Ottawa is preparing a regularization project for people without status, based in particular on a pilot project underway in Toronto. But stakeholders in the immigration community hope that the government will not draw too much inspiration from said project, the regularization program for construction workers, launched in 2019, because they consider it too restrictive.
It is among other things to alleviate the labor shortage in the construction industry in the Greater Toronto Area that Ottawa launched a pilot project aimed at granting permanent residence to a maximum of 500 workers. . In 2019, a parliamentary committee recommended that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) work with stakeholders “to examine possible solutions with respect to workers in the construction industry with or without precarious status. of immigration status”.
We do not want a limited number of beneficiaries, no geographic exclusion.
Since then, IRCC has granted permanent residency to 331 construction workers and 482 family members. The number could now double. In January, IRCC announced that up to 1,000 workers could benefit, although reaching that number is not cast in stone: applications will stop being accepted on January 2, 2024, and IRCC reports that it has no received only 408 worker requests as of December 31, 2022.
In addition, the application process is complex, according to some stakeholders and the daughter of a construction worker who has benefited from the program. They want the Canada-wide program the Department of Immigration is working on to be simpler and more open. “We don’t want a limited number of beneficiaries, no geographical exclusion,” explains Syed Hussan, director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change organization in Toronto. “I hope it will be more accessible,” says Sofia Rodrigues, the daughter of one of the 331 beneficiaries.
An arduous process
Sofia Rodrigues, 24, came to Canada with her family as a teenager. “We were in the process of obtaining permanent residence for several years, but it wasn’t working,” she says. The pilot project for construction workers seemed “too good to be true” as his father, José, was in the industry. But the Torontonian found that the eligibility criteria were strict: the worker had to have lived in Canada for at least five years and entered the country legally, as a temporary resident.
When José Rodrigues applied, IRCC also required applicants to obtain a level 4 result on a language test. “My dad got level 3, so imagine the frustration: we met all the other criteria, except him,” says Sofia. On July 30, 2021, Ottawa finally decided to remove the test requirement. José, then on a waiting list, qualified. But, to make matters worse, Sofia had just turned 23, and dependent children seeking permanent residency could not be older than 22.
The family of four were unsure if they would be completely disqualified or if Sofia would be the only one. Finally, in June 2022, the whole family was granted permanent residency. “I have no words to describe the feeling. It’s something we wanted to have for so long, it was a relief, ”says Sofia Rodrigues. “An enormous weight has been lifted from our shoulders,” she said.
A more open program
Syed Hussan and Toronto immigration lawyer Macdonald Scott hope that people without status — estimated to number in the tens of thousands in the Toronto area — won’t have to meet as many criteria in the national program. Mac Scott, two of whose clients have applied for the pilot program, for example, asks that people not be excluded if they are not working. He also fears that people without status with a criminal record will be excluded from the national program, as is the case for the pilot project.
He also wants the program to be simpler. “It’s a labyrinth of documentation, people have to find a lawyer, he illustrates. If only 408 workers applied, it is partly due to the complexity of the process. The Toronto lawyer points out, however, that the withdrawal of the language test should lead to an increase in requests, since some employees in the construction industry rarely use English or French at work.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.