Refugee sponsor rails at changes

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This article was published 20/06/2014 (4158 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The federal government is making it harder for the older children of newcomers to come to Canada.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada is reducing the age of dependent children for immigration applicants to 19 from 22.

The change takes effect Aug. 1 and will rule out an estimated 7,000 dependant children a year.

The plan to lower the age was proposed last year and made public Wednesday in the government publication the Canada Gazette.

The executive director of Canada’s biggest private sponsor of refugees, Hospitality House Refugee Ministry in Winnipeg, told his board members about the new rule Thursday morning.

“I referred to it as ‘more nasty news from the Harper government,’ ” Tom Denton said. “They continue in this and in many other instances to show the essential meanness, even cruelty that seems to imbue and be a hallmark of this government.”

When the federal government asked the public for feedback, it received 60 submissions, the Canada Gazette reported. Most were opposed to lowering the upper age limit, it said. Groups argued it runs counter to the aim of family reunification, a cornerstone of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Young people aged 19 to 21 are still emotionally and financially dependent on their parents, some said. Several said they worried about the impact it would have on refugees and how difficult it would be for them to make safe arrangements for their young adult children left behind.

“Families will be split, and what will happen to these kids?” Denton asked.

Families uniting under the provincial nominee program will be affected, too, said Winnipeg immigration lawyer Reis Pagtakhan. Parents and grandparents with kids 19 to 22 years of age who were not able to get their immigration applications in on time before the cap for these applications was reached in February will not be able to bring their older kids with them when the cap reopens and they apply next year, he said.

After reviewing the submissions from Canadians, Citizenship and Immigration Canada decided to go ahead with lowering the age anyway. It said children over 19 can still apply to immigrate to Canada on their own. “… They will have to qualify on their own merits under one of Canada’s immigration program streams,” the department said in the Gazette. They can apply to come to Canada as international students, for instance, it said.

The department maintained younger dependent children integrate more successfully because they receive a Canadian education, Canadian job experience and “display an increased ability to adjust to a new linguistic and cultural context.”

Pagtakhan said those who come as international students will have to pay vastly higher tuition fees than if they’d immigrated with their parents. Those parents with skills and money looking to immigrate may decide to pass on Canada if their adult kids can’t come with them, he said.

“Is that a good idea?” asked Pagtakhan, questioning the logic of the rule change. “This will affect about 7,000 people — a small number. If the problem seems to be that small, why have they made this big a deal out of it?” Pagtakhan asked.

Denton said he thinks it’s part of a shortsighted strategy.

“It points once again to the general criticism of Canada’s immigration policy — that it is a program to find employees for industry… rather than a comprehensive strategy with a longer view on how we build a nation through families and successive generations of workers.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca