A Quebecer on his third request to bring his sister from Lebanon in time for the arrival of his child in September comes up against a wall of messages in English from Immigration Canada.
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” What am I ? A machine to make children and pay taxes? I am a human being. I have the right to receive visits from people who respect the law,” sighs Mazen Hotait, a manager in the education sector, who lives in the Outaouais.
In recent years, the man has tried three times to bring his sister from Lebanon to visit, but each time, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) told him that his file was incomplete.
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Mazen Hotait may have provided paychecks, title deeds, bank accounts stocked … nothing helps, but what shocks him the most is when we correspond with him in the language of Shakespeare .
In addition to being answered in English, Mazen Hotait discovered, through a freedom of information request, that even the agent who had listened to his story on the phone had taken 35 pages of notes…in English.
“If you receive a file in French, why aren’t you able to write two lines in French? How do you understand the documentation? It takes someone who has an excellent level in French, ”he denounces.
“I suspect that the agent did not master French or that the file was not analyzed”, goes so far as to say the man at the end of his patience.
However, according to the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, the case of Mazen Hotait is far from isolated. In 2021-2022, more than 68 complaints were filed with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages against Immigration Canada, 13 times more than the five in 2020-2021. For the same period, the number of investigations tripled, from 4 to 12.
“There is something wrong with the management of the Department of Immigration, it’s really crazy”, denounces Mazen Hotait, who no longer excludes leaving Canada, even if he says he is proud to live in French in Quebec.
unilingual minister
At the top of Immigration Canada, its minister, Sean Fraser, is still struggling to speak French. After an announcement in English last January, more than 54 complaints were received at the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.
Joined by The newspaperyesterday, his cabinet repeated that the minister continues “to take French lessons every week”.
“The language of the request has no impact on processing times,” said its attaché, Aidan Strickland, in a written statement.
“The wait time varies from request to request depending on several factors, such as whether the request is complete, and whether the agent needs to request additional information, as well as the complexity of the request,” he said. he concluded.
— With the collaboration of Nicolas Brasseur
Number of complaints and investigations against Immigration Canada
* As of March 17, 2022
Source: Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, as of March 17, 2022
Quebec lawyers have had enough!
Lawyers overwhelmed by the waiting times for the 18,000 late residence files have just filed a lawsuit against Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to force Ottawa to move.
“There are no dollars requested. We just want a normal, regular procedure, and that we settle the cases. We are ready to discuss. We have an outstretched hand, ”explains Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, who carries the case for the Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers (AQAADI).
Yesterday, the immigration lawyer confirmed in an interview with the Newspaper the information first revealed by Radio-Canada.
After putting IRCC on notice last month, the association asked the court to force Ottawa to settle the cases within a reasonable time.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was that IRCC started processing files for 2021 in Quebec, when it had not even finished those for 2018 and 2019,” laments Guillaume Cliche. – Rivard.
Delays in Quebec
While more than 80% of files in the country are processed in less than six months, requests from Quebec can take up to three years before being processed, according to the lawyer.
According to Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, until January 2020, the delays came mainly from the provincial level, but for the past two years, the problem has been in Ottawa.
At Newspaperthe lawyer specifies: there is no question of embarking on a war to end with the government, the objective is rather to settle the pile of files.
“We ask that the files filed in 2018 be settled in the next three months and that the 2019s be settled in the next six months,” he said in conclusion.
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Reference-www.journaldemontreal.com