Thank you very much.
Thank you to the committee for inviting me today. I am an immigration and refugee lawyer with over 20 years of experience. I'm also the co-author of an immigration and refugee law textbook. I run a law firm in downtown Toronto with 12 staff, and we do immigration only on a full-time basis.
I base my comments today not only on my own experience and that of my staff. I've also taken the liberty of canvassing my colleagues from coast to coast to get some opinions from other lawyers as well.
The state of file processing from approximately March 2020 to July 2020 made evident a very alarming state of unreadiness for a large-scale disaster and an inability to adapt quickly in an unexpected emergency. From March to July, most immigration lawyers would tell you, there was virtually no movement on any immigration file and most of our time was spent trying to explain to clients that we didn't know what was going on and we had no way of finding out what was going on, and we didn't know how long anything was going to take.
If we turn first of all to the family reunification impacts, for sponsorship of spouses even up until now, just to get an acknowledgement of receipt is taking four months or even longer. That means four months or more just to find out whether your file is even complete and has been entered into processing. Even worse, if a client has submitted a file that's incomplete, they've wasted four months before they find out that their file is not in the queue and they have to start all over again.
In my view, the processing times posted by IRCC on the website are no longer accurate. The processing times for overseas and inland spousal sponsorship still say 12 months from start to finish, but there's no way that that could possibly be accurate if an acknowledgement of receipt is taking at least four months. Most spousal sponsorship interviews at visa posts have been cancelled, and I haven't heard of any of those interviews being rescheduled as of yet, and I have not heard of any provision being made for video interviews. I had one such case that was postponed in March and to date, there is still no news as to when it will be rescheduled. Given the prevalence of video technology, it's hard to understand why these interviews cannot be done remotely.
Another complication to consider is that many couples right now are physically unable to get married to even start their sponsorships. In 2015, the immigration and refugee protection regulations were amended to eliminate the recognition of proxy marriages, meaning marriages for which both spouses were not physically present in the same place at the same time during the ceremony. That eliminates now the possibility of people doing online weddings by video technology. Just the other day, I spoke to a couple, with the woman in Canada and the man in China. They want to get married, but she cannot go to China because of travel bans and he cannot come to Canada due to a lack of a visa, so for who knows how long, they cannot get married. It's very heartbreaking.
Even if the couple resides together in Canada and is not separated by distance, these delays have serious impacts, because the applicant, usually does not have health care coverage while they're waiting, and if they have children, they are not covered either. Some of these children are going to school in Canada and taking risks with respect to COVID and they don't have any health care coverage.
One of my colleagues mentioned that they have a lot of family reunification cases pending dealing with the consulate in India. No decisions are being issued despite numerous follow-ups and requests. Additionally, applications submitted after March are being held up because biometrics can't be done for many people because visa application centres are closed.
Unlike the case with sponsored parents, sponsored spouses have a very difficult time getting visas to visit their spouses in Canada. Visa refusals of this kind are very common. One of my colleagues described it as the kiss of death if you're a spouse trying to get a visitor visa for Canada, because officers simply don't believe that you're going to go home after your visit once you get a chance to reunite with your spouse in Canada.
With respect to international students, they are in an extremely difficult situation. Many have had to defer their admission several times. Many have lost money. Many do not know if or when they will be able to come to Canada to study at all. They've dropped courses. For many, graduation is now going to be delayed because of the pandemic.
One final comment with respect to the parents and grandparent sponsorship lottery is that the lottery system is much better than the systems that have been in place previously, but it needs to be weighted so that people who have tried more than once to sponsor their parents will have a better chance in the lottery than those starting for the first time.
Thank you.