Why does it take so long for parents and grandparents to reach Canada?
（Eric Emin Wood）(2011-05-27 PM05:22),
Fan Gu came to Canada from Liaoning province in 2002.
He wanted the “freedom” of living in Canada, to be a resident of “another country, to deal with other people, to see different cultures, and also to have different opportunities to build my career.”
Both Gu, a biotechnology scientist, and his sister, who co-owns a small restaurant, live in Canada. His parents are “lonely in China, and want to come here.”
Gu remembers submitting his parents’ family sponsorship applications to Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) in May 2006. “After 24 months, I got my sponsorship approved, and they sent me to the Beijing office to apply for my parents’ immigration,” he says.
That was in October 2008. “From then until now I did not hear anything,” Gu says.
According to the Toronto advocacy group Sponsor Our Parents, of which Gu is a member, the application processing times for parents and grandparents hoping to immigrate to Canada can range from less than one year, if the applicant is from London or Warsaw, to more than four years.
Applications from Hong Kong take 15 - 21 months to process. Applications from New Delhi take 18 - 27 months. Manila: 23 - 28 months: Beijing 31 - 33 months.
And those are average wait times. In practice many Sponsor Our Parents members, most of whom are from mainland China and have submitted their parents’ applications to CIC’s Beijing office, have waited “about six years” for their parents’ applications to be approved, Gu says.
Susan Gong, president of immigration agency Altec Global Inc., says the lengthy wait times “have a lot to do with the number of applications” submitted.
According to CIC records, the backlog of permanent resident applications increased by approximately 17.3 percent between 2005 and 2010, with more than 1 million applications now awaiting a decision.
The government is also processing fewer parental applications: according to a February 14 CBC article, the Conservatives plan to issue 11,000 family reunification visas to parents and grandparents next year, down from more than 16,000 last year.
It’s likely that many of those applications come from China, India and the Philippines, which have provided almost a third of Canada’s new permanent residents over the past decade. The three countries represented around 32 percent of Canada’s new permanent residents in 2000, and 32.7 percent in 2009.
“Traditionally for Asian immigrants the reunion with parents, grandparents are really important,” Gong says. Wait times from Europe are short because fewer Europeans apply under family reunification to begin with.
Many activists have suggested hiring more workers by the government, Gong says, but “from what I understand the cost to visa offices overseas to hire workers is actually quite expensive.”
Gong agrees the wait times need to be addressed. If the government’s current backlog continues, she says, certain parents and grandparents will have to wait “about 13 years” to reach Canada.
Rejean Cantlon, a communications advisor with CIC, told Chinese News via e-mail that “the government remains committed to family reunification and in 2010, we landed the largest number of family members in at least 30 years.”
However, according to CIC statistics, about 25.9 percent, or 65,204, of Canada’s new permanent residents fell into the family class category in 2009. In 2010 about 21.5 percent, or 60,207, of Canada’s new permanent residents fell into this category.
“Within the family class, which is made up of spouses and dependent children, and of parents and grandparents, CIC has prioritized processing for spouses and dependent children,” Cantlon’s e-mail said. “Normally, CIC processes these applications quickly.”
CIC considers processing times for parents and grandparents “one of the many competing priorities to be dealt with in setting immigration levels,” Cantlon’s e-mail said.
“Next year we will actually be welcoming more newcomers through family reunification,” he continued. “We will not be cutting, as some have inaccurately suggested, but increasing.”
The lengthy wait times were an important issue during the recent federal election. Scarborough-Agincourt MP Jim Karygiannis repeatedly invoked them during his re-election campaign.
“The people who live in Scarborough who want to become Canadians, especially family class, are completely off the radar screen,” he says.
Karygiannis says the Conservative government has concentrated on bringing in people “that are young and working” instead of parents and grandparents, whom he says the Conservatives think will drain Canada’s social benefit programs without contributing to economic growth.
“But if I’m a young immigrant that’s coming from China, from Sri Lanka, from wherever, and I’m having trouble, I need help from my parents to help me come and raise my kids,” he says.
“Grandparents are glorified babysitters. My parents helped me with my kids. If I didn’t have my parents looking after my kids, I wouldn’t have been able to work,” he continues. “My daughter’s getting married in September. We’re looking for a house close to us so my wife can help with the kids.”
Karygiannis believes the federal government “should reinstate the family class immigration levels to what they were, and increase them.”
“Instead of 16,000 visas per year they should go up to 20. And in certain countries they should have a guaranteed waiting time,” he continues.
“You can’t wait ten, twelve years from different countries to get families together.”
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