Inland Spousal Sponsorship – A Failed Commitment to Canadian Families By E. Laine (Edmonton, Alberta) On the Page 60 of the CIC internal document, namely IP 8: Spouse or Common-law partner, it states: CIC is committed to family reunification and facilitating processing in cases of genuine spouses and common-law partners already living together in Canada. CIC is also committed to preventing the hardship resulting from the separation of spouses and common-law partners together in Canada, where possible. This means that spouses or common-law partners in Canada, regardless of their immigration status, are now able to apply for permanent residence from within Canada in accordance with the same criteria as members of the Spouse or Common-law Partner in Canada class. This facilitative policy applies only to relationships in which undertakings of support have been submitted. Source: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/ip/ip08-eng.pdf On CIC's operational bulletin 565 – released February 13, 2014 To improve service and processing efficiency, responsibility for processing SCLPC applications was transferred from CPC-V to CPC-M to leverage its expertise in family class processing. These changes will ensure that Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) continues to meet its operational objectives in support of the Department’s ongoing modernization agenda. Source: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/bulletins/2014/ob565.asp Apparently, CIC has not responsibly fulfilled both of their commitments in processing Inland spousal sponsorship files, leaving over 10,000 Canadian families in limbo in the lengthy, unprecedented, illogical delay of 15 month plus, for the first stage approvals. We should re-define the meaning of backlog versus inventory. When people submit their applications to sponsor immediate family members, such as spouses, parents and children, they are entering a contract agreement with CIC. Backlog is created when there is an imbalance influx of applications and the quota-set output of immigrants visa. In this case, the backlog cannot be used as a lame excuse to blame for inefficiency, due to following reasons: • Most of Canadian sponsors have opted to bring their foreign spouses to Canada under in-Canada spousal sponsorship category were led to believe that the processing time will stay within reasonable delay (typically 6-10 month), as quoted on CIC website at the time of their applications, only to see that the processing time, after the switching of processing office to CPC-Mississauga, has grown unpredictably out of control to 15 months as of today. • The sponsorship fees ($550 application fee + $490 RPRF, $1040 in total) are cashed out instantly the moment the application is submitted as the Canadian sponsors have to include proof of payment with their applications. CIC has taken the money without delivering services to their clients. If CIC operates in a private sector, the organization would have been sued multiple times for breach of contract. • In many similar immigration systems like Canada, processing times are usually publicly quoted so that people can make a better choice as to what stream, and when would be the best time to apply for a certain visa category. Take United States for example. People who wish to bring their family members there are advised ahead of time through official channels, that there will be a one year wait for spousal or parental sponsorship without annual quota, but there will be over 10 year plus wait if American citizens wish to bring their siblings over as immigrants. People are fully informed about the inventory and wait time, so if they accept all the challenges in terms of separation, finance, and wait time, they should not complain because the conditions are set forth. This kind of transparency, the first come first served basis in immigration system will never create backlog issues or a failure to deliver services within processing time standards. Why in Canada, the government usually free themselves from responsibility with the term "backlog", while in other countries they have a much better "controlled inventory" for immigrant visas? Do people who in charge of immigration portfolio fail to understand the whole system and fail to see what needs to be fixed? With open data obtained from data.gc.ca, we see that there had issued only 1,895 permanent residence approvals at CPC-Mississauga in the period of 12 months from July 2013 to July 2014 for ALL family reunification classes (parental and spousal sponsorship combined). So we know it is not a backlog issue. The inventory for Inland spousal sponsorship files is not large, it is steady year after year and it is low compared to other immigration streams. We know that the staff at CPC-Mississauga is not processing at the pace and within the procedures designated for Inland spousal sponsorship. In short, they are not doing their jobs properly as salaried federal government employees. The sole responsibility, however, should be something to do with Minister Chris Alexander, who has repeatedly and purposefully avoided all public inquiries on the Inland sponsorship delay. Source: http://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/427337d0-7c36-4fed-8428-c6a63f8c19b3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A general panorama and my particular case By Angie Rodríguez - Gestionnaire des communautés @AngieRod Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this letter. Approximately 10 thousand Canadian citizens are currently struggling just because they fell in love and decided to marry a foreigner. Also, because their Government is not listening to their voices asking for a solution to their daily suffering. They are sponsoring their spouses to become Permanent Residents. The processing times for this kind of applications is 15 months for the first stage and up to 8 months for the second stage. Sponsored spouses, or as they are referred to during the process, the Principal Applicants, can’t have access to a work permit until their phase 1 is completed. In the meantime, they are left to struggle for more than a year living in a single income for the whole family. The sponsored spouses have no health care, which means part of this single income being used to pay either private insurance or clinics. Also, they can’t even travel outside of Canada if they need to do so, because the sponsored spouse wouldn't potentially be able to come back. Let’s say a family member gets sick or dies, they just can’t be present in this hard time. The benefits you are missing We are currently talking as a nation about the lack of workers for some positions that need to be filled. This is impacting our economy, and hurting our entrepreneurs. We are bringing temporary foreign workers to fill these positions while, in the meantime, we are denying almost 10 thousand spouses of Canadians -that are already here- the possibility to do so, to contribute to the Canadian economy and their household, to ease the struggle of their spouse. Let's remember: the spouses of these foreign workers, and also the spouses of foreign students, are granted Open Work Permits the minute they step foot in Canada. They don't have to struggle. Canadian taxpayers have to. We are also denying the country an income of about 12 million dollars in taxes or even more, that these spouses could be paying the country if they were allowed to work. The amount is calculated taking for granted that they all receive minimum wages, but it could be even more. Nonetheless, the country is perceiving less taxes from the Canadian spouses that work because, as they have to support an entire family with their single income, they get more tax reductions for dependent family members, thus contributing less to the Canadian economy. Many of these families would need some kind of social aid in the process, either from the Government or from NGOs financed by the Government. This represents an additional expense you could be saving by just allowing the sponsored spouses to work or doing the necessary adjustments to make the process faster. The personal struggle All of these things happened to me. My husband’s mother passed away and I could not hold his hand during the funeral because I would have to choose between doing that or holding his hand throughout the whole stages of grief he would have to overcome in the next years. My sister-in-law got married and, again, I was not there with him. He had to attend the wedding alone. We even tried to have our nice “big” wedding here in Canada and we couldn't, because the Diplomat Strike hit us right in the middle of our arrangements, making it impossible for our close family to get their visas and attend. My grandmother is currently struggling health-wise. She has to go through another surgery, and the thought of her getting worse terrifies me. She cries every day because she’s afraid she won’t get to see me again. Very recently, when my cat fell of my mom’s building and died, leaving my grandma emotionally devastated and dangerously depressed right before her surgery, these thoughts came back. However, I’m nowhere in my application. I can’t leave and re-enter the country. I can’t work. I have a written job offer from a Canadian employer that has been waiting for me for more than a year, and I also have two other companies who have shown interest in hiring me if this company can't hold their position any longer. Apparently, my skills are needed, and I bet that’s the case for many other sponsored spouses. I tried applying for a Work Permit on my own, before introducing the sponsorship application, and CIC insisted that we should go on with the sponsorship instead. They left us no other option than this long wait. I’m eager to help my husband so he doesn't have to struggle paying all the bills by himself. I’m eager to contribute to the Canadian economy with my skills, that are obviously needed given the amount of offers I have received so far. However, bureaucracy seems to be more important for some. Our potential tax contribution could be solving so many problems and helping so many Canadians through diverse social and economic programs. We are here, begging to contribute, to stop being a burden and start being part of the solution. Unfortunately, the ball is no longer in our court to do so. Would you please help us contribute to the country that we love so much we adopted as our own? Thanks for listening, and thanks for bringing this matter to public discussion, we need changes to be done quickly, these will benefit everyone in a very short term. ----------------