Please read this news article from Canadian news paper :
http://www.metronews.ca/column_immigration.asp?id=7823&cid=3251
Here's the text:
Numbers are misleading
Volpe's ministry has a lot of explaining to do
Dear Readers: We have been made the victims of a huge immigration scam.
It was not perpetrated by a smuggler or a shady consultant. This one was committed by the Minister of Immigration himself, Mr. Joe Volpe, and/or his officials.
On April 18, the minister made international news when he announced that Canada was "tripling" the number of parents and grandparents that would be allowed to immigrate to Canada each year.
He said "reuniting families is a commitment of the Government of Canada as well as a key priority of Canada's immigration program." Accordingly, his department would be increasing our annual "forecast" of parents and grandparents from 6,000 to 18,000 in 2005!
This won the minister much applause, especially from those waiting for years to bring their parents here. It also caused some people to imagine a tidal wave of seniors heading to our shores in unprecedented numbers.
The fact is, the government is not "tripling" the number of parents in this class at all. It is actually cutting it back significantly from its historical levels.
In 1994, Canada accepted 41,477 immigrants in this class and has since averaged about 21,989 per year. The Liberals slashed that figure to 12,728 in 2004 and was foolishly trying to cut it back even further for 2005 to an unprecedented level of 6,000. It quickly became apparent that this plan was absolutely untenable.
According to internal departmental memos, this process began in May 2002 when the department secretly took the decision to immediately stop processing these applications notwithstanding the fact that they had accepted money from Canadian sponsors to process them.
It communicated these directives to its visa posts in February 2003. Carol Turner at the Canadian High Commission in Trinidad replied: "While we have halted all processing … upon receipt of your message Feb. 10, we are really in very deep on this category, especially as neither we nor anybody else had any forewarning…
"[We] will definitely require communications products to address… representations" from "applicants, sponsors, members of parliament, especially as medical examinations expire."
Renald Gilbert at CIC Headquarters in Ottawa warned: "The field needs clear instructions and support on what to say… up front if their application is not to be processed for quite a while (few years in most posts)."
Volpe's announcement led sponsors to believe that their parents' applications would be processed three times faster. The minister never said how long such applications would take. There are 110,000 such applicants in the current backlog. Since the minister has committed to processing only 18,000 per year, it will take 6.1 years to process all of these applicants without even touching a single new case received during this period.
Volpe also announced that visa officers will be "more flexible" in issuing visitors visas. However, this does not mean that all parents waiting in line will be issued a visitor's visa or that they will be reunited with their family any sooner.
The figures speak for themselves.
In my view, we have been misled.
Guidy Mamann is the senior lawyer at Mamann & Associates and is certified by the Law Society as an immigration specialist. Reach him at 416-862-0000.
http://www.metronews.ca/column_immigration.asp?id=7823&cid=3251
Here's the text:
Numbers are misleading
Volpe's ministry has a lot of explaining to do
Dear Readers: We have been made the victims of a huge immigration scam.
It was not perpetrated by a smuggler or a shady consultant. This one was committed by the Minister of Immigration himself, Mr. Joe Volpe, and/or his officials.
On April 18, the minister made international news when he announced that Canada was "tripling" the number of parents and grandparents that would be allowed to immigrate to Canada each year.
He said "reuniting families is a commitment of the Government of Canada as well as a key priority of Canada's immigration program." Accordingly, his department would be increasing our annual "forecast" of parents and grandparents from 6,000 to 18,000 in 2005!
This won the minister much applause, especially from those waiting for years to bring their parents here. It also caused some people to imagine a tidal wave of seniors heading to our shores in unprecedented numbers.
The fact is, the government is not "tripling" the number of parents in this class at all. It is actually cutting it back significantly from its historical levels.
In 1994, Canada accepted 41,477 immigrants in this class and has since averaged about 21,989 per year. The Liberals slashed that figure to 12,728 in 2004 and was foolishly trying to cut it back even further for 2005 to an unprecedented level of 6,000. It quickly became apparent that this plan was absolutely untenable.
According to internal departmental memos, this process began in May 2002 when the department secretly took the decision to immediately stop processing these applications notwithstanding the fact that they had accepted money from Canadian sponsors to process them.
It communicated these directives to its visa posts in February 2003. Carol Turner at the Canadian High Commission in Trinidad replied: "While we have halted all processing … upon receipt of your message Feb. 10, we are really in very deep on this category, especially as neither we nor anybody else had any forewarning…
"[We] will definitely require communications products to address… representations" from "applicants, sponsors, members of parliament, especially as medical examinations expire."
Renald Gilbert at CIC Headquarters in Ottawa warned: "The field needs clear instructions and support on what to say… up front if their application is not to be processed for quite a while (few years in most posts)."
Volpe's announcement led sponsors to believe that their parents' applications would be processed three times faster. The minister never said how long such applications would take. There are 110,000 such applicants in the current backlog. Since the minister has committed to processing only 18,000 per year, it will take 6.1 years to process all of these applicants without even touching a single new case received during this period.
Volpe also announced that visa officers will be "more flexible" in issuing visitors visas. However, this does not mean that all parents waiting in line will be issued a visitor's visa or that they will be reunited with their family any sooner.
The figures speak for themselves.
In my view, we have been misled.
Guidy Mamann is the senior lawyer at Mamann & Associates and is certified by the Law Society as an immigration specialist. Reach him at 416-862-0000.