Certainly. Thank you for the opportunity.
I think this calls for a broad visioning. I understand that the Minister of Status of Women has formed a federal strategy against gender-based violence and that there is in place a gender-based analysis plus requirement for all departments to analyze how different policies are affecting various groups, based on their vulnerability. I think this is an opportunity to reconsider what role the federal government can play to provide protection for immigrants, including those with temporary visas who are being abused by their sponsor or their employer.
We have, for example, a trafficking visa in Canada. I don't think it's implemented well, but it presents some framework for acknowledging that some people are abused in the process of migration and that some of the immigration rules we have can trap people in these relationships.
The exception for abuse and neglect, frankly.... As a project, we were trying to repeal the conditional permanent residence but not throw away the development of the immigration process in which it acknowledged.... For me it was exciting to see the federal government acknowledge that people who are sponsored can be abused and neglected by their sponsor.
The federal government has a role to play in ensuring that they're not trapped in a relationship. This is specific to the conditional permanent residence, but it already existed. There is a long-term phenomenon in Canada called “sponsorship breakdown”. This refers to people who are sponsored as a spouse inside Canada and are waiting for their application to be processed.
Usually, if a relationship breaks down, it's “we're done”, but if it's breaking down because of a pattern of domestic violence, then I think the government has a role to ensure that the person's rights are protected and that they're not deported because the person they intended to have a relationship with is holding them in an abusive cycle.
Similar laws have been passed in other countries. In the United States they have the violence against women act, which has specific measures for immigrants who are being abused by their sponsor, whether it be a spouse or a parent. I think we can learn transnationally about what other governments are doing. Again I think this requires a federal strategy, because this is true for workers as well as for sponsored family members, including parents and grandparents.