Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the committee for inviting me to speak on behalf of the Sponsor our Parents group.
My name is Felix Zhang and I am the coordinator of Sponsor our Parents group, which has more than 1,300 members who are sponsoring their parents or grandparents to immigrate to Canada.
I would like to draw the committee's attention to what our members are concerned about and what we are struggling with during the wait time for family reunification.
Firstly, the current wait time of parents' and grandparents' immigration has been significantly longer than a few years ago. Their first-step sponsorship application at the Mississauga office takes more than 41 months right now. After that, it will take an additional few years for the second-step immigration application at CIC overseas offices.
Given the current inventory and annual visa targets, those who are submitting applications now would wait 10 to 15 years or even longer to reunite parents in Canada. Our members think the wait time is way too long and becomes impractical for old parents and grandparents. Many of them do not believe their parents could live that long to make it. In fact, I'm personally aware of at least four cases where the parents passed away during the wait.
There's a comment from a group member. He said his father waited to see them again but passed away without even getting to hold his grandchild. He asked to please not make us wait too long to meet our lonely parents who we, the hardworking, law-abiding residents of Canada, turn into guilt-bearing, depressed souls. How sad is that?
Secondly, the processing times of immigration applications among CIC overseas offices are extremely imbalanced. As per the CIC website, the processing times of parents and grandparents class vary from 11 months to 44 months across the world. Our survey results suggest that most cases submitted to Buffalo in the last six months have been finalized in four or five months. However, applications submitted to the Beijing office in 2007 are still waiting.
Our members strongly believe it is totally unfair that some sponsors have to wait much longer than others solely because their parents live in different countries or even in the same country but in different provinces.
Thirdly, the wait time of the entire immigration process is highly unpredictable. CIC does not have any service standards or estimations of the processing times. It is unclear how many cases are in the backlog and how many visas will be issued on an annual basis. Our members are very stressed when their parents ask for the timeline of the immigration process. They simply have no answer, have no clue about how long it's going to take.
Our members are very frustrated with the current practices of the parents and grandparents sponsorship immigration and urge CIC to reduce the wait time within a reasonable timeframe, balance the processing times among visa offices to ensure equitable global service, and improve the transparency of the processes.
Thank you.