(Montreal) A group representing Quebecers waiting to sponsor family members living abroad says the province is acting in bad faith by significantly reducing the number of family reunification applications it accepts.
Laurianne Lachapelle of Québec Réunifié maintains that this decision will cause even more stress and delays for Quebec families who already wait much longer than other Canadians to bring their loved ones over.
“This decision needs to be reversed as soon as possible because it makes no sense. I can’t even put into words what this will cost the families,” she said in a telephone interview. “They’re going to be shocked. They’re going to be depressed.”
Quebec announced last week that it would process a maximum of 13,000 family reunification applications over the next two years, after approving more than 16,500 in 2022 and more than 10,000 in the first six months of 2023.
A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette says the government wants to ensure the number of approved applications does not exceed the province’s immigration ceiling.
Once the limit of 13,000 applications is exceeded, “the minister will no longer receive applications, with the exception of certain special cases,” the ministry wrote in an email. Those exceptions include dependent children.
Although Ottawa has final approval, candidates who wish to bring their spouse or other family members to Quebec must first obtain a selection certificate from the province.
According to the Immigration Canada website, it takes 34 months to process a spousal visa for an applicant in Quebec, compared to 10 months in the rest of Canada. For parents and grandparents, the time is 48 months in Quebec and 24 months in the other provinces.
Earlier this year, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller promised to speed up the processing of all pending files for which a certificate has been issued, even if it means exceeding the annual ceiling desired by Quebec.
M’s officeme Fréchette cited Mr. Miller’s promise as one of the reasons why the CAQ government is limiting the number of certificates issued, “in order to avoid exceeding the admission thresholds set by Quebec.”
A spokesperson for the federal department said it is committed to reuniting families in Quebec more quickly and will work with the province to do so.
Mme Lachapelle, who has been waiting two years to bring her Guatemalan husband to Quebec, fears the cuts will cause the federal government to deem applications incomplete and reject them, forcing people to start the process over.
Drawing on her own experience, she says that being separated from your partner is “one of the most painful experiences you can go through”, especially since most have already lived remotely before applying.
She explained that long waits mean some women have to give birth and raise their children alone, while others have to delay starting a family, affecting their chances of getting pregnant. She even had an abortion because her husband could not come to join her.
“When I say family, it’s not your cousin, it’s your husband, your wife or your children. Imagine being separated from them and not being able to live a normal life together like any other couple or any other family and living for many, many years apart.”
False arguments
The provincial government justified its immigration cap by citing the need to protect the French language and not accept more people than it can adequately accommodate and integrate.
Mme Lachapelle rejects this argument, saying that sponsored family members will learn the language by default, since most of them will move into French-speaking homes.
“The provincial government keeps worrying about French, but it doesn’t take into account that the family reunification process is mostly done in French. Even if people who immigrate don’t speak French, they arrive in French-speaking families and learn French by default because they are in a French-speaking environment. Integration is much smoother and easier when arriving in a family than when immigrating only with a work permit.”
Instead of protecting the language, she argues that the government’s approach is pushing some Francophones to leave the province.
“We are all Quebecers, we are French-speaking and we live in Quebec because we were born here or chose this province because we speak French. But the government forbids us from starting our families, so the most logical decision is to go to Ontario or New Brunswick or a province that does not have this ceiling.”
She had already considered settling in another province, but she decided instead to stay and try to fight for a fairer process with the help of the Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers.