January 2016

To The Honourable John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada,

I hope you are enjoying your new position. May I commend you on the job your department is doing by bringing the most vulnerable of the Syrian and Iraqi refugees to Canada.  I know it is taking longer than you’d hoped, but you will not hear any criticism from me. I know people who work in your department, as well as the Canadian Border Services Agency, and I am well aware of how hard your colleagues are working.

May I also applaud your decision to give a Temporary Resident Permit to Daksh Sood so that he can join his parents here in Canada. 

I have a few suggestions on what I think would be important to add to your ‘to-do list’ for 2016:

December 2015

A friend of mine recently picked up knitting. She had tried to make a scarf many years ago, but had forgotten how to knit and her previous project was a mess. This time, before she even started knitting, she had to spend hours unraveling her previous project. She had hoped to make a new scarf for her husband by Christmas, but realized that this may not be realistic.

I can’t help but think that our new government is dealing with its own messy scarf situation. In the last eight years, the Conservative government made serious efforts to overhaul the Canadian immigration and refugee law system. Many argued that these changes have resulted in inefficient, too strict, and often unfair processes. In other words, our system needs some serious unraveling, and fast.

November 2015

The first file I opened in 2015 was for a man from a central African country. He had come to Canada after witnessing the murder of a member of his religious community by a man who worked in the office of the country’s President.  He reported the shooting to the police, and named the shooter. 

October 2015

On October 19, 2015, Canadian citizens residing in Canada have the right to vote in the federal election.  Immigration and refugee law has become a major issue in the campaign. The number of refugee that Canada will accept, especially from Syria, is a story that has captivated journalists.  The issue of whether the niqab can be worn during citizenship ceremonies has been another controversial subject.  But that is not all.  How many parents and grandparents we allow to be sponsored, and the length of time it takes to process family class applications is another hot topic.  Finally, the issue of whether or not non-resident Canadian citizens can vote in the election has also been in the news.

Never before have immigration issues taken up so much of the election. This means how you vote will affect immigration law in Canada in the months and years to come.