Foreign workers are waiting longer than ever to obtain the work permit that allows them to live temporarily in Canada. The processing time even amounts to more than a year in some regions of the world, according to a compilation carried out by The duty. A situation that exasperates employees and employers, to the point where some companies are considering breaking camp and settling elsewhere.
Arshad Siddiqui does not take off. “It’s so frustrating! As an entrepreneur, I’m thinking of finding a better place to operate our business,” says the manager of Paraza Pharma, a leading Montreal company in AIDS treatment research that employs more than 200 workers.
Currently, 20 of its future employees are awaiting news of their work permit applications. They are all high caliber researchers from Europe, Asia or the United States. Some of them, from India, have been waiting for a response since the end of 2020. “Canada is breaking records with its long processing times. This is unacceptable for a company like ours, and for the Canadian and Quebec economy as well,” laments Mr. Siddiqui. He estimates the cost of this wait to his business at five million dollars a year.
The processing time estimate posted on the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) website reveals that there is a huge disparity in the processing of work permit applications depending on the country to which they were submitted. filed. A problem also observed in the issuance of visitor visas to Canada.
A compilation made by The duty shows that the wait usually inflicted on applicants from Persian Gulf countries is particularly long. Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait sit at the top of this sad list; IRCC admits it took between 58 and 79 weeks to process work permit applications from these countries.
Nationals of a dozen other countries also typically have to wait more than six months before obtaining the document: Nigeria (57 weeks), Pakistan (49), Nepal (44), India (43) and Iran (31), in particular.
These figures also take into account only the time it took IRCC officers to review 80% of the files submitted; they do not include the time taken by applicants to prepare their file and provide documents to Canadian authorities.
The disparities observed between countries do not surprise the experts. “Yes, there is the volume. But generally, what we see in everyday life is that when you come from a rich and white country, it goes faster, ”says immigration lawyer Benjamin Brunot.
The federal government is proud to process work visa applications from Mexico and Guatemala in less than two weeks – estimates, however, disputed by industry players. But, paradoxically, a visitor visa application filed in these same countries requires 11 and 12 weeks of waiting respectively.
“It is made that we recruit according to the country where the processing times are the fastest, and not according to the competence of the workers”, laments Guillaume Audet, lawyer in immigration law.
Expectations “never seen”
The office in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is particularly under fire, with waiting times reaching the “worst” levels.
“It’s a visa office that has always been a little bit slower [à traiter les demandes]. But right now, we are reaching other heights. sixty one weeks [d’attente], it’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” says Léa Charbonneau-Lacroix, lawyer at Brunel Immigration. “I have cases at the moment that have been processed in Abu Dhabi for over a year, and there is no movement. We can do follow-ups, send letters from the employer explaining the urgency of the situation… In some cases, it is almost the very survival of the company that depends on it. We have no return. »
“We really have a problem with that office,” adds Laurence Trempe, immigration lawyer for the firm Exéo. “When we know that we have a case that will be handled by the office in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, we are worried as lawyers, because we know that it will take more than a year, two years even. »
The lawyer sometimes feels compelled to “be strategic” with her clients, and she asks them to try to become a resident of another country before trying their luck in Canada. “I ask them to submit an application in a European country, in the Schengen area. Everywhere except in the United Arab Emirates”, she underlines.
Invited by The duty to respond, IRCC was unable to clarify the situation at the Abu Dhabi office.
However, the federal ministry acknowledges that there are delays in processing all types of applications, including work permits. “We know that many applicants experience considerable wait times for the processing of their application. We continue to do everything we can to reduce delays,” spokesperson Nancy Caron said by email.
IRCC affirms in particular that the number of work permits processed between January and June 2022 has been doubled compared to the same period of the year 2021.
A “colossal impact”
Anthony Chiasson-Leblanc handles the recruitment and management of foreign workers for a hundred employers. And he affirms that the processing time displayed by IRCC does not reflect reality: “We have workers from Guatemala who have been coming to Quebec every summer for 10 or 15 years, these are very simple files. We dropped them on the 1er April, and we still have nothing, for any of them. »
The officially estimated wait for applications from that country — one week — is “of the bullshit he exclaims. The situation is hurting his clients, says Mr. Chiasson-Leblanc. The latter are struggling to find the manpower necessary to be profitable or to carry out their activities altogether. Some have to reduce their services; others are thinking of shutting down.
“It has a colossal impact,” says David Laperle, president of Hydrosol Ensemencement, a firm specializing in environmental engineering based in Mascouche that operates from April to November. “We are completely disillusioned, we are laughed at. The Canadian government is sleeping on gas. »
His business depends on workers from Guatemala — who enjoy good working conditions, he says — but none of them have yet had a work permit, several months after filing their application. And “recruitment [local] is impossible,” he said. “We advertise at $35 an hour, and no one applies. IRCC’s processing times are therefore having a major impact on the growth of his business, and preventing him from meeting some of his contractual commitments.
Me Patrice Brunet, a lawyer specializing in business immigration, also believes that the wait for visas makes Canadian companies less competitive on a global scale. But “it doesn’t attract attention, because these people, [les travailleurs étrangers]don’t line up outside, they don’t vote in elections,” he says.