Below is a letter sent to Canadian government by families impacted by the delay in Inland spousal sponsorship. You can join us. ------------------- To: stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca; chris.alexander@parl.gc.ca; minister@cic.gc.ca; justine.akman@cic.gc.ca; chris.day@cic.gc.ca; your MP email address BCC: news media agency that you would like to share the letter Subject: Do Canadian Families Still Matter to Government? ------------ Email body: Dear Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Citizenship & Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, Member of Parliament [name] and concerned CIC officers: We are [sponsor & applicant first names] of [Riding name/City/Town], writing this letter to express our very deep concerns in regards to the Inland Family Reunification stream administered by Citizenship & Immigration which has the processing time uncontrollably ballooned to almost 3 times since 2014. The delay has been directly or indirectly addressed to the department through media, meetings with officials, street protests in the past few years but to no avail. At the moment, the processing time for first stage approval (sponsor eligibility and relationship verification) sits at 16 months, followed by an admissibility screening check at a wait time of extra 10 months. For Canadian families to be fully recognized for sponsored spouse' permanent resident status, the government is asking us to wait over 2 years, 4 times more than average processing time in most Western countries. On May 20, 2015, when Minister Chris Alexander visited Edmonton for his party election campaign, he was confronted by a Canadian family impacted by his policies and questioned about the delay, he claimed that fraud is a major issue, but when further asked about the statistics of fraud in this particular stream, he provided no confirmed answer. He promised that the processing time will not get worse than it was at the time. Contrary to his statement, the processing time for Inland spousal sponsorship has not improved and families continue to suffer from this wait as sponsored foreign spouses immigration status remain in limbo, in many cases they are not allowed to work or go to school. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfpe8ifSTYc&feature=youtu.be On July 2, 2015, Mr. Chris Day, CIC Chief of Staff publicly made a Twitter statement saying that Canadians don't wait 26 months. Sponsored spouses are not yet Canadians. The best and fastest way to immigrate is Express Entry as skilled workers. He neglected the fact that sponsored spouses are family members of Canadians and the delay to their files is a delay to the social integration of these Canadian families. On July 6, 2015, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was confronted at Cross Iron Mills in Calgary, during his trip to Calgary Stampede, about this issue. He was asked if he cares about families. He said yes. The person then asked why his government makes families suffer so much in immigration. He was publicly called "a liar". The delay in Inland spousal sponsorship and his party line in family reunification through the inaction of Chris Alexander have severely dismissed the Conservatives credit to families across Canada. The votes are believed to reflect this situation very sharply, comes next October. We would like to ask that: - The Government of Canada to process Inland spousal sponsorship backlog immediately and reduce the processing time to be more acceptable/bearable by the Canadian families involved in this process. - The funding and operation activities of Inland spousal sponsorship program be audited by the government itself, or invite Office of General Auditor to check throughoutly to make sure our tax and fees are put into good use. If the situation persists, we would like to have a personal discussion with MP [name of MP] at the local constituency office before you return to Ottawa - in order to examine if this government and our MP in particular still retain the mandated interests of serving, listening and responding to Canadian people. Sincerely yours,