Concern as Quebec reduces the number of family reunification applications it will process

MONTREAL — A woman who has been waiting two years to sponsor her Guatemalan husband to come to Quebec says the province is acting in bad faith by reducing the number of family reunification applications it will accept.

Quebec Réunifié’s Laurianne Lachapelle says the decision will cause even more stress and delays for Quebec families, who are already waiting much longer than other Canadians to bring in relatives.

“This decision needs to be overturned as soon as possible because it makes absolutely no sense with the current process and I can’t even put into words what it will cost the families,” she said in a telephone interview. Tuesday. “They will be shocked. They will be depressed.”

Quebec announced last week that it will process a maximum of 13,000 family reunification applications over the next two years, after approving more than 16,500 in 2022 and more than 10,000 in the first six months of 2023.

A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette said the government wants to ensure the number of approved files does not exceed the province’s immigration cap.

After the 13,000 request limit is reached, “the minister will no longer accept requests, except in specific cases,” the department wrote in an email. Exceptions include dependent children, the government said last week.

The federal and Quebec governments clashed earlier this year over delays in family reunification applications, for which they share responsibility. While Ottawa has final approval, applicants who want to bring spouses or parents to Quebec must first obtain a certificate of selection from the province before they can be accepted.

According to Immigration Canada’s website, it takes 34 months to process a spouse visa for a Quebec applicant, compared to 10 months in the rest of Canada. For parents and grandparents, it is 48 months in Quebec and 24 months in other provinces.

Earlier this year, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller promised to speed up the processing of all pending cases for which a certificate had been issued, even if it meant exceeding Quebec’s desired annual cap of just over 10,000 sponsored family members per year.

Fréchette’s office cited Miller’s promise as one of the reasons for limiting the number of certificates it issues, “to avoid exceeding Quebec’s planned admission thresholds.”

A spokesman for the federal department said it is committed to reuniting families in Quebec more quickly and will work with the province to do so.

While Lachapelle’s husband already has a selection certificate and will therefore not be affected by the latest change, she worries about the impact on other families

She says she’s worried the cuts will lead to the federal government deeming applications incomplete and closing them, forcing people to start over and adding years to the wait.

Based on her own experience, she says being separated from a spouse is “one of the most painful experiences you can go through,” especially since most have already lived long distance before applying.

She said the long waits meant some women had to bear and raise their children alone, and others had to delay starting a family altogether, affecting their chances of becoming pregnant. She said she had an abortion because her husband could not come with her.

“When I say family, it’s not your cousin — it’s your husband, wife or children,” she said. “So imagine being separated from them and not being able to just have a normal life together like any other couple or family and living many, many years in between.”

The provincial government justified its immigration cap by citing the need to protect the French language and not accept more people than it can properly accommodate and integrate.

But Lachapelle rejects that argument, saying sponsored family members will learn the language by default because most will move into French-speaking households.

Instead of protecting the language, she said the government’s approach is pushing some French speakers to leave the province.

“We are all from Quebec, we are francophones and we live in Quebec because we were born here or we chose this province because we speak French,” she said. “But the government prohibits us from having our families, so the most logical decision is to go to Ontario or New Brunswick or a province that won’t have this cap.”

Lachapelle said he previously debated moving to another province, but decided instead to stay and try to fight for a fairer trial with the help of the province’s immigration bar association.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 2, 2024.

Morgan Lowrie, Canadian Press