Thank you, Madam Chair.
Through my involvement with the Spousal Sponsorship Advocates over the last several months, I have been a witness to the suffering of many couples and families as they try to manage the worries and difficulties of the pandemic, all the while contending with isolation from their immediate family members, who form their primary support network.
When the pandemic took hold and government processes were halted, hills became mountains. As Canadian spouses and partners, our ability to travel to visit with our foreign spouses was nullified due to border closures and essential quarantine measures, and air travel became a risky proposition and a scarce commodity.
With that change of circumstances, the impact of notorious temporary resident visa refusals for foreign spouses on the grounds of paragraph 179(b) became more than a nuisance; it became a very real barrier to family reunification, leaving us effectively unable to visit with one another, unable to witness the birth of a first-born child, unable to provide family care during a medical or mental health emergency and unable to provide the support that may have prevented such emergencies from occurring in the first place.
Our spouses are regularly denied TRVs due to fears they will overstay their welcome, and yet no one in their right mind would put the long-term goal of permanent family reunification at risk by doing such a thing.
Our applications for spousal sponsorship regularly linger in the system for absurd amounts of time due to fears that our marriages are not genuine, and yet the overwhelming majority of relationships are genuine, even if they may be unusual. The government's measures that are in place to protect against unauthorized migration and marriages of convenience are measures that impose hardship on all in order to catch a small few.
I would like to draw the committee's attention to the brief that has been submitted by the Spousal Sponsorship Advocates and to make its members aware that we have collected several examples of personal testimony related to this issue that are available upon request. The brief puts forth information and evidence to demonstrate the extent of the impact of existing government policies and processes as they apply to spousal sponsorship as well as recommendations. It speaks to the profound effects they have had on individuals and families as compounded by the global COVID-19 crisis over these last seven months.
To provide you with a personal example of that damage, I give you Mr. Syed Farhan Ali.