Super visa – not so super

 

The new super visa for parents and grandparents took effect last December 1.

Canada Immigration promises to issue these visas within eight weeks of application. So, instead of waiting for eight years to visit their child or grandchildren, parents or grandparents can now come to Canada within a matter of eight weeks.

Canada Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announces the "super visa" program
 for parents and grandparents effective December 1st . Photo courtesy of  Adrian
Wyld/Canadian Press. Click link to view  "A Statement on the New Super Visa,"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgNJFG-MZX0

What a great relief! But wait, let’s see if this would really work.

Right now, there is a backlog of applications for sponsorship of parents and grandparents. Those waiting for approval for their visas will have to wait for eight years, possibly even ten years, if their applications were received in September 2007. In Manila, for instance, the Canadian Embassy will take 50 months or more than 4 years to assess the sponsors of these applications, and 36 more months or three years to assess the parents and grandparents being sponsored.

Why does it take so long to assess an application? How many eyes are looking at one application and how much paperwork is exchanged between Ottawa or Vegreville and the foreign office? This is where Canada Immigration should focus its efforts to reduce or eliminate the backlog.

There are about eight documents a sponsor fills out when applying to bring a parent or grandparents to Canada, which includes the checklist and the use of a representative form. This means that there are actually only six vital documents that must be reviewed by an Immigration Officer when the sponsorship application is received in Vegreville or in another immigration office inside Canada.

Assessment of an application entails examination of the applicant’s status in Canada, which is the starting point of any sponsorship application. Once status is determined, then a review of proofs of marriage, birth and other family information will follow. An evaluation of the applicant’s income will be made, and if the low income cut-off is satisfied, the application is approved in principle. This entire process does not require 50 months to complete, unless we count the number of times an Immigration Officer goes to the bathroom or breaks for coffee, lunch or a smoke of cigarette. Or factor the time spent in talking with other colleagues that may not be related to the assessment work being done.

Efficiency problem, not backlog

What this picture suggests is an efficiency problem, not a backlog.

Granting Canada Immigration could be short of manpower, still that doesn’t imply a problem of backlog. Besides, Canada Immigration measures backlog as a function of the total number of applications received each year, not as the number of applications actually processed in real time. You’ll always have a backlog problem if you simply look at the number of applications coming in, without effectively measuring efficiency. Therefore, Canada Immigration’s problem of backlog is illusory, if not totally misleading.

Just consider Canada Immigration’s claim, for example, that the new super visa application will take on average eight weeks to process. The same application forms will be filled out by the sponsors and their parents or grandparents, and similar proofs of identity, births, and other pertinent family data will be assessed. Yet, the super visa application will take only eight weeks to process, despite the additional requirements of buying Canadian medical insurance coverage and a medical examination.

The same requirements—8 weeks for a super visa to process and 8 years for sponsoring parents or grandparents.

This clearly indicates to us what the real purpose of the super visa application for parents and grandparents is. In effect, Canada Immigration is telling permanent residents and citizens that they don’t actually need to bring their loved ones in Canada to live with them. All they need is to visit, and they can stay for as long as two years, provided they have medical insurance and their sponsoring children have satisfied the low income cut-off. And they can always return again after leaving Canada because their visa will be valid for ten years. This moratorium is not a temporary pause, but a necessary conditioning of the minds of new Canadian permanent residents and citizens to accept the new order in Canada—the new policy on family reunification, which is exactly no reunification. The moratorium will surely be extended for another two or more years, especially if it works, and you have read it from this blog.

More roadblocks ahead

Intake of immigrants to Canada starting 2012 is already being significantly reduced. Whether these are foreign temporary workers, including live-in caregivers, and applicants for permanent residents.

Visas for foreign workers have already been relaxed by allowing temporary workers to stay for a maximum of four years, perhaps a concession to industry demand. The exodus of live-in caregivers has been slowed down by prolonging processing times for applications, both for first-time caregivers and caregivers applying for permanent resident status.

Most live-in caregivers waiting for the approval of their permanent resident status have already lapsed work permits and have been advised by Canada Immigration not to worry and that their work permits will be approved as soon as they are granted permanent status. Why would they still need open work permits when they are already permanent residents?

There is now a long delay in the processing of permanent resident applications by live-in caregivers, and it is unnecessarily tying them up indefinitely to their employers, even beyond their two-year work contract. This way, Canada Immigration is able to cut the supply of incoming caregivers by forcing those caregivers in the country and who are simply waiting for the approval of their permanent resident status to remain with their employers. This creates an illusion that the demand for caregivers by Canadian families is being met.

Closing the doors permanently to parents and grandparents is not possible under the current law without tinkering with the original make-up of Canadians to be allowed as permanent residents.

Will Canada, for example, disqualify applicants with older parents, such as those over 50 and above, or discriminate against married applicants with children and living grandchildren? To do this, the present law has to be amended to dispense with the objective of family reunification. A moratorium on parents and grandparents may appear reasonable and a super visa looks like a good thing in the interim.

Onerous obligations

But looking at the requirements that an applicant must meet in order to be eligible to apply for a super visa, there are at least three onerous obligations that need to be satisfied.

One, the sponsoring child or grandchild must provide a written commitment of financial support even though the low income cut-off is met. This is equivalent to a sponsorship undertaking or agreement when sponsoring a family member for permanent residence. This written commitment is unnecessary since the parent or grandparent will not be eligible for social assistance when they visit Canada.

Second, parents and grandparents must undergo medical examination, which is also a requirement under regular sponsorship. This process already takes a lot of time from the total of eight weeks allotted to complete the application.

And third, applicants or their sponsors must purchase comprehensive Canadian medical insurance, valid for at least one year. The medical insurance must provide a minimum of $100,000 in coverage and must cover the cost of the applicant’s health care, hospitalization and repatriation. The premium for this medical insurance will be a big burden for most parents and grandparents, or even to their sponsors.

Denial of right to sponsorship

Sponsorship of parents is critical to most new immigrants in this country, especially to those who have young children who can benefit from the care of their grandparents. These immigrants have contributed to the Canadian economy and many of them are on their track to citizenship; thus, they have earned the right to sponsor their parents. Yet, Canada Immigration is denying them this right and making it more difficult for parents to come here to reunite with their children and grandchildren on the pretext that they’re trying to fix the backlog problem.

We are living in critical times. The fragile world economy, the lingering eurozone crisis and the continuing joblessness in the United States, all help spur on immigration hysteria.

Advanced economies are closing their borders to the mass exodus of refugees from the Third World. Under the helm of the Conservative Party for the next four years, the Canadian government will stay on course with this trend of tightening its doors to prevent the influx of immigrants to this country.

Kenney’s immigration backlog solution

As early as this late July, disquiet has been looming over Canada Immigration’s plan to slam the door to immigrants planning to make Canada their new home. The federal government, capitalizing on its newly-earned majority in Parliament, had just published the names and mug shots of suspected war criminals living in Canada.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney appeared before a House of Commons
 committee on   Oct. 20, 2011 to discuss immigration backlogs. Photo courtesy
 of  Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press. Click image to view "Immigration Minister
Jason Kenney talks to stakeholders and the public about 2011 immigration
 policy," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKuRRYr88a4 

Jason Kenney, Canada’s minister for citizenship and immigration and popularly dubbed by the media as the “Immigration Hunter,” asked Canadians to help the government round up and deport suspected war criminals and illegal immigrants. Kenney also announced that the government would strip 1,800 people of their Canadian citizenship, which he said was obtained fraudulently.

On October 20, Jason Kenney rose before the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and delivered the ominous message that immigration applications need to be reduced in order to fix the current backlog.

After smugly boasting that the backlog issue reflects Canada being the number one choice destination of immigrants in the world—a land of opportunity, prosperity and democracy, Kenney then turns the problem of backlogs around as a simple mathematical problem. “When total applications exceed total admissions, you get a backlog,” he says.

To address the backlog problem, Kenney suggests that immigration levels be reduced. He stressed that annual applications must be cut down so that processing will not be slowed down as new applications are added to the pile of applications received in the previous years.

Kenney’s understanding of the immigration backlog problem appears irrational, if not fallacious. First, if Canada is indeed the number one choice for immigration in the world, then whatever number and mix Canada Immigration would establish every year—and no matter how high—would always fall short of the total population willing to come to Canada. Thus, there will always be a backlog. The backlog issue is never a function of the number of applications accepted or the government is willing to entertain, but the number of applications actually processed and approved.

Second, the best way to confront the backlog problem is to use a real timeline, which means starting from the time an actual application is accepted and processed in a visa office, which is a long way before an application can be successful. This means excluding whatever targets are established every year, because you cannot effectively measure operational efficiency against the whole population of would-be applicants, who on paper may all be accepted or denied.

So much time is spent from the day an application is actually received and reviewed. Information has to be verified and cross-referenced with Canadian labour requirements and needs or immigration policy targets and priorities before applicants appear for their personal interviews. One wonders why it takes so much time when we have at our disposal all the advances in technology and in medical and criminal surveillance.

And lastly, backlogs could be considered an inherent and perhaps, a necessary control valve to assure that we get the best we are looking for. People who apply to come to Canada as immigrants are its future citizens and Canada Immigration has the obligation to sort and screen from a mountain of applications only those who seem to be the best fit. In other words, backlogs are not bad per se.

Backlogs become a serious problem only when they involve applications which are supposed to be processed with haste and urgency due to shortage of skilled labour or when a matter of legal right has already been established. Much-needed temporary foreign workers and highly skilled immigrants fall under this category, and when their applications are bogged down in bureaucracy and red tape, backlogs become upsetting and distressful.

Sponsorship of family members such as spouses, children and parents is also a critical part of this category of immigrants. These are family members who have earned the right to come to Canada to live with their primary sponsors, especially those who have become citizens and contributed to the Canadian economy.

Minister Jason Kenney is proposing to cap the number of applications for family reunifications. Reducing the number of parents who could qualify under family reunification is impossible to accomplish without tinkering with the original make-up of Canadians to be allowed as permanent residents. Will Canada Immigration disqualify applicants with older parents, such those over 50 and above, or discriminate against married applicants with children and living grandparents? What happens now to the objective of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) to see to it that families are reunited in Canada?

There is already a low income cut-off requirement for sponsorship of family members, which is periodically reviewed and adjusted to economic reality. One cannot sponsor his or her family members if this income requirement is not met. In addition, sponsors are required to make an undertaking to provide financial support to their families, particularly parents, for a period of 10 years so they cannot opt to get social assistance during this period.

A proposal to give priority to families who can pay $75,000 up front for medicare expenses is both discriminatory and contrary to the objective of family reunification under the IRPA. And why would the problem of backlogs in processing be aligned with the economic ability of applicants to put money up front, when in fact it has nothing to do with the right to family reunification?

Refugees and those who are in need of protection routinely wait years for Canadian immigration officials to process their applications to Canada. The slow pace of having their applications processed adds to the refugees’ hardship and struggle to survive in desperate and dangerous situations, especially for those waiting to be reunited with their families trapped in refugee camps or countries beset with civil strife and wanton violation of human rights.

Will Jason Kenney throw them out of the plane too, as he is apt to describe Canada’s immigration system, and say to hell with Canada’s international obligations and commitment to refugees?

“Backlogs are not a function of a scarcity of operational resources,” according to Kenney. Despite Canada Immigration’s much-ballyhooed new worldwide electronic platform, the promise of modernization and efficiency of its Global Case Management System remains to be seen.

If there is a real and pressing backlog that needs to be addressed by Canada Immigration, it is in these categories of applicants—skilled workers, temporary or permanent, family members, and refugees—that the resources of government should be invested in. Not just in operational efficiency, but in clarity, consistency and fairness of government policy.

Contrary to the Conservative Party’s boast during the last federal election that they are the party for immigrants, they are nowhere near it as immigration levels in Canada continue to decline. There is clear evidence that the Conservative government is embarking on a hidden agenda to restrict the country’s immigration levels. The world’s economic downturn is being used as an easy and lame excuse, as governments in Europe, especially England, the United States and Australia are all focusing on reducing their intake of immigrants as part of their austerity agenda.

The extreme measures undertaken by the Conservative government are helping reduce the number of immigrants coming to Canada. Latest statistics from Canada Immigration show a decline across the board. Visas for skilled workers are down by 28 per cent, family-sponsored relatives are down by 14 per cent, and refugees, down by 25 per cent.

Myer Siemiatycki, professor of politics and public administration at Ryerson University, says the evidence is showing a very sharp decline. “Has the government decided on the outset that they want fewer admissions? Is the tap being closed tighter?” he asks.

Canada Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has already admitted that he plans to cut family class immigrations. More draconian measures from the Conservative government can only be expected soon, and these would be devastating for immigrants.