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To whom it may concern,

I have emailed MP's several times about the issues my fiancée, Blair Hacche, and our entire family is facing with Canadian immigration. The issue now is that CIC are about to force me to decide which of my two Canadian children I can live with. Some people may blame my fiancée for separating me from one of my children but we strongly believe the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the Canadian government and we will relentlessly push to have the Canadians governments inhumane treatment and lack of compassion to our family exposed in every world wide media outlet we possibly can. We would like to expose the propaganda that the Canadian government tries to sell by claiming to be a nation that places a lot of importance on family values and unity, that is not what they have shown us.

The basics again are that Blair is a 35 year old computer programmer from New Zealand. I am a 33 year old Canadian woman, with a 6 year old son, Ewan, from a past marriage. Ewan’s father is Canadian. Blair arrived in Canada on the 2nd of February 2013, was here for 6 months as a visitor and then got a non-extendible 12 month working holiday visa. In November 2013 we had a child together. His name is Dexter Hacche. When Blairs work permit was a month away from expiring and he was informed that the company he worked for would offer him a 12 month extension to his contract through the recruiter he worked for. Blair called CIC many times to make sure he knew his options and what he should do. CIC neglected to tell him the most obvious solution which I will speak about shortly and instead told him that his only option was to get his employer to obtain a labour market impact assessment (LMIA). At this point there was around a month left on his working visa and he asked the recruiter to obtain the LMIA on his behalf. The recruiter took three and a half weeks to inform him that they would not do it despite him calling and emailing more than once a day to get an answer from them. Blair was very short on time by the time the recruiter informed him of the bad news. At this point Blair urgently attempted to get an appointment with an immigration lawyer, however none were available to him in the required time frame. He did however get to speak to an immigration lawyer on the phone.

Neither CIC nor the immigration lawyer he spoke to informed him that if he sent a work permit application right along with the permanent residence application he had ready to send he would have been able to stay in Canada and continue working on an implied status for the entirety of the extremely long wait time for processing of the PR application. Instead CIC informed Blair that if he sent an on-line work permit application he would be able to continue working on an implied status for the month it took to process that work permit application. Blair says he would be happy to assume blame for the situation had that best option actually been displayed to him on the CIC website or provided by the CIC representatives or that information was actually made more readily available by CIC. Instead Blair was given bad advice and it has put us in a terrible position. When the work permit application was refused we were informed that Blair had 90 days to restore his status as a visitor or submit another application. Blair spoke to CIC and they advised him to sent a letter claiming that a mistake had been made by CIC on the application which he did since the refusal stated that he needed a LMIA and he was actually applying for an open work permit to be a self employed consultant. A month and a half later CIC finally advised him that the review was unsuccessful. He then submitted an application to restore his status as a visitor so that he would not be forced to split our family apart and to give us time to figure out a solution to our financial issues.

Blair met with an immigration lawyer recently and was informed that not only would a LMIA through a recruiter be denied as Canada will not grant them through a recruiter, but he would have to have a job offer that would pay at least $32 an hour directly with the company he would work for before a LMIA would be successful. This is an impossible ask in his position. Worse yet the immigration lawyer stated that he firmly believes that in our situation the Canadian government will refuse his application to restore his status as a visitor and he will be forced to leave Canada.

We are totally disappointed and disenchanted with the Canadian government and their apparent lack of regard for our family and our situation. Blair is rapidly losing interest in living in Canada at all as he states that he knows many foreigners, including Canadians, who live in New Zealand and have not been forced under any of the stress or difficulties that the Canadian government are forcing us under.

So what is the result of this process?

Blair is making plans to sell the house he purchased for our family to live in here in Canada, and to pay another $8000 to ship his possessions back to New Zealand. He will have to cancel his inland residence application and will lose the $550 spent on that since the application is open but has not even begun to be processed yet. He insists that our son Dexter Hacche will return to New Zealand with him and it is hard to fight that since Dexter and Blair are like two peas in a pod. Dexter is so happy when he is with his father and they do everything together. He also states that the government in New Zealand will provide a lot more financial support that I would get if he was to leave him here with me. I have considerable debt here due to a custody battle over Ewan between my ex and I. We can’t afford to run two households 13,000km apart. Therefore our house in Canada will be sold and Blair may purchase a property back in New Zealand. If I remain I will likely be living in my parents basement to be able to pay off the debts. I am not a bad or uncaring mother, and in fact it will most likely literally kill me to not be with one of my sons but I can’t provide for both of my sons alone and Canada may be forcing me into making a sacrifice that no one should be forced to make.

To make this extremely clear the Canadian government has given me 4 options:

1. Try to convince Blair to be the one who makes the sacrifice no parent should have to make, I lose Blair and he loses his entire family.
2. Let Blair and Dexter leave so I lose my fiancée and one of my sons. I lose one of my Canadian born sons and my fiancée.
3. I go to New Zealand with Blair and Dexter. I lose my 6 year old son who’s father will not allow him to leave with me and he loses his mother.

To be completely honest we feel like any government who claims that family value and unity is such a big thing in this country should either open up their eyes and take a look at how policies are making it a blatant lie and maybe change the claim to the Canadian government has no regard or concern whatsoever about family values and unity if one of those family members is not Canadian. There was an article published in the Dorchester signpost this week about out family and our problem. This is CIC’s media response about our issue:

CIC media relations adviser/spokesperson for the western region, Sonia Lesage, said in an email statement that the Government of Canada is committed to improving processing times and reducing backlogs, and has taken action to do so and that they are improving the way they process applications so that it’s faster and more efficient.

“Just two years after the launch of the Action Plan for Faster Family Reunification, the government has reduced the backlog by nearly 50 per cent. Had no action been taken over the long term, it was predicted that the backlog could have increased to 250,000 persons with wait times of 15 years by 2015.

“The Government of Canada is actively working to reunite families with their loved ones more quickly. CIC gives the highest priority to Family Class applications for spouses, partners and dependent children overseas, in support of its commitment to family reunification.”

So what is the Canadian governments intention here? Ruin lives by separating and destroying families and then trying to fix it by reuniting them later. The fact that the Canadian government can’t see past their own unfair policies and instead will cause the evil action of separating a parent from a child to me means that someone needs to really push and show the government the error of their ways, or failing that to push and show the Canadian people, and the rest of the world, the evil actions the Canadian government finds perfectly acceptable. 

Jenn Ward.

Hopelessness

Well, a long time has past and still no resolution. It took CIC a month and a half to review the refusal of my work permit and to refuse it again all the whole providing me with conflicting information. Post it here, no email it and it will be done within 24 hours, there is no email address so post it. Since you posted it a couple of weeks ago you will hear by the end of the week. Nope, you might never hear anything at all about it, they will definitely have a decision within a month, there is no way to know how long it will take them. I am sorry if this post seems negative about Canadian immigration but I have worked in several countries around the world and dealt with countless government agencies, and never have I ever been so badly messed around, misled, and let down.

We are getting further into debt and closer to bankruptcy and losing the house I bought for my family. There is no light at the end of the tunnel and no prospects for success. I can't help but wish we had the option of giving up and going to live in New Zealand for a while, I have tried everything and come out empty handed or empty pocketed to be more accurate. Apparently immigration doesn't care that I have Canadian kids to feed, I should just sit around with no income for a further 8 or 9 months waiting for first stage approval on my residence before I can actually buy diapers or baby food, but god no matter how much I try I just can't convince my 9 month old son to stop eating or pooping. The amount of stress this is putting on me has made me break out in hives for the first time ever and is also giving my fiance constant migraines and making her feel physically ill.

I was told I put the cart before the horse applying for a work permit before getting first stage approval on my residence application. How the hell could anyone in my position put the horse before the cart?

I came to Canada on a tourist visa for a few months, my Canadian girl friend got pregnant, so i got a 12 month working holiday permit, which was the only one available to me at the time, and got a job so I could support the family while my fiance was suffering from a very rough pregnancy and couldn't work. I applied for residence after 12 months when I was considered to be in a common law relationship. When my non-extendable work permit was running out I applied for a new work permit to allow me to work while waiting the 12 months for a residence application to get first stage approval. Some one please tell me what I did wrong here because I don't see how I could have done anything better?

So my advice to anyone considering coming to Canada and getting themselves into a position like mine is DON'T DO IT, not even if you think you have the money to get by for 2 years without working....I brought $130,000 into Canada  from New Zealand and it is gone.... Mortgage companies are not super excited to lend money to someone who isn't a resident and doesn't have a credit rating in Canada despite a perfect credit rating back home....so expect to pay double the down payment that someone else might. And if you do get a temporary work permit and are a professional with a decade of experience and glowing references prepare yourself to earn half what you used to.... Why would anyone want to hire someone who may just end up having to leave the country?.... And even when you do find a job you probably won't be able to get a second work permit and may have to leave your kids behind, missing their first steps, first words or other important milestones in your children's lives because you have to leave them behind to go home and work because there is such a big backlog of applications that it takes 18 months for a residence application. Maybe you would get luckier and work directly for a company or even for a halfway decent recruiter who will obtain a Labour market impact assessment for you instead of messing you around for weeks until it is too late to arrange anything.

Hey CIC, I have a fantastic idea for you. Why don't you give some of the people who you won't give work permits to jobs to help clear your backlog? Kill two birds with one stone. Or maybe you should just look at amending the rules to cater for the huge backlog so someone like me me with Canadian kids to feed doesn't get totally screwed.

Whoa Canada - by Jenn

I am a Canadian citizen; born and raised in this great country. My parents, and their parents, and their parents; born and raised in this great country. I have two beautiful sons and guess what? Yep; born and raised in Canada.

In 2003 I began a very special relationship with a young man from New Zealand.  We fell in love after communicating only online, and after only a few months. It’s a long and beautiful story. Unfortunately, the distance between us was too great and because we were in our early twenties we did not have the means to travel and meet one another even though that was our only heart’s desire. 

Eventually we both became involved in other relationships and we would go through periods of time where contact between us was minimal. However we always found our way back to one another and I believe the reason none of my other relationships worked in the past is because I never fully let go of Blair. I knew we were meant to be together and that he was my soul mate.

 In 2013 – ten years after we first fell in love with each other, Blair finally made it happen. We knew we had to be together. He quit his job, moved out of his home, packed up all of his possessions and flew to me. I met him at Pearson International airport on February 2^nd, 2013.  The feeling I had when I saw him approaching me for the first time – there are no words. I ran to him; in 5 inch heels. We didn't even say hello – we hugged and kissed. It was right out of a Hollywood movie.

Not long after, I became pregnant with our son Dexter. It was a surprise to say the least as we were using contraceptives, and even though it happened much sooner than we would have opted for, we knew that we wanted baby Dexter and that he was meant to be.

Blair purchased a home here in Canada, a lovely home in a quiet small town called Dorchester Ontario.  It is perfect for our family and is filled with a lot of love. Sadly, nowadays, it is filled with stress, struggle, and uncertainty. Blair is no longer able to work here as his work visa has expired. No; he didn't let it expire, he had applied to have it extended while we patiently wait for his permanent residency to go through. They denied the request.

There is a major flaw in the way that the Canadian immigration laws are set up and I would like to see someone really point it out to the public. If a foreigner gets a temporary work permit to work in Canada for whatever reason, married or common law partner and any dependants are allowed to accompany that person and will be given a no questions asked open work permit. However, if a foreigner is with a Canadian citizen by birth they can’t get that same open work permit.  Really, Canada??!!

Canadian immigration has been horrible for my fiancé to deal with. He has spoke with several representatives and each time is he been given different answers often answers which contradict one another. I'm embarrassed. I'm confused.

 

We totally understand and support Canada’s position on protecting Canadians by requiring the labour market impact assessment and not just handing out work permits to anyone who comes along. But he is not just someone who decided he wanted to live in Canada. He has me. He has a son and step son, a family, a life. I can tell you if I didn't have a son from a previous marriage, we probably would have left Canada for New Zealand and I highly doubt I would be having this extreme amount of stress just to be able to work. 

Blair sent his permanent residence application as soon as he could and if the application process in Canada didn't have such a ridiculous wait time he might have already passed the first stage approval and might already be eligible for an open work permit on that basis.

Right now we have a mortgage, credit card bills, $30,000 in legal fee’s, a $20,000 line of credit that is near maxed out, on top of car payments and insurance, the cost of raising children, food, utilities, etc but with only my small income to cover everything. Its hard enough to put food on the table. I can’t do it alone!!!!! I can barely sleep with the amount of stress I feel every day and I pray nothing comes up unexpectedly – a dental appointment, a vehicle needing repair…because our resources are next to exhausted. 

So what is next? Blair is forced to leave us to make money in New Zealand meanwhile we lose our house and I file for bankruptcy? So their “policies and procedures” aren't just affecting the foreigner any more, they are potentially catapulting me, a Canadian citizen and two Canadian children, into ruin… and through no fault of our own.  Blair has done everything by the books and has gone above and beyond what CIC has asked of him.  He’s provided the hundreds upon hundreds of documents required, and forked over tons of money.

 

Listen, we weren't expecting this to be easy. We were expecting it to be fair. 

Does Canada hate me?

This is a long story, but it's the story about how Canada treats immigrants - even though they're law abiding people who have invested their lives into the country, and even though they've tried to do everything the right way. It's my story, but it's also the story of my Canadian fiancée Jenn, and our son - Canadian-born Dexter - Jenn's oldest son Ewan, the story of how I have been blessed with the most amazing wonderful family and how government bureaucracy is going to make it a nightmare by tearing us apart and sending us broke. All I ask for is a work permit so I can stay at the job I already have with the company that has already made a significant investment my training, support my family and pay for the house I bought. If they won't issue me one it will ruin a whole family.

I guess the only logical way to start this is at the beginning, over a decade ago. With a young man, in his early twenties, on the mend from a difficult relationship break up. I was half way through a computer science degree at a University in New Zealand when I randomly received a message through ICQ from a Canadian girl, Jenn,  a few years younger than me who had also recently been through a tough break up. ICQ was a very new thing and Jenn was looking for people she knew who might be using it. Some years before had met a young man in Canada with the same first name as me, Blair, from New Zealand and had thought that he might be someone interesting to talk to online.

That person Jenn had met in Canada, however, was not me. Regardless of that we had a lot in common and built a strong online friendship and talked to each other often and about everything. The years passed and we were never able to meet each other for various reasons some of which include my university education, other relationships, jobs, and family commitments. Ten years later, we were still talking online. There had been periods when we hadn’t spoken to each other - but neither of us could deny that we continued to gravitate to each other despite the distance and the years.

In 2013, I was finally in a position where I was able to plan to come to Canada on an extended holiday and truly put our feelings to the test. On the 2nd of February Jenn met me at Pearson international airport in Toronto Canada. It did not take long for us to realise that our feelings were real and we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

During the ten years before we met,  Jenn had a child and was married briefly to Chris, the child's father. For the sake of Ewan, her son, Jenn stuck with the marriage for two years to try and make it work  - but she was unhappy. She told me that she cried on her wedding day and told her bridal party it was because she wished it was me she was marrying. By the time I arrived in Canada, Jenn had been separated from Chris for a couple of years. Ewan is now 6 years old and his father is still a part of his life - and he's the reason we, as a family, must remain in Canada.

I had only been in Canada for around three months when Jenn's birth control failed and she became pregnant. After much discussion and debate we decided to keep our child, despite worrying it was too soon into our relationship. I asked her to marry me after we had been living together for around six months and without hesitation she said yes. I obtained a working holiday visa valid for 12 months, got a job as a programmer and I purchased a house in Canada so that my family - including Jenn's oldest son - would have a place to live. I returned to New Zealand and paid near $10,000 to have my possessions shipped to Canada. In the meantime, Jenn - now my fiancée - had to leave her job due to pregnancy based sickness. Because she has some debt and no employment I had to obtain a mortgage on my own which was extremely difficult with a temporary status in Canada. This is where things started turning bad.

The house I purchased was about 10 minutes drive out of the city that we had been living in, and 10 minutes further from where her ex husband and Ewan’s father lives. At this point in time her ex-husband (Chris)  had been homeless. He'd previously been living in the marital home his parents had bought for he and Jenn when they were married. But after she moved out, Chris stopped paying the property tax until it was somewhere around $17k in arrears. That's when his parents evicted him and sold the house out from under him. 

He had months and months of notice to sort out living arrangements for himself and his son so the week about custody arrangement could continue. However, he did not do that and instead left his son living full time with us for three months. Despite this he decided to take exception to us moving ten minutes out of the city and filed for full custody of his son and an interim order to prevent the child’s school being shifted to the school in our local area. His parents purchased a one bedroom inner city apartment for him to aid his chances in the custody case. Basically everything went our way in the case as the judges could see through his actions, however that did not change the fact that above the costs the judge has awarded to us it has still put us somewhere around $30,000 further in debt. My fiancée and her ex are now discussing settlement options to end the court proceedings so hopefully that debt will cease to increase, but we are still left with that sizeable debt to pay back.

I lost the job I had because of the time off I took due to Jenn's severe pregnancy sickness resulting in trips to the hospital to check the health of both mother and child, and the times when I had to be present for the court proceedings. I found a job working on-call as a labourer to try to pay the bills but I was not earning enough to prevent our debts growing. Eventually, I found another programming job, which is not an easy feat in my situation. Employers are not super enthusiastic about taking someone on and investing the time for training in someone with an uncertain future in the country. This job was working for a large company through a recruiter. The expiration of my work permit was looming when I was offered a year long extension for the position. I asked the recruiter to obtain an labour market impact assessment to aid my application for a work permit but since I am not a full time internal employee for that company they were unable or unwilling to get one for me.

The company I actually program for was legally unable to obtain this for me since they are not legally my employer either. So it was decided that I could apply for an open work permit as a sole proprietor which would not require the labour market impact assessment. I submitted my applications with details for the position and a large description of the software I have spent years developing on my own time, and is nearing completion. I plan to build my own company around the software I have developed but I need to be able to support myself and my family in the mean time. My work permit application included all this information stating that I want to start my own business and work as a sole proprietor or freelancer until my business is built up enough to support my family. I submitted this application before my work permit expired which meant that I was able to continue working on an implied status while it was processed. I assisted my fiancée in returning to work by pushing a little to get her a job in the support department. She got the position and started training almost a month after I submitted my application.

Three days after Jenn started working again I received a response to my application saying that my application had been refused as my employer did not provide a labour market opinion and if I was still working I must stop that day. After many phone calls to Citizenship and immigration Canada I found out that if I believed there had been a mistake on my application I could write to them to have it reviewed which I did. I wrote a long letter explaining that my application was for a self employed position and perhaps I should have made that more clear as obviously I can't employ a Canadian to be me. I find it a little crazy that the government would not be able to see that I am being offered the contact on the sole basis that I have experience in that exact position already, how could anyone else Canadian or otherwise fill that same position unless they already has the training and experience that I do working in that position. It is a specific programming job working with an obscure language and to quote the head of the programming department there "We have never found or employed anyone who knew that language before".

After two weeks of being unable to work I contacted them to find out if they had received my letter of explanation. The phone representatives were unable to tell and recommended that I email it and it should be processed within 24 hours. I did as I was told but received nothing back. Around four days later I called again and was informed that the email address was wrong and that it needed to have a specific subject in the email to be processed quickly. I sent another email with the information once again with the required subject and submitted it to both email addresses because it all seemed so vague.

Three days later we finally arrive at the present. Still no word about a review of my application and I called again to find out what is going on and if there is yet again something they failed to tell me that I needed to do. After this agent  reviewed everything he told me that I had to send it in the mail as I originally did and that nothing may come of it. They may decide not to look at it and I may never hear anything about it again. I should just send another application, pay again and potentially have that refused after waiting another month for it to be processed this time without being able to work.

I feel rather stuck. Even though Jenn is working now, the money she earns is not enough to pay the mortgage, the bills, and the debts we have accumulated. I have been off work for three weeks already waiting  to hear anything back about this and we can’t afford for me to be off work for another month while another application is processed. Even if I was to leave my family behind and return to New Zealand to work for 9 or 10 months until my permanent residence application passes the first stage approval, it may take longer than a month to get back there and find employment, not only that but I will somehow have to be earning enough to pay living expenses in New Zealand, and a mortgage in Canada, plus property tax on my house. The thought of being out of Jenn and Dexter's life for that period of time feels like the end of the world to me but I am rapidly approaching the point where there is no other option.

What are the options here for Jenn? How do things turn out for the three Canadian citizens tied to this. The two options here for her are to let me go and become a solo mum for a year, working all day then looking after the kids alone nights and weekends. Or does she get a second job to be able to pay all the bills and support me while I am unable to work? For her it's either become super mum or never actually see or get to spend time with the kids.
I totally understand and support Canada’s position on protecting Canadians by requiring the labour market impact assessment and not just handing out work permits to anyone who comes along. But I am not just someone who decided I want to live in Canada. If it wasn’t for Jenn, a Canadian, and my Canadian born son I would already be back in New Zealand working. If Jenn didn’t have a son who had to remain in Canada for his father, we would most likely be living in New Zealand now where Jenn probably wouldn’t be having this extreme amount of stress just to be able to work. I sent my permanent residence application as soon as I could and if the application process in Canada didn’t have such a ridiculous wait time I might have already passed the first stage approval and might already be eligible for an open work permit on that basis. The most ridiculous thing of all to me is that a foreigner accompanying another foreigner with a work permit is eligible for an open work permit while they are here. However, a foreigner accompanying a Canadian citizen in Canada, even with a child who is also a Canadian citizen is not eligible for that same work permit. I hoped that the person assessing my work permit application would take all of the factors into consideration and show some compassion for my family of Canadian citizens who depend on my income for day to day survival, but apparently that is not the case. My residence application does not have first stage approval, and I don’t have an employer who can provide me with a labour market impact assessment so the government will not allow me to support my family. I was given 90 days to submit another application or leave the country immediately if I am not going to submit another application. 

I don't know what to do. Leaving my family makes this worse on all fronts, but to stay I have to pay $350 to apply for temporary residence and I would not be able to work. I could look for another job with an employer who would support a work permit application, and I have been talking to another recruiter who would do what it took to be able to support my application to put me back in that same position but three weeks have already passed and the company can’t wait for me forever, eventually they just have to write me off as a bad investment. Why does the Canadian government need to be paid $1000 for a labour market impact assessment, and require a job opening to be posted for 2 or 3 months on their website before they know that it is impossible to replace a programmer who already has experience working for that company?

Getting a straight answer from Canadian immigration is impossible. Maybe an immigration lawyer would be able to help me but the ones I have talked to state that by the end of it I would owe them somewhere around $5000 and we simply can’t even afford to pay the retainer right now. We need me to be working again urgently before we are bankrupted. I just want to know if there's anyone that can help or at least help to get answers from Citizenship and Immigration Canada. I would like the people that make the immigration rules and force employees to evaluate applications on very set rules that I don't believe fits the situation in every case be forced to actually see the stress and damage this can do to hard working honest people.