OTTAWA, Jan 29, 2013 (AFP)
OTTAWA, Jan 29, 2013 (AFP)
Thousands of immigrants on Tuesday pressed Canada’s government to fast-track their permanent residency applications, saying undue delays have put their lives on hold for years.
They came to Canada from France, Italy, Morocco and elsewhere, paid thousands of dollars in fees and filled out lengthy forms.
And now, more than two years on, their files have still not been processed, leaving many unable to work legally, without health insurance and with no other option than to leave Canada.
Opposition New Democratic Party MP Jinni Sims blamed the backlog on cuts at the immigration ministry announced last year, including 300 layoffs and the closure of 19 regional and foreign offices.
“This Conservative (government) boondoggle transformed the Canadian dream for thousands of people into a total nightmare,” she told a press conference in Ottawa.
She said the migrants’ files were “callously forgotten with lives put on hold and turned upside down.”
Michelle Dorion, spokeswoman for the largest group of 10,000 migrants known as the “Buffalo Forgotten,” after the New York consulate where they applied for residency, told AFP as many as half of the group may have already left Canada.
One woman in the group whose temporary work permit expired said she was forced to turn down an engineering job offer in Montreal to return to Casablanca to live with her parents, at age 35, Dorion said.
“The Buffalo Forgotten have 10,000 similar personal stories to share with Canadians,” Dorion said, pointing to severe anxieties, broken relationships and other stresses caused by the delays.
The government, she said, told her about 15 percent of the Buffalo files have been processed since last May, and promised to process the rest by September 2013. But she remains skeptical.
A government official was not immediately available to comment.
