Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for having me. Just as an introduction, my name is Elizabeth Long. I'm an immigration lawyer and am in my ninth year of practice, exclusively in immigration law and mostly with regard to paper applications, such as temporary resident visas. Over my years of

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First of all, judicial review takes over a year to be successful. Second, you have to pay lawyers to be able to do that. Third, most people don't even know what the appeal process is. Fourth, the court's hands are tied because of the high level of discretion given to the officers

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd like to answer that question, and also the question raised by Member Menegakis. For example, Member Menegakis, you said we have x number of students who are allowed to come in, which is fantastic, but how many of them are able to stay without their families? For example, I

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. It's always an estimate. I agree that there should be some exit controls, but they shouldn't be just for people visiting from countries from which visas are required.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I actually see the opposite. For example, I see that when people come from countries such as the U.S. or Portugal, and there are no controls on when they leave, a lot of times there's more of a sense that it doesn't really matter since it was so easy for them to come in. People w

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't know that there are such criteria, but I think just the perception of the public when there is unreasonableness brings the system into disrepute in that sense.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There is a perception in the public that there are such criteria. When there are unfair decisions in that sense there is a perception.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's not a matter of whether we respect visa officers or not. I have a lot of respect for visa officers. But people make wrong decisions, and when people make a wrong decision, you need to have a way to address that error fairly and quickly. It is in Canada's interest for tourist

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much for inviting me here today. I am a lawyer and I practise exclusively in immigration law. I'm also certified by the law society as a specialist in citizenship and immigration law. In my practice I have quite a few clients who come from women's shelters and fr

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I have not dealt with many proxy marriages in my experience, but here's the thing. I don't know that being married over the phone would be any different from someone standing next to them in the aisle in a church or in a mosque. If there is abuse in a situation, there will be abu

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's right.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. Here's the thing. If it is actual marriage fraud, under the previous laws, we can strip someone of their permanent residence based on misrepresentation. So if it is marriage fraud, we can use other laws to do that. Really the harmful result of conditional sponsorship is cl

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you. I think the New Zealand experience is very important. It's about what priority we put on things. If we feel that it's important to allow women who are abused and their children who are with them an avenue to leave their abusers, then it's very important for them to pr

Citizenship and Immigration committee  In my experiences, I have had quite a few sponsors come to me saying, “I was tricked into getting married.” The problem with this is not that they didn't stay together, the problem with this is that officers would not act. The mechanism was there in law for them to take the spons