Tales from the Departure Lounge

#27 Earl Blaney (Who Let The Dogs Out?)

• Andy Plant & Nick Cuthbert • Season 2 • Episode 27

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The exploitation of international students for financial gain is an open secret in some parts of the world, and while many choose to look away, Earl Blaney has been calling out the darker side of the edu-immigration industry. He's a controversial figure, a whistleblower, a conspiracy theorist - and for a long time he has been a solitary voice questioning the system in Canada. Not any more. A whole nation is now listening as the government announces tougher controls to protect overseas students.

Earl joins the TFTDL flight crew to talk about his passion for dogs, chess and boxing. He is less enthusiastic about aggregators, Indian whiskey and cease and desist letters.

It's time to take the red pill if you want to face an uncomfortable reality. Take the blue pill (and stop listening now) if you want to live in blissful ignorance. Pack light and land well. 

Final boarding call: Manila, Philippines

Essential reading: The Walrus - The Shadowy Business of International Education
Essential viewing: CBC News - The Fifth Estate: Sold a Lie

This episode is sponsored by Duolingo. Today over 4500 institutions including Yale, Imperial and Trinity College Dublin have adopted the Duolingo English Test. If your university wants to join them then get in touch at www.englishtest.duolingo.com

Tales from the Departure Lounge is a Type Nine production for The PIE www.thepienews.com

Andy:

the introduction is important to frame the episode

Nick:

don't overthink it.

Andy:

Who doesn't like to be teased?

Nick:

Welcome to Tales from the Departure Lounge. This is a podcast about travel for business, for pleasure, or for study. My name's Nick and I'm joined by my co-pilot, Andy. And together we're gonna be talking to some amazing guests about how travel has transformed their. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey. Welcome to the podcast.

Andy:

Today on the show we're joined by Earl Blaney. He's the founder of Study to Stay which he described as an ethical ed tech platform and he's also an immigration consultant based in London, Ontario in Canada.

Nick:

He's quite a controversial figure. He's almost become like a vigilante of the industry, a truth teller, or a conspiracy theorist.

Andy:

He's a particular expert in Canada, obviously, but he was, very passionate about how students, perhaps are not treated ethically, by education agents and aggregators.

Nick:

as well as spending his money on FOI requests for institutional data on international students, he was a whistleblower for the documentary by CBC News called The Fifth Estate Sold a Lie.

Andy:

If anyone hasn't seen it, you should check it out. We talked a lot about his time initially in Korea and then in the Philippines where he set up a business and it's quite interesting because one of the things he describes is. Landing in the Philippines and having somebody acting on his behalf who's, a local person. Uh, which... I don't know, Nick, what do you think about that?

Nick:

Wouldn't that be a great idea for the education industry? He's got a great anecdote about immigration fraud.

Andy:

Of the four legged kind. He's a student recruitment consultant who's on a mission for a more ethical approach from all involved. He loves boxing, chess, and dogs, and really doesn't like aggregators or Indian whiskey. Let's get some tales from the departure lounge from Earl Blaney.

Earl:

For a long time, I was a canary in a coal mine, nobody was listening, nobody cared. But now this is a national issue. I don't know who some of these people are, but they've been dropping off these bottles. Some good Indian scotch, And I got to tell you, I have said some controversial things. I have some controversial views and I haven't drank one of these bottles cause I'm kind of worried Knowing something more, than the average person about, Canadian immigration policy all the evidence points to this is about money more than anything else, Um, since then, yeah, we've received quite a few cease and desist letters. I have them framed on my office. So now I'm an education agent involved in forging documents and I'm just as guilty as everyone else. And there goes my career again.

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Andy:

Oh Welcome to the show

Earl:

I'm on orders to be real careful,

Nick:

From your lawyer?

Earl:

Yeah, that's from my wife.

Andy:

it's great to have you on. The first question we always ask our guests is, if you could take our listeners anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Earl:

Anywhere in the world, Well, we'd have to go to Manila, Philippines. that's where I spend all my time. That's where I do all my work and my business. it's just a wonderful place. And, that's where I go when I'm not in Canada. You can guess I'll be in the Philippines.

Andy:

How come you ended up in the Philippines?

Earl:

It's more fun in the Philippines, guys. You've heard the ads. no, I mean, I left, another career in another world, South Korea. And moved over to the Philippines with my wife and, I love Filipino people. They're great. Always got a smile. And that's something you don't see every day in Canada. They play basketball. They play chess. Those are my interests boxing. it was an easy move for me, less so for my wife, I'd say.

Nick:

A dangerous country or very friendly.

Earl:

I've never had a bad experience in the Philippines. I'm sure, it can be dangerous just about anywhere. Especially downtown London, Ontario. Mean, no, it's a huge city. we're talking what? 15 million people. So, there have got to be some bad actors out there. No question about it. But, the majority of, the experience that we had in the Philippines are really positive, most of the time we're In the second largest city Cebu city 2 million people, a great city, great beaches. really relaxed vibe, although, traffic's bad everywhere in the Philippines.

Andy:

You've been to South Korea and then you've moved to the Philippines. What's this journey? How come you were in both of those places?

Earl:

As a young guy, you're trying to figure out what you're going to do with your life so, I just went to Asia and we started, working in South Korea teaching English over there. I started writing a lot of curriculum for MUN mock trials, stuff like that. And that kind of took us to a bunch of different countries. From there, I got licensed for immigration. it was important to start to develop an expertise in a particular market. So through my travel in Asia, the Philippines was the place that I liked the most. As I've said, great people, great food, great beer, what else do you want?

Nick:

can you describe a boxing match in the Philippines?

Earl:

boxing huge in the Philippines. And I love boxing. I grew up with boxing. I boxed when I was little, And, the bottom line is it's just a real passion of Filipinos, men and women across the board, old and young. I've boxed at boxing gyms in the Philippines. Trained there, and also been to a lot of fights been to Arnetta Coliseum. When Manny Pacquiao was fighting it's a national holiday, no one works, and I can attest to that, no one does work, it is a big party, makes Las Vegas seem small and pathetic, when you're on, the super cat fairies going from island to island or whatever,, there's always a, a movie player, but they're not playing movies, right? They're playing old fights, like fights you've never seen before, right? I used to actually do a lot of boxing writing for PhilBoxing. com. Some of my articles are probably still on there. So I mean, boxing in the Philippines is a big deal.

Nick:

And you're balancing your time between the Philippines and Canada now.

Earl:

I haven't been back to the Philippines since COVID. We are planning a trip, most of our work we do online. We work directly supporting education agents in the Philippines. to try to improve best practices, we do a lot of their student to permanent residence transition planning, and just offer support for their study permit, applications. We have employees, of course, in the Philippines and in Canada, who help with those processes, When we opened the competition in the Philippine market for edu export or study permits was pretty low. I think the volume of Filipinos coming to Canada at that time was slightly under a thousand people. It's at 25, 000 now. So that's significant growth in 10 years.

Andy:

They're incredibly transient people, aren't they, I think I've met Filipinos working in bars, in hotels, in pretty much every country I've been to I even met a Filipino clown in Saudi Arabia once.

Earl:

The Filipino diaspora is a really significant phenomenon for sure. In terms of host country, I think we're number two after the U. S. for total population. There's about a million Filipinos in Canada and, hardworking people, really adoptable people. That's one of the reasons Filipinos are, the most successful in transitioning to permanent residency in Canada, because Filipinos are not fair weather immigrants. They work, they will do what is required to gain that status in Canada, and I think employers value them for the same reasons,

Andy:

You are quite outspoken about, ethical immigration, particularly around study visas. so tell us a bit more about that.

Earl:

What's real, what's not, I don't know, man, The problem is the return on investment part. and that has been my area of concern for the last five years or so. I've had some things to say about that for sure. but it looks Looks like everyone else is now currently aware of the problem, so that's exciting.

Nick:

hang on here, let's start at the beginning here. I think you need to describe, the national picture in Canada, why immigration is important and how people feel about immigration.

Earl:

In Canada, the liberal overtones of acceptance and, inclusion are really strong. I don't think we have a real national debate of whether immigration is good or bad. It's generally at least overwhelmingly, accepted that, there's a real positive aspect, overall to immigration.

Nick:

It's true to say that the numbers of migrants, but also international students coming to Canada has. Growing by a third each year, huge numbers, how do people feel about this growth?

Earl:

When the federal government instituted the policy. We knew that this essentially just changed EduCanada export to EduImmigration export, right? It totally changed the system of why people are coming to Canada. And when you see the volume of explosion for Canada, it is marked by that event. the volume of international students. was not, a mainstream issue in any way at all until it got connected to the voting issue of housing, there wasn't a person, in Canada who was saying anything about volume. it has been my concern, for some time, people are choosing Canada as a study destination is directly connected to the idea that they can permanently settle here post graduation, especially community college students. Knowing something more, than the average person about, Canadian immigration policy and, the bottom line is the demand exceeds the space available, to transition these people to permanent residence. my concern is that this is being promoted as an edu immigration pathway when in fact there is actually no edu immigration pathway technically speaking at all. People working in the recruitment business are so self interested in short term gain over long term sustainability, really, You know, raise the question of, why are these people not being supervised? Why are these people not being checked? Because they need to be. and that's clear. Clear as day. This market rebound from COVID has been good. It's been substantial. It just seems to be that. When you see growth trajectories like jump up like that, you think they're sustainable. They're not

Nick:

and you've found yourself. In this unlikely position of being a whistleblower, you're seeing what's happening because you're privy to some of the information and you understand the nature of the business. And you've been speaking out saying. This isn't right. How do you feel about that?

Earl:

there are literally seven million things I'd rather be doing, I can assure you, whether it's working on my chess game, whether it's having some beers, there's literally almost everything else I'd rather be doing, I don't want to be doing this, but I just feel that somebody needs to be talking about, and encouraging an open, honest dialogue, because that has not been what's going on The damage to Canada, and Canada's program sustainability at this point is irreparable, right? There are a lot of smart people in this industry, loads, like compared to me especially. But the bottom line is, let's take a leadership role beyond, pure finances.

Andy:

For the colleges that are involved, is this a financial driver?

Earl:

If you look back, at the history of, Canada's international student policy, you've got, intercultural learning, you've got growth in numbers. And you've got, diversity, what we've managed to do is growth in numbers. I mean, we failed literally every single other aspect of that. So how could it not be about finances?

Nick:

but who's getting paid here? Who's earning from this situation? And how far up does it go?

Earl:

It's a great question because like with the private colleges,, it's easy to say, okay, well, there are, certain number of businessmen from whatever country making all this money. But for public sector, administration, is this just about career elevation? Like what is driving this? Is this just naivety? oh, internationalization is good. No matter what. Or is this something darker? It's something I'd really like to ask them myself today.

Nick:

You could get into some serious conspiracy theories here, couldn't we? We could go down lots of lines of who's got vested interest in who, you could get pretty paranoid pretty quick.

Earl:

I think I'm paranoid already. Yes.

Nick:

Ha ha ha.

Andy:

Nick and I used to work in international student recruitment. we're nice people, honestly. but all the people that we worked alongside counseling students about their best options. And they're being asked to hit targets from various countries that they're responsible for. get that number of students in because that's what your employer wants. I think you blindly do that as the person at the coalface.

Earl:

When I talk to people working at designated learning institutions, in Canada, when they reach out or I reach out for just a coffee chat, I hear,, I'm torn, I'm in the middle position. But I see what's happening on the ground and I don't agree with it. And with that attitude. So pervasive, in this industry. That is why this, we're at the stage, right? You are to blame. That's how I view it. That's exactly that attitude gets us where we are today in Canada, right? Which is not in a good place,

Andy:

So when does a successful recruitment strategy, when does it tip to become a problem?

Earl:

The Senators of Canada just released the report talking about this and,, one of the quotes there was, Canada has been a victim of their own success, the foundation of our plan, I think is solid, but there has been no real checks and balances in terms of volume and numbers and revenue, that has been a tremendous success. But revenue and earnings is allowed to trump everything else, I, think the foundation literally crumbles. and I think we're pretty close to that right now.

Nick:

And what's the doomsday scenario here? Lots and lots of international graduates wanting to stay towards permanent residency. Becoming a burden to the economy.

Earl:

I wouldn't go so far as to say burdens the economy. I'm conservative minded maybe and, I don't necessarily believe in any way actually that every international student coming to Canada, it deserves to transition to permanent residency. On that basis alone. Now, there are groups in Canada that are protesting downtown Toronto with that objective in mind, right? What I am in favor of is a system in place where international students understand how Their background, how programs in Canada that they select will impact their opportunity to make significant contributions to Canada labor market and therefore be able to stay because right now they're utterly unaware of that, At point of sale, education agents abroad, specifically, where you have a 99 100 percent acceptance rate, you've got admission standards that are non credible in Canada. So again, like back to your question about what is this about again?, all the evidence points to this is about money more than anything else, but what it should be. Is about actually trying to help international students transition to the economy and therefore help Canada, right? But that's not what is going on mass, unfortunately.

Andy:

The next section of the podcast is called any laptops, liquids or sharp objects. So when you go traveling, Earl, what do you have to take with you or what are your travel hacks?

Earl:

You should ask my wife this question because literally she packs my bag for me and thank God she does, right? if it were up to me, there have been times that I've gone to the Philippines literally with a change of clothes in my backpack. My laptop, and a chessboard under my arm. But, one thing I would say in terms of. Travel hack you gotta have a really good local contact on the ground, right? I used to travel by myself or we would ride with just our party from overseas and we landed in, in the Philippines and just be overwhelmed, little things like how do I get from here to here, what hotel, where do I eat, all that stuff., so we always hire someone for that. Someone who knows someone and these people are really helpful, affordable to get a personal assistant. Just saves you so much time, aggravation, money. I mean, it's, that's my go to every single time, wherever we go. Um, we make sure that we, we have someone local, who's dependable, trustworthy and can help, right? And so. You know, I packed light, but, I land well.

Andy:

If you've got one of those fixes on the ground, you've got somebody to play chess against.

Earl:

That's right. Yeah, I spent most of my free time when I'm in Manila, Rizal Park, just playing chess in the open air, chess classes there. And, I gotta tell you, man, there's some great players in the Philippines and, uh, great conversations too around a chess board,

Nick:

Right, we need to talk about this You featured in the documentary in Canada about students being sold a lie, it featured Indian families, and it featured a plyboard, This was national news, national television You must have taken some heat.

Earl:

in terms of, Apply board. As my mom said, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. So I have nothing to say about apply board. I think the first thing that happened actually before the fifth estate. Is the article in the Walrus magazine, related to international education, written by Nicholas and Brown. Great article. If anyone has not read it, you should. It's a must. And, you know, eventually the fifth estate called and said, Hey, we're coming to your office. They were in our office for several days, just going over data. we do get a lot of Freedom of Information Act requests. that's where I spend all my money. Literally, all my money. I'm collecting data. and so I think what they put out was, a pretty strong indicator of exactly what's going on the ground. this is how international educator recruitment operates. Sell by any means necessary. Tell'em whatever they wanna hear and get'em on a plane and collect your commission. That's how this works. I think that brought that to the center. Um, since then, yeah, we've received quite a few cease and desist letters. I have them framed on my office. If you've sent me a cease and desist letter, please know it is framed on my office and it is a good conversation piece for people coming and visit. For a long time, I was a canary in a coal mine, nobody was listening, nobody cared. But now this is a national issue. And the government of Canada has to address it

Andy:

surely there are ethical agents sending students to Canada.

Earl:

You're sure or you said surely there are?

Andy:

I'm asking you.

Earl:

Of course there are ethical education agents. They're equally concerned about what's going on. We try to keep our business totally separate from advocacy on these issues for exactly that reason. My concern is simply that we have a set of rules and standards that are applied equally to everyone. We need education agents. There's no question about that. My concern also is. the problem of who is an education agent because when we have large billion dollar companies, that their entire purpose is in reality to make becoming an education agent easier so they can submit more higher volumes of applications. Self declaring that you're an ethical, transparent education agent or aggregator doesn't cut it for me, right? Stop saying you're transparent, I'm transparent, I'm transparent, I'm ethical. let's, let's offer some evidence that is actually the case.

Nick:

Your own travel hack was having a guide on the ground to help you and guide you. Wouldn't that be a great idea for the education industry? Ha ha ha,

Earl:

You can't really blame aggregators. There used to be a time where I had some anger for some aggregators out there. But that time has passed because I've recognized that actually It's not really that those people's fault specifically. There are huge holes in our immigration system and the integrity of our system. I can't blame them personally, that is just a collective failure of the system. So I'm not angry.

Nick:

Earl, have you been going to AA Anonymous, Aggregated Anonymous? I feel like you're working through your issues here.

Earl:

yeah. I have been getting some helpful feedback from my group therapy. I hope it continues. I just thought of this now for the last, six months... Indian guys lawyers, consultants, recruiters, etc. They've been stopping by my office. I don't know who some of these people are, but they've been dropping off these bottles. Some good Indian scotch, And I got to tell you, I have said some controversial things. I have some controversial views and I haven't drank one of these bottles cause I'm kind of worried about it. So, so I got, I got a whole stock. I got a whole stock for my next series of trips. I'll be handing these out like candy to the Philippines. It's my new friends. Yes.

Nick:

that's brilliant.

Andy:

So the next section of the podcast is called What's the purpose of your visit? We've touched on this a little bit, but why do you do what you do?

Earl:

I do what I do because I'm worried that no one else is doing it. If there were other people who would stand up and just state the obvious, and express those concerns, that should free up some time, to have a life again, which I really look forward to. I do what I do because I am genuinely concerned about the consumer. I'm genuinely concerned about Canada. I'm not making money, obviously, off of what I'm saying or those concerns that I'm raising. Obviously, that is hurting my career. I mean, recruitment cancels, contracts canceled. cease and desist letters looming on my wall, right? this is not good for my professional career. But what's important are principles, When you see something going wrong, you got to speak up, you have to say something, that's just who I am. This industry and the students deserve to be protected.

Andy:

Right, this is a travel, this is a travel podcast, believe it or not, let's do some roleplay. me and you, we're in Seoul, we're in a bar, we've got some soju, we've got some cast beer, we're combining them, throwing napkins against the wall, and it's your turn to tell a story. What's your travel story?

Earl:

so I've been in that situation in Korea a few times, no doubt about it. potanju, beer and soju, deadly, deadly stuff.

Andy:

Hit us with your best show.

Earl:

Tell you about the time I broke my dog out of, uh, detention in Incheon airport. So, uh, we came over from the Philippines. Now, my wife, who is, like Jesus in many ways, right? I mean, she's got a heart of gold and she would just help anyone and so on and so forth. without the beard, thankfully. So, uh, the, we used to take care of dogs in the Philippines. we love dogs. That's a big thing for us. And as you can imagine, in the Philippines, there are a load of wild dogs roaming the streets, right? We call these Ascals. Anyway, so the bottom line is, we started taking them in. neutering them and releasing them. And so we would always have dogs in our carport and literally dogs by dogs. I need like 20 dogs. There'll be 20 dogs following me down the street wherever I want because we used to feed them. So. We took one of these dogs, our dog, uh, actually back to South Korea to run, uh, to run a summer program, model United Nations. And, of course, my wife is extremely careful and thorough and she checked every single thing and we have every single document, everything's going to be fine for the dog. We brought the dog back and they seized the dog at Incheon Airport. Now this is my wife's. basically, young Nabi, who's 14 now. and so they seized the dog because we did forget to get, one paperwork done, that was firmly required all of a sudden in Inchon. If you know anything about Korea, you know, they change the rules every three days. So arrived, dog was seized. They did take the dog, despite my wife's wailing, literally wailing, to the, facility offsite where they store dangerous goods and animals so we went off and then we were forced to go to our location. so I was just like, what are we going to do? She's like, we're not leaving without that dog. I don't care. I'm like, look, they're going to keep the dog anyway. We can't just get back on plane. Duh, duh, duh. Bottom line is, I asked the lady who's, who's handling, customs for the dog. What paper did we forget? What paper? We have everything, our vets. What paper? Show me the paper. Oh, yes, sir. And, you know, in Korean, you know, in English, you know, oh, yes, okay. Well, yes, here is the paper. Here is the paper. And I said, thank you very much. I said, I got to make a call to my vet. So I took the paper. I forged the document. I handed it back to her and we got our dog out. We got our dog back two days later and I hate doing stuff like that. So now I'm an education agent involved in forging documents and I'm just as guilty as everyone else. And there goes my career again.

Andy:

out dogs. Forging immigration papers. The last section of the podcast is called Anything to Declare and it's a free space for you to talk about whatever you like.

Earl:

There are going to be some significant changes happen to Canada's international study program over the next year. Definitely there's going to be some changes. Definitely that's going to focus on cleanup. I would just encourage people involved in the international education sectors in Canada specifically to rather than ignore or shrug off. the fact that, institutions are operating as immigration way stations to actually embrace that phenomenon, right? So, hey, guess what? This is our role, now that we've accepted that role, what can we do to make this function, right? Because it's a super important dialogue to begin and to end to be had earnestly, And pervasively, We have been waiting for the government to take action on that for such a long time. We have, eventually taken matters into our own hands. So we have, a system called Study to Stay in Place. We've been running the system. We developed this system back in 2015 as a, way of screening our own international students coming to Canada, right? So rather than saying, Oh, you want to go to Canada and study? Great. We've got a great program. Get on the plane. Go. This is the best one. Trust me. Let's break that down. Why am I choosing this program? Why is it good for you? And so on and so forth and giving them the information before they make the investments in the college. We developed this product, I've been using it with education agents overseas. screening, right? If you're planning to come to Canada to become a permanent resident, is that even feasible? is that something that's actually possible? Because in large numbers of cases, it's not. The S2S product that we have We finally have developed it to a platform for scaling. This product does offer a solution to screening international students, both for their own protection and own benefit, but and also providing a labor market plan and immigration plan for them post graduation. We are looking for development support partners for the app to get it more automated, get it more scalable. And that's something that we're interested in. I think it's the missing piece of the puzzle here. Thanks. That's the only other thing that I have to declare.

Nick:

There's a lot of talk about what a genuine student is, how do you establish what the intent of the student is. I think there's a big gap there about screening and the role we all play in that.

Earl:

Anyway, look, I won't keep you all day because I literally could talk about this shit all day. So I'm going to go, I'm going to go not drink my Indian scotch I'm in charge of the dogs. I got to take them out for Watts and stuff.

Andy:

Earl Blaney, it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast. Thanks so much for coming on.

Earl:

Gentlemen. Thanks a lot. I enjoy your show nick told me to pretend we're at a pub. So that's what I've been doing this whole time.

Nick:

It's been great having a drink with you. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for listening. As always. If you are a fan of the show. Please leave a review or emailers at sick bag, a tales from the departure lounge.com. Shout out as well to our sponsors, Duolingo. Tales from the Departure Lounge is a type nine production for the pie.

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Andy Plant

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Nick Cuthbert

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