Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak about family reunification. My name is Marichu Antonio, and I am the executive director of the Ethno-Cultural Council of Calgary. We are a community-based organization that works to build the collective voice of ethnocultural communities in Calgary. We are also an umbrella organization for approximately 65 ethnocultural community organizations.
Our comments today stem from some of our research that we conducted in 2012: “Families Together/Families Apart”. We undertook a participatory education and research process using focus groups and workshops on immigration policy changes and their impact on ethnocultural communities. In speaking with nearly 200 people, we heard overwhelmingly that the issue of greatest concern was the closure of the sponsorship program for parents and grandparents at that time. This prompted us to undertake interviews with individuals and families who were directly impacted by the limits on family sponsorship.
While the program reopened in 2014, it did so with a cap of 5,000 applications annually. We appreciate that under the new government, this has been raised to 10,000 applications. However, we believe that the research we are presenting shows that families in our community continue to experience barriers to meaningful family reunification.
Bronwyn Bragg, our research and policy manager at that time, will present the key findings of this research in a moment. Before she does so, I want to take a few moments and reflect personally on the importance of family reunification as a core component of Canada's immigration program.
Over time, the number of family class immigrants has declined sharply from where it was a few decades ago. Family class immigrants, especially sponsored parents and grandparents, are represented as a drain on our social welfare system. As someone who came to Canada as an immigrant and who has worked directly with immigrant communities for the last two decades, I see this characterization as both inaccurate and harmful.
In my own family of six siblings and two parents, we greatly benefited from Canada's strong family reunification policy in the 1980s. My sister sponsored my parents from the Philippines in their late fifties; they in turn sponsored me and later my cousin. The average processing time then for most of us was approximately one to two years. This has resulted in a strengthened feeling of belonging and well-being in our new home country, thereby strengthening our ability to give back to Canada. We now have four generations, 42 citizens, 30 of whom are taxpayers, community leaders and volunteers, and those employed as professionals in various sectors of the economy such as oil and gas, banking, and the not-for-profit sector. I myself am now a grandmother of two adorable grandchildren, soon to be three—this weekend—and I work as the executive director of this agency. My 86-year-old mom, who is now a great-grandmother to 10, is still active and supporting us in raising our grandchildren. This wouldn't have happened under the current policy regime.
Thank you to Canada.
In my own experience and in the research we conducted, we found that sponsored relatives are not a burden. Instead, they provide critical support to immigrant families, especially to children in Canada. They help raise grandchildren. They provide psychological and emotional support to families in transition. They are sources of cultural and linguistic knowledge and wisdom. They support the successful integration and settlement of immigrant families and communities in Canada.
We therefore suggest the following five policy recommendations: One, remove the quota of 10,000 applications per year on the parent and grandparent sponsorship program. Two, devote resources to processing all family class applications, including parent and grandparent applications, in a timely manner. Three, lower the minimum necessary income for sponsoring parents and grandparents. Four, reduce the sponsorship undertaking period to 10 years instead of the current 20 years. Five, please do not treat the family super visa as a replacement for a meaningful family reunification program for parents and grandparents.
Now, Bronwyn, go ahead, please.