Caught between a work permit refusal and the most recent tightening of temporary immigration, a single French mother is trying to regularize her status. She fears having to uproot her young child even though both have found a new lease of life by arriving in Quebec.
Graphic designer, Marie Karmowski arrives in Montreal in 2022 to join a lover and find a job thanks to a working holiday permit (PVT). The relationship ultimately didn’t work out, but it was the start of another love story: that with Quebec. “I immediately found the people very friendly. There was even a cultural misunderstanding: when I said “thank you” and they responded “welcome”, I thought they were saying “welcome to Quebec”,” she laughs today.
From Versailles to Villeray and even past the honeymoon of the first months, the woman who is now 33 years old says she does not want to give up the living environment found here: “I have never felt as comfortable as here and I think this is where my son can flourish. » The people, the neighborhood, flexibility in education, Mme Karmowski lists what the little family would lose by abandoning their life plan in Quebec.
It is also a community organization that loses a loyal employee and a province, an integrated person. After a career in private business, she decided shortly after her arrival “to get involved” in a community organization, Patro Villeray. “I said to myself: money doesn’t matter when you are paid in many other ways,” she explains.
The gratification of helping citizens, the support of colleagues, the desire to play sport again “for the first time since school”, the values; there were many reasons to accept a loss of salary. Today it is this salary which creates administrative obstacles because of the desire of governments to close certain doors to temporary immigration.
Stopped by tightening
Marie Karmowski was hopeful of easily renewing her work permit, this time through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. However, on September 24, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) refused this request. “I didn’t understand why,” said the young woman.
The refusal letter consulted by Duty evokes general reasons, but by email, IRCC specifies that it has not “convinced the decision-making agent that it has the required academic skills”. She has held this job for almost two years, but it is also proof of education that should have been submitted.
When she receives this letter, her status “expires” the same day and if she does not take any action, she must leave Canada “immediately” writes IRCC. “It’s really violent,” she said in an interview.
With the help of his employer, they consulted an attorney for a fee of hundreds of dollars. However, the recent tightening of the program, announced by both Quebec and Ottawa, came into force only two days following the refusal, on September 26.
This is because his salary as a graphic designer in the community is lower than the median salary in Quebec of $27.47 per hour, the minimum bar used by the two levels of government. As she is in Montreal, she no longer has the right to renew her work permit.
“I didn’t think that it could have this consequence of being paid less, on the contrary. Couldn’t community be one of the exceptions? » she reflected. She was never entitled to Quebec health insurance or employment insurance, while paying taxes, she argues.
She was also a few months away from having accumulated enough months of experience to qualify for permanent residency in Quebec’s economic immigration programs.
Even if she doesn’t give up, she says she goes through long moments of anxiety, even panic. She is now looking for another employer, and has sent around twenty CVs in less than a week.
But she regrets her old job: “I fittais really at Patro Villeray,” she says, using a very Quebecois expression.
The deadline to regularize his status is sadly set for December 24. If she doesn’t find a job before Christmas, she will have no choice but to pack up with her 8-year-old son. This is what appeals to her the most: “I would so much like him to be able to grow up here. »
It must be said that the young boy has also just gone through the ordeal of losing his father last year in France, who died at the age of 35 from brain cancer. “It’s a series of bad news and I really fear the effect of uprooting him again,” worries his mother.
She describes him as a “dynamic child”, who found a caring teacher who helped him move forward. “In France, it’s “walk or die”. No one encourages you to progress, they don’t congratulate you if you succeed in something,” summarizes Marie Karmowski. When he learned that their status was no longer assured in Quebec, his son expressed the wish to prepare a “protest with signs,” she relates.
If nothing works, “no question of returning to France”, she adds: “In France, we are used to the kind of speeches against immigration, and I say to myself: “Woah, that’s what it’s like to be on the side of people you don’t really want.” But it’s too important for me to stay. »
