Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's interesting, because I had given that subject some thought in preparation for today. Why do we have a super visa, for example, for parents and grandparents, who may or may not be in the sponsorship process, and we don't have anything really similar to that for spouses? I

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. I'm happy to elaborate on that. With the visitor visa, the legal test is whether the person will return home after they're finished visiting Canada. Anything about their situation, whether it's something to do with their attributes or with their behaviour, that might sugge

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If you're talking about dual intention, it's not exactly that it's not correctly applied; it's that they are very miserly with its application. You can't say that there's anything legally wrong, it's just that they're so suspicious and the tendency is to just refuse and refuse. I

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's an interesting question. The refusal letter an applicant receives is a generic format letter, with some boxes ticked off saying, “We don't believe you're going to return home at the end of your visit.” They give you some generic reasons, which very seldom shed any light o

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They do have an obligation to justify every refusal. It's just that they don't have to tell you right away what that justification is. If you were to take it to court, yes, the judge is going to look at whether that decision was properly motivated. I'm not sure whether it would m

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'd say it's an appropriate step, but I don't think it has struck a balance yet. In preparation for today, I canvassed one of my colleagues who is an international student recruitment agent. What she was telling me is that there are still a lot of courses where universities and

Citizenship and Immigration committee  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 immigr

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think even offering a little bit of an incentive, maybe a subsidy or something for employers who are willing to do that, would be a good idea. The situation you're describing is different, but I think a lot of Canadian employers' reticence is that they just don't have a big i

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Not exactly, but I have heard people repeatedly say that the services they have access to are too basic. For the type of person who's going in and speaks English—maybe they have immigrated from Dubai or something like that and have a good employment history—they don't need help w

Citizenship and Immigration committee  So much has been attempted already, and I know that some of the regulatory problems are caused by the regulatory bodies themselves. I would say, if I had one recommendation, it would be to provide funding assistance directly to people who are engaging in those retraining program

Citizenship and Immigration committee  That's correct.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Those are my remarks. I look forward to your questions.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First of all, that should be the federal approach. It shouldn't depend on where you live in Canada, where if you live in Atlantic Canada you are able to reunite your family or take advantage of those programs just by virtue of living there. That should be more widespread. I have

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If you look at a different area of immigration law where this is looked at, when a Canadian citizen wants to sponsor a spouse to come to Canada but the Canadian is not living in Canada, it's part of the process that they have to prove they intend to move back once the spouse gets

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you for having me here today. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a private bar lawyer with more than 20 years of experience, specialized in helping people to immigrate to and become citizens of Canada. At the beginning of my career, I spent two years working with low