs.Without an operating school, students say they cannot finish their studies or obtain documents needed to extend their study and work permits.“It’s terrible. It’s sad because we made a lot of efforts to come here,” one student said. “We left our family. We were alone.”The Collège supérieur de Montréal is one of four private, subsidized institutions affected by recent provincial permit decisions.The other institutions are the Collège supérieur de Sherbrooke, Collège Herzing and Collège de technologie Veritas.The Quebec Education Ministry said it had contacted students with information about other institutions where they could potentially complete their studies.Students told Global News, however, that some of the suggested colleges would not accept them until October.They said their existing immigration documents could expire before then.“We don’t have enough time for our papers to wait until October,” one student said.Quebec’s immigration ministry said affected foreign students would have to submit new applications to maintain their status, but that processing would be adjusted in light of the closures..The Education Ministry did not publicly explain why the permits were suspended or not renewed.Opposition parties have criticized the Quebec government for failing to provide students with clear information about the institutions’ closures and how they can finish their programs.“The reasons for those suspensions were not clearly answered or given to anyone, so the students are also having those questions,” one advocate said.Students at Sunday’s protest called on the province to transfer them automatically to other recognized schools before their permits expire.“We don’t have a dream anymore,” one student said. “We don’t have anything anymore. We don’t know what we have to do. We don’t know what we can do. So it’s stressful.”
