Ottawa very quickly put the brakes on immigration by revealing the details of its plan to strengthen surveillance at the Canada-US border, which increases “unjustified” refusals for immigrants, according to a lawyer.
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Whether to satisfy the demands of certain Canadian citizens or to react to threats from Donald Trump, Ottawa has made a “180 degree” in terms of immigration and that will certainly change things on the ground.
“In recent years, immigration to Canada was the buffet,” explained M.e Maxime Lapointe in an interview on the noon bulletin, Wednesday. And for the last six months, we have been on the brakes. We are in backward mode. And now Canada has the role of the bad guy in immigration.”
Photo Agence QMI, Joël Lemay
The lawyer also believes that these new immigration measures “strangely” resemble those of Quebec.
“Quebec policies, in recent years, have given us, at the regulatory level, the power to suspend the receipt of requests. And it seems that, finally, Canada is starting to take inspiration. I’m quite surprised by all that,” he reacted.
“Unjustified” refusals
Several immigration lawyers have noticed a higher number of unjustified refusals in recent weeks. Me Lapointe actually had three this week.
“We want to attack, we want […] better communicate with the United States on drugs. That’s one thing, he mentioned. But for immigration, it will become more complicated for people, even just to come to the Canadian border to activate a work permit.”
It takes at least 170 days for Immigration Canada to extend a work permit from an online application, according to him.
“And there, we have refusals in 40 days saying, you are missing a document, so we are refusing you,” he added.
Me Lapointe deplores an injustice by comparing another situation. For example, for a fishing license, if the application is incomplete, the government will indicate this to the person by giving them 30 days to provide the missing document.
“There, what we say to foreign immigrants is, you no longer have the right to work since yesterday, you are asked to leave Canada with your family. So you no longer have the right to feed your family and work. We would never do that to a Canadian,” he denounced.
The Minister of Immigration, Marc Miller, wants to reduce the number of work permits allocated at the border and according to Me Lapointe, this will make online requests even longer.
MARIO BEAUREGARD/AGENCE QMI
“We want to attack, we want […] better communicate with the United States on drugs. That’s one thing, he said. But for immigration, it will become more complicated for people, even just to come to the Canadian border to activate a work permit.”
The lawyer nevertheless admits that the government listened to its citizens, many of whom demanded lower immigration percentages.
“So, the population asked to lower the volumes. The federal government listened. And for Donald Trump, his […] attack, Canada acted very quickly. And I think it will be relatively satisfactory for the United States,” he said.
See the full explanation in the first video above.
