Good afternoon. My name is Anila Lee Yuen. I am the chief executive officer of the Centre for Newcomers, and with me here today Dr. Admasu Tachble, our director of settlement and career services.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you. The Centre for Newcomers is a settlement agency located here in Calgary, Alberta. We see about 10,000 immigrants and refugees every year for all of our settlement programs. Refugees make up about 20% of that number.
In regard to today's topic of family reunification, we've been hearing a lot of positive feedback as to the direction that the present government is taking. This policy is manifested in the increased quota that IRCC is giving to immigrants coming under the family class. While, overall, our position at the Centre for Newcomers is that the immigration policies in Canada are generally supportive of newcomers and complementary to our Canadian diaspora, there are some challenges remaining.
Today the main challenge I'd like to focus on is the ease of reunification with parents and with grandparents. We would really like to see the government continue to review the parents and grandparents sponsorship immigration policy and make it easier for children and grandchildren to sponsor their relatives to come to Canada.
The parent and grandparent sponsorship application window is quite short. What we hear is that, as soon as the quota is reached, the remaining applications are rejected. To add to this, from what our clients are telling us, the processing time is anywhere between three to five years in length, which is really quite an excessive amount of time in terms of wanting to have your family unified.
Those who are denied the ability to bring their parents over are, in our opinion, also denied their basic quality of life indicators, including family support and the ability to look for employment effectively. This is because they don't have the adequate child care that the grandparents would provide, and the child care that is available is often too costly. We know in Alberta that the cost of child care is quite steep, and it's very difficult for families to be able to find cost-effective child care. Not having the grandparents there to be able to participate in that aspect really puts a financial burden on the family, as well.
It also increases the family's financial burden because the entire family isn't in one location. We find that our new immigrant couples are not only taking care of their Canadian children here, but they're also needing to send money to support their parents.
We want to talk a little about the super visa program, as well. We don't believe it's a sustainable alternative to the direct sponsorship and immigration of parents and grandparents because, currently, many families are financially and emotionally burdened by this program. When we talk about the finances associated with the super visa, we're talking about the number of flights that have to be booked so that grandparents and parents can come and go. We're also talking about the high cost of health care in terms of having insurance readily available.
The other piece is that, because those grandparents don't have the ability to work, once their grandchildren are of school age and can go to school, there is a loss of family income that potentially the grandparents could be filling by being able to legally work in Canada. Emotionally, it's quite disruptive on the family unit and on the well-being of the grandchildren that they're primarily here to support. Children get attached to their grandparents. It helps them thrive; it helps them grow. It can be really traumatic for those Canadian children to have their grandparents needing to leave and then come back or not being allowed to stay after the visa expires.
The children are nurtured and cared for by the grandparents, and this builds a strong bond between the children and the grandparents, hence facilitating the positive identity-building of those children. The grandparents gain satisfaction as contributing members of the family unit. They contribute towards narrowing the generation gap and instilling some of the identity-based cultural values that are important to family cohesion and the family unit. This allows the newcomer couple to build their social capital in their own home.
I can speak from personal experience. In fact, today would be my grandmother's 106th birthday were she still alive. She lived with my family throughout the entirety of my childhood. I'm convinced that every accomplishment that I have made comes from the nurture, the care, and the bond that she created with me, and with my brother as well. It allowed both of my parents to work and it allowed my brother and I to have safety, care, and upbringing in our own home.
I'm really grateful for that opportunity and I hope every other Canadian born to immigrant parents also has the opportunity for that enriching, confidence-building experience.
Lastly, we really wanted to talk about grandparents who are here on super visas. They can't access the services and supports that they need for the well-being of the family and for their own improved quality of life. As sponsored immigrants, they would have access to all the settlement services and agencies, like us at the Centre for Newcomers, where they would be able to get English classes, settlement counselling, and employment counselling free of charge. As their grandchildren get older and are enrolled in school, they would be able to work and also to participate more fully in other aspects of Canadian society, thus decreasing social isolation and increasing the Canadian diaspora and all of the wonderful things that come with that.
For all of the aforementioned reasons, through discussion with our own clients and the support services we provide them, it is our stance at the Centre for Newcomers that sponsorship of parents and grandparents as immigrants should be more easily attainable in a timely manner. We should discontinue the super visa and instead allow them to become permanent residents and stay here.
Thank you.