Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister,

                We, old and new immigrants in Canada,  

                        hail you for your keeping of the election promise of increasing the famous annual cap of 5000  to 10,000 parents / grandparents sponsorship applications;

                      hail you for your celebrating the Chinese Spring Festival in traditional Tang-style coat, a sign of recognition of the immigrants and their families;

                       hail you for your efforts to build a stronger and more harmonious Canada.

                However, we wish to draw your attention to the following:

1.       The well-known suspension, then the annual cap of the parents / grandparents sponsorship program, imposed by the former government, has been composing a serious insult of the Canadian humanitarian and compassionate tradition, as it is something inhuman to aim at “economic growth” at the cost of sacrificing family reunions of hundreds and thousands of immigrant families;

2.       The 2016 5,000 application yearly cap, then increased to 10,000 by you and your government, turns out to be far from enough, as 14,000 sponsorship applications were reportedly received by the Case Procession Centre in Mississauga in the first week only of the New Year, leaving 4,000 or even much more families and their parents or grandparents deeply disappointed, for at least another year, constituting a vicious cycle among the immigrant families who do not make less contributions to the building of Canada;

3.       Moreover, the processing time for the parental sponsorship applications of the “lucky” sponsors who ended in squeezing into the cap or even before the cap imposition, was deliberately slowed down by the previous government, making the wait longer than 4 or even more years. And that wait has witnessed quite some families which lost one or even two deaths of parents or grandparents, depriving the immigrant families the deserved and timely enjoyment of reunited family life.

                Without reintegrating the altruisms of significances of family, family values and family reunifications in Canada, we hereby petition that you and your government immediately make the following changes:

A.      Lifting the annual cap of parent / grandparent sponsorship applications and restoring the regular reception of sponsorship applications. That way, the sponsoring families know for sure that their parents / grandparents can join them in Canada sooner or later,  as long as they meet the selection criteria, instead of being made like “monkeys” worrying first about rushing their applications received by CPC Mississauga in a timely manner;

B.      Shortening the processing time of parental sponsorship application first by CPC Mississauga, then by overseas visa offices. Now the overseas spousal sponsorships take CIC around 12 months in total, and parental sponsorships could understandably take up to 24 months. It was something like that before the former government, meaning, it is possible for Immigration Canada to do the same or even better. Longer delays would cause pains in immigrants and their families, unacceptable and intolerable ones.

Honorable Prime Minister, last year we voted for you and your government because of, among other things, your patriotism, and your family value, while the former government was voted out partly because of its sacrifice of the fundamental interests of the immigrants and their families.

Honorable Prime Minister, during the unforgettable 2015 election, you listened, promised for changes, and you have been honorably and decently reacted after taking the office. It is our firm belief that you react promptly this time, making the shameful cap and lengthy delay in the processing of parental sponsorship applications a history.

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