Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette promises to work to reduce processing times for refugee sponsorship.
“Among my three priorities, there is that of improving deadlines and improving processes. We are working closely with the federal government in that regard. We will continue in the same vein, ”she said. However, it did not want to comment on concrete objectives for reducing delays. “We are working on fixing improvements,” she added.
The duty revealed Thursday that many sponsorship organizations have no news of their files filed more than a year ago while elsewhere in Canada, refugees have already arrived in the country. Among these refugees who are waiting for the green light from Quebec, some come from Afghanistan and would like to be able to benefit from the fast track reserved for them thanks to a humanitarian program set up by Ottawa. All refugees destined for Quebec must first be selected before submitting their file for final approval by the federal government. It’s a long step that adds up, lamented some sponsoring organizations.
Denouncing the slowness of processing in Quebec City, some organizations have also noted that some families who have finally been sponsored in other Canadian provinces have had their files processed in just a few months. The director of Action Réfugiés Montréal, one of the most experienced organizations, believes that an increase in the thresholds in the refugee category is necessary, in particular because of the delay that has been experienced during the pandemic.
The Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI) did not respond to questions from the Duty and did not confirm whether it had started processing the files for 2022. According to our information, files submitted in 2021 would not have been processed by the MIFI either.
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