Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for inviting me to testify. In my time I will address two issues that touch the core of the lives of many thousands of immigrant women: conditional permanent residence for sponsored spouses; and the unacceptable delays in processing the permanent resident applications

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't have the exact number, but I can tell you that I frequently have women in my office who are in this situation, where they have to make this decision about whether or not.... Even though there is an exception for violence, it's ineffective because they still have to apply

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I agree. I think that, if we value them as workers, we should make sure they are actually able to be permanent residents of Canada. Even if you look at other programs, such as the Canadian experience class—which does require one year of work, so it's very similar—you'll see that

Citizenship and Immigration committee  There has to be targeted effort at reducing the backlog. The 51 months is just totally unacceptable. That's why I was quite surprised to hear that, even though we're looking at reducing the backlog, the only main focus is on the nuclear family sponsorship, when for live-in care

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If you think of the length of the separation, you're looking at at least six years and likely more, so lots of things happen to families in that time. Children grow up, and they could have other medical issues arise, definitely.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First, the regulations have to be amended to get rid of it completely, nothing short of that, and it has to be retroactive so that women don't have to constantly live in that fear. Also, as I've said, there have to be measures taken right now while we're waiting for the regulati

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I have. In terms of spousal sponsorships, it is faster. But the point I was making was about the category of caregivers. That has not gotten faster.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I mean, if you look at the way the exception is written, it's very broad, and the guidelines that have been issued talk about a lot of different kinds of evidence as acceptable. That's not the issue. The issue is, no matter what you do, no matter how you change that guideline,

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, that's a great question. Definitely, that is a problem, because the officer is tasked with figuring out the genuineness of the relationship, but all these relationships are happening in all sorts of different cultures of which the officer likely doesn't have a real understan

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Solely relying on “He said this and you said that” in this particular interview is problematic. Look at all the evidence before you on a sponsorship application and don't put so much weight on the interviews.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to speak to you today. I work as a refugee lawyer in Vancouver. I am the president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, but I am speaking on my own behalf today. Before I start my comments, I shoul

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's an incredibly difficult task to figure out who is the most vulnerable among the most vulnerable. That's why I think an objective criterion is necessary. That's why I referred to the global resettlement criteria. That's not perfect and of course there are crises that elevate

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's correct.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's correct.