Thank you.
My name is Avvy Go. I'm the clinic director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. With me is Vince Wong, who is the staff lawyer of our clinic.
Thank you very much for the opportunity for us to comment on the family class program.
We have submitted a written brief. I would encourage members to review that. I'll just start with my brief remarks.
Family reunification is one of the core objectives of Canada's immigration law. Historically, family class immigrants comprise a significant portion of the overall immigration population. Since the early 1990s, however, the percentage of family class immigrants has steadily been on the decline, so currently family class immigrants make up just less than 25% of all immigration to Canada.
Immigrants from Asia and other parts of the global south represent the largest percentage of both the sponsor population as well as the sponsored immigrants in the family class program. As a result, any negative changes to the program will disproportionately affect members of racialized groups.
Family class immigrants contribute significantly to the well-being of Canadian families and to the Canadian economy, yet sponsored parents and grandparents are often portrayed as burdens on our society, while sponsored spouses are viewed as fraudsters even though these myths have never been substantiated.
Studies have actually shown that the presence of family networks in Canada, including parents and grandparents, facilitate the settlement and integration process. Research also confirms the central critical role parents and grandparents play in supporting the healthy development of our youth. Families are particularly important in the maintenance of the well-being of racialized communities, members of people with disabilities communities, and women.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada studied the family class program and did an evaluation based on a number of years of the sponsored immigrants coming over. The result of that report shows that the family program actually acts as an incentive for economic immigration because about 48% of the sponsors of parents and grandparents and a high percentage of spousal sponsorship came to Canada as economic immigrants.
The report also confirms the economic benefits of sponsored immigrants to their families and to Canada in addition to fostering social cohesion. Yet despite all these positive benefits, there have been many negative changes to the family class program over the years, particularly for the sponsorship of parents and grandparents. We want this committee to look at ways to strengthen the family class program and to make it easier for Canadians to be reunited with their families.
Our report has a number of recommendations. I'll highlight a few.
First, the quota system imposed on parents and grandparents should be lifted. The Government of Canada should treat all family class members equally, and should provide adequate and equitable resources for the processing of all family class members.
Second, family reunification should not be a privilege reserved only for the rich, so we recommend that the ban on spousal sponsorship for sponsors who are in receipt of social assistance be repealed. We urge the Government of Canada to remove the minimum necessary income requirement for the sponsorship of parents and grandparents Our brief talks about how historically there was no minimum income requirement for such a program until 1978.
Third, with respect to spousal sponsorship, we recommend anti-racism training for visa officers to combat any inherent bias in their decision-making process. We also recommend periodic systemic review of their decisions.
Finally, we want to acknowledge the extended family model that many Canadians embrace. Therefore, we urge the age of dependent children be increased back to 22 years of age, and that there be changes to allow the admission of assisted family members or assisted relatives through regulatory change.
I'm going to turn it over to Vince to close the submission.