Todd: Smart film brings home exploitation of foreign students in Canada

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Vancouver filmmaker Shubham Chhabra brings a lot to the table in his short film Cash Cows about international students from India striving to make it in Canada.

There’s student Rohit Sharma, whose boss in Canada has no intention of paying him because he thinks he’s doing him a favor. There are the five male international students who share a small basement suite in Surrey because the rents are extreme. There is confusion over giving up to $45,000 to shady immigration consultants, but they still need jobs like security guards and pizza makers.

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Being a foreign student while working in a wealthy Canada, on the path to obtaining the coveted permanent resident status, is not exactly “living the dream,” although one character in the film claims it is.

cash cows is fictional but based on the experiences of Chhabra, who arrived in British Columbia in 2015, as well as his closest friends from India, the source of Canada’s largest group of international students.

The film sets its comedy-drama tone from the start, with opening images of unsuspecting cows being mashed and devoured like juicy burgers or steaks.

While international students face multiple stresses in Canada, including extreme tuition rates and often poor-quality education, the cash cows highlight how they are exploited by employers. It’s a problem that has been spreading since the federal Liberal government increased the number of international students in Canada from 225,000 to 1.3 million in the last decade.

The pivotal scene from Cash Cows, which screened at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival and won an award for best screenplay, features a foul-mouthed boss, Jaspreet Singh, criticizing Rohit for daring to expect to be paid to work more than six years. He spent several months as a night security guard at his car dealership, called Brown Brothers.

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‘I’m doing you a favor. Why the fuck do you expect everything to be free? shouts the boss, who has agreed to sponsor Sharma to obtain permanent resident status. The employer warns the student that if he asks too many questions he could be deported. He is no longer naive and Rohit realizes that he has to endure hard labor.

Cash Cows is fundamentally about how some employers, and to some extent politicians and educational institutions, are treating foreign students and other temporary residents as “commodities rather than sustainable human resources,” Chhabra said.

While the filmmaker personally feels it is a “privilege” to have studied at Langara College and now work as an assistant director on the television series Family Law, he wants his short film and a longer documentary scheduled for release this spring to help the spectators. understand the spectrum of experiences of international students.

He is aware that untold numbers of employers are taking advantage of foreign students, whose families back home, like his, will often sacrifice a lot so their children can settle in Canada.

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In India, the vision of entering Canada on a study visa “is super romanticized in movies, TV shows and music videos,” Chhabra said. Although unpleasant truths are sometimes mentioned in the Indian media, most young people fly to Canada with incredible optimism.

The reality may be shocking to many, says Chhabra, “even though Canada is one of the best countries in the world.” Exploitative employers in Canada have many schemes, including not paying students at all or expecting part of their salary back.

“One of my friends was caught in a job scam that lasted seven years, in which he had to return almost 30 percent of his salary.” He did it, Chhabra said, because the boss had promised to sponsor him as an immigrant.

“It’s 100 percent illegal,” Chhabra said. When the friend obtained permanent residency, “he left work the first day he could. He got his truck driver’s license, which is what he wanted to do, and now he is super happy, he earns real money and works hard.”

Chhabra’s own story inspired the key conflict described in Cash Cows. The manager of a fast food establishment he worked for in Vancouver found complicated excuses to pay him less, claiming he was training. Chhabra challenged him.

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“He gave me a long spiel about how grateful I should be. And I went back to work,” Chhabra said.

Another Cash Cows moment is based on the experience one of his friends had as a security guard. The student, who was no longer receiving his salary, was forced by his boss to come up with the money to compensate a vandal who broke a car window with a rock while he was on night duty.

In addition to the scams featured on Cash Cows, reports of many others are emerging across Canada. They include employers who take secret bribes of foreign students and other non-permanent residents to create jobs for them, some of which do not really exist. Another controversy arose this week, with the news of a Increase of 650 percent in five years. in the number of foreign students applying for refugee status.

Amid all the schemes and conflicts dividing opinion among Canada’s South Asian population, Chhabra said he hopes Cash Cows will help viewers understand the different ways young people on study visas are trying to survive and thrive. in a new land.

He intended to do it without being heavy-handed: “I wanted to do something happy, but based on reality, with a small message.”

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One way the film has a little fun is by bringing to life the way many foreign students end up crammed into small basement suites.

That’s exactly what Chhabra and her friends had to do. For a long time, Chhabra and two friends shared the same double bed, sleeping in shifts and sometimes at the same time. While Chhabra’s Canadian girlfriend has described the practice as “very strange,” he says it is considered good in Indian culture.

More seriously, Chhabra is concerned that in the past year the national debate on immigration in Canada has reached a “tipping point,” where non-permanent residents, such as foreign students, are now seen in a brighter light. pessimistic, particularly when it comes to contributing to the pressure. on housing prices and rent.

And while Chhabra wants to fight the negativity, he can somewhat understand why Immigration Minister Marc Miller imposed a two year limit on study permits.

“We see all the negatives, just like everyone else,” Chhabra said. “And we want to work together to make it better.”

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