Are parents third-class citizens in Canada?
Graphic by Mindy Chapman
If immigration minister Jason Kenney’s musings are to be enshrined in policy, it seems that parents (and grandparents) who wish to immigrate to Canada will soon become a third class of immigrants. This is a debate that goes to the heart of what means to live in Canada, our immigration policy, how we amend our laws, and how we process permanent resident visas.
For any other minister such a change could be political suicide but for Kenney, as the go to Minister of Curry-In-A-Hurry (he is also the Minister for Citizenship and Multiculturalism), this impending change will be framed by him and his ministry as a necessary policy response to growing backlogs. He is a powerful Minister in a majority government with a fractured opposition.
Understanding the Classes
At present, it is possible for a Canadian citizen or permanent resident child or grandchild to sponsor parents or grandparents to Canada, if they meet certain financial and other conditions. Appearing before a Parliamentary Committee he noted that there were 37,500 applications filed in 2010 for parents and grandparents to immigrate to Canada but the annual processing limit is 18,500.
At present there is already a 10 year wait time. To be fair, this is a problem that the Conservatives inherited from the previous Liberal government, in which the Ministry took too many applications, but processed only a few, thereby creating a backlog.
The first of the two priority classes are close family members such as spouses, common law partners, and same sex/conjugal partners. They can be processed within a period of 12-18 months from most countries in the “western world”. Visa processing from the Middle East and Asia might take a few more months.
The second priority class is the economic class which includes high net worth millionaires, skilled workers who are on a specific list and need 67 points on a detailed assessment grid to quality, immigrants chosen by various provincial nominee programs, and other specific workers.
By contrast, sponsoring parents and grandparents, depending on where they live in the world, represent a third class of immigrants and their applications can take between 66 and 100 months (5 to 10 years). If parents or grandparents are already in their 70’s when the process is initiated, many precious years can be lost waiting for the permanent visa.
Parents and Grandparents – A Gain or a Drain?
Over the past few years, the issue of how Canada treats parents and grandparents in prioritizing their immigration to Canada has become a litmus test of whether a Minister understands and embraces “family values” or whether the Minister has a different definition of family. Depending on how successfully the Minister can be boxed into being opposed to extended family immigration, the opposition then hammers away at the Minister for being uncaring and not understanding what immigrants want.
NDP MP Don Davies notes in a letter to the Minister dated October 14, 2011:
Since your government has come to power, CIC statistics show that while we have been accepting more economic class immigrants, there has been a sharp decline in every category in the family class. Total family class visas have decreased almost 15 per cent between 2006 and 2010. This, of course, is a source of much family anguish as spouses, children, parents and grandparents remain separated for far too long. We also note that family class immigrants are often the most successful immigrants since they have a social structure that aids with integration.
In the case of Jason Kenney, his detractors will have a hard time putting him into any framing of this issue other than the one he wants to make for himself. This is a Minister who knows his portfolio well and who has an ease about his work arising from large amounts of self-confidence. One might even say hubris.
The Minister has been paving the policy road for his impending announcement for some months. The magic formula he refers to is a mix of 25-28 per cent Parents and Grandparents, 33-36 per cent spouses and dependents, 22-26 per cent economic immigrants; and finally, 13-17 per cent protected persons and others.
There is, of course, no such magic formula. The formula represents a cautious mix of advice from the bureaucrats and policy wonks; all tempered with a hefty does of the political realities. In many ridings across this country, the Conservative party has worked hard to segment, divide and court the “ethnic vote”. For most ethnic communities, many consisting of first and second-generation immigrations, “family reunification” is the buzz term for “will I be able to sponsor my parents and grandparents”. During the course of the recent Federal election, all parties made all the right noises about families being sacred and central to the Canadian social fabric.
Now after the election, Minister Kenney will have to finesse his comments on the campaign trail with the further erosion of parents and grandparents on the immigration priority-processing list.
The Power of Ministerial Instructions
Will he be able to do so with little political fall out? In my opinion, he will. He has the power under the terms of what are know as the “Ministerial Instructions” authority to amend any program or process he deems, the first Minister to have such broad powers. When these new Ministerial Instruction powers were first proposed the Canadian Bar Association opposed on the basis that the then current process of seeking regulatory amendments in Parliament provided the necessary sufficient oversight of the changes. By concentrating power in the hands of a Minister of Immigration, such oversight has the chance to be lost.
More specifically, the CBA noted:
The CBA Section agrees that the current backlog of visa application and the need for labour in particular strategic occupations are urgent issues that rightly require the government’s attention and action. However, the measures in Bill C-50 are not necessary to address these problems. Bill C-50 establishes a system of ministerial instructions that places essentially legislative power in the hands of the Minister, to be exercised at her discretion, and without Parliamentary oversight or stakeholder input. It changes the system from one based on objective legislative and regulatory criteria for visas to one of discretion and private consultation. This was the very mischief that IRPA sought to remedy. Further, it purports to render the application of the ministerial instructions beyond even the review of the courts. For these reasons the CBA Section believes that the Bill risks damaging public confidence in the immigration system. It is inconsistent with Canadian values, including respect for the rule of law.
There is a good business case to be made to encourage more economic class immigrants who generally add to the economy with their labour and taxes. Parents and grandparents find it harder to integrate into the labour force when they arrive and their productivity outcomes fall below those of resident Canadians. Of course, there is an argument to be made that what parents and grandparents add to family life is immeasureable and creates for cohesive and healthy family units. On the one hand there are the hard economic numbers, on the other the intangible, but equally real benefits of having family support systems.
For years, as a Canadian immigration lawyer in Vancouver, I have advised clients to put their parents and grandparents into the line up, just in the event that such a reduction in quota were to take place. With such a tightening up of the quota for this class, it still makes sense to apply as early as possible and then explore ways for the parent or grandparent visiting Canada on a regular basis so as to be able to set up a vacation home in Canada while awaiting the long processing times.
Welcome to the new Canada. More changes to follow.
(7) Comments
Immigration lawyers always seem to put their interests above that of Canada. It makes sense financially but it is hurting Canada. Only 20% of immigrants to Canada are skilled workers. Another 35% or so are the family members of those skilled workers. 80,000 immigrants a year, almost 900,000 a decade ( the population of Edmonton) are the elderly relatives of economic immigrants. That is too many people who have never contributed to Canada coming here to use our social services.
About 80,000 parents and grandparents of skilled immigrants are arriving every single year to Canada. Every 10 years an entire city, the size of Edmonton or Ottawa or Winnipeg is arriving to Canada composed entirely of old people who will never hold a job and while they will probably contribute somewhat to the household, they will cost taxpayers a lot more in health care costs. Imagine bringing in 80,000 old people a year when the number one reason we need immigrants is beause our population is too old!!!!!!!
I hate to be a ball-breaker but I have to agree with John there. That's kind of why immigration is not to be taken lightly because your parents might not see you on a regular basis ever again. I say brign them over but they have no right to any government money, but I don't know why any country would break their back to bring over a lot of old foreign farts over...we need the young blood to work and that's the cold hard truth. Trouble is Canada already built the dream that you can immigrate here and bring Mom and Gramps and that's not the way it works.
For my money it's not the one or two seniors who come that are the problem but when it's the whole extended family. It's no longer that high but at one point it was reported that for each immigrant who made the cut on points, 17 more were coming on 'family re-unification' and other catagories where their own merits didn't come into it.
That was clearly too high and there's a happy medium somewhere and we simply have to work hard to find it.
From the comments so far, it seems that people, as usual, value the young but think "old [foreign] farts" are just a burden who should be set to drift on an ice floe. The notion that we only need young people to fill the labour shortage was dreamed up by a young person. The vast majority of parents are still quite capable of working. It just requires a change in mindset -- more part-time jobs for people who no longer want to work full-time, llanguage supports for people learning a new language at an older age. And there are plenty of unskilled labour jobs out there to be done that older new Canadians might be very happy of -- something to keep them busy and bring a few bucks into the family without the stresses attached to the more skilled jobs that younger immigrants are pursuing.
As well, many young immigrant families use far more social services than native-born Canadians precisely because they lack the family support they need to make the difficult adjustment to a new country and culture -- they turn to social services and health care services as poor but costly second choices for the kind of support their parents and grandparents could provide for free. Not to mention that parents and grandparents often provide day care so that more of the young parents can go out to work and be productive and contributing members of society.
The notiion that older people are necessarily a greater burden on the health care system has been disproven over and over, but people do like to cling to their uninformed stereotypes. Older people also bring greater value for their native cultures, which they can pass along to their children and grandchildren, and which contributes to the richness of our immigrant society.
"Your parents might not see you on a regular basis ever again?" I saw my parents regularly til they days they died, and my adult children see me and my husband on a regular basis, and frequently call on us for advice -- because they are wise enough to know that youth isn't everything, sometimes a person with a few more miles on their treads can help the "young blood" deal with situations more effectively than they could on their own.
I'm not sure who I feel sorrier for, the two of you or your parents. Regardless, your arguments are sad and poorly thought-out, as is often they case when they're only intended to support a narrow-minded, bigoted, knee-jerk point of view.
... I was referring to John and LedZep. Just to be clear.
Grandparents and parents often care for their children's kids, thereby liberating them to be able to join the workforce. As Zool mentioned, their contributions are often "immeasureable." Domestic work and child-grearing are two skills that are often, indeed, immeasureable.
And to answer to the racist comments of those who fear that immigrants are taking over Canada and abusing social programs, sponsored parents can only access social assistance after 10 years of arriving! Non-subsidized healthcare must be paid by sponsor.
Lastly, seeing this is a GLOBAL issue, please think outside your own comfort zone. A family in the East includes parents, grandparents, even cousins, nieces and nephews. The "nuclear" family is a Western standard.
Read an article I wrote for the Tyee with Stephanie Law regarding the same issue:
http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/04/08/FamilyReunions/