Most readers are far too young to identify with the expression “hurry up and wait”. This expression dates back to the 1940’s and was used to describe the non-combat daily lives of infantrymen during World War II. Nowadays, the same expression applies to preparing for the Canadian immigration process.

In the past, candidates for permanent residency, under most Canadian immigration categories, would submit their applications to a Canadian Visa Office and then wait for a decision, positive or negative, on their file. The law required that every application be assessed and that, in itself, became a big problem for everyone concerned. Processing delays got longer and longer while the backlog of unprocessed applications in all categories grew to almost one million. The end result was that an applicant in the Federal Skilled Worker category, for example, could wait the better part of ten years for a decision on an application.

A few years back, the Canadian government finally decided to deal with this untenable situation, once and for all. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) significantly reduced the intake of fresh applications and mercilessly terminated the applications of almost 300,000 individuals, who had been waiting patiently for their files to be assessed. The desired result of backlog reduction has been achieved and by the end of this year it is expected there will no longer be an inventory of Federal Skilled Worker applications to process.

CIC is determined to never again face a significant backlog of unprocessed applications. To ensure this, CIC now places strict limits/caps on the number of applications that can be received for assessment in most categories of Canadian immigration. Current examples of this relatively new restrictive policy include:

Federal Skilled Workers

• On May 4th, 2013, CIC began accepting applications under the Federal Skilled Worker category. A total of 5,000 applications will be accepted for assessment. Candidates must score 67 points on a selection grid and have at least one year of experience in at least one of 24 eligible occupations. No more than 300 applications will be accepted for assessment in each eligible occupation.

Parent and Grandparent Sponsorship

• On January 2nd, 2014, CIC will again begin accepting sponsorship applications from Canadian citizens and permanent residents on behalf of their parents and/or grandparents. Only 5,000 applications will be accepted for assessment. There are likely about one million Canadian families that would qualify for the opportunity.

Quebec Investor Category

• On August 1, 2013 the Quebec Immigrant Investor Category is rumoured to begin accepting applications again. The number of applications that will be accepted for assessment will likely be less than 2000. The last time that a Canadian immigration program for investors was available, it filled within one day.

So, with caps and limits now permanent fixtures of the Canadian immigration landscape, what is the best strategy to follow for an individual who wants a Canadian Permanent Resident visa? Waiting for a particular program to officially open before beginning the preparation of an application may not be the best course of action. For one thing, there are more than 60 Canadian immigration programs to keep track of.

Perhaps more importantly, when an immigration program opens, it will likely be for a relatively short time and there will be many applicants scrambling to put their documents together and attempting to squeeze through the same narrow doorway. The best advice is to have as much of the application prepared in advance in anticipation of the door opening.

Applicants who choose to prepare in advance do run the risk of being ineligible when a particular program opens. However, for many the risk is well worth the potential reward. So we have the phenomenon of applicants working hard to prepare an application, and then having to wait weeks or months until it can even be submitted.

And this brings us back to the military expression, “hurry up and wait”.

Ponder the following questions:

Why haven’t we seen a drop in unemployment rates for certain groups of job-seekers – recent graduates, new immigrants, aboriginals, the unemployed?

Why aren’t wages increasing, even in high demand occupations?

Why don’t people move from one part of the country to another for a job?

The answer to all of these questions, at least in part, can be found in Canada’s increased reliance on temporary foreign workers. This is especially the case when it comes to workers in lower-wage jobs.

Over 330,000 foreign workers were admitted to Canada in 2011 and this is more than double the number that were admitted just six years ago. The majority of these foreign workers filled low-wage positions.

Consider that more than 20% of net new jobs created in Canada since 2007 have gone to temporary foreign workers, while during the same period the jobless rate for low-skilled workers went from 8.3% to 10.5%. What’s more, it’s hard to argue with the program’s many critics who claim that foreign workers depress wages.

So why does the government persist with bringing in ever-larger numbers of workers from abroad? The knee-jerk response is that the Conservatives lie down with big business and the latter prefers its workforce to be vulnerable and compliant. Maybe that’s the case, but I suspect there is more at play here.

The vast majority of voters are unhappy, to say the least, with the idea of foreign workers competing with locals for Canadian jobs. The decision-makers in Ottawa are anything but dumb and are acutely aware of voters’ feelings. Turning off the tap on foreign workers is simple enough, but then what? Do we let workers’ wages rise to the point where the people in Canada agree to be hired?

What happens, for example, to the price of a cup of coffee at Tim Horton’s when we replace the low salaries of foreign worker counter attendants with the higher salaries demanded by Canadian workers? Voters having to pay more in their everyday lives are voters who look for a change. This is not lost on the powers-that-be.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada is patting itself on the back these days for having reduced the backlog of permanent resident applications by forty percent since its high water mark in 2008.

When it comes to the processing of citizenship applications, however, the same government department is far less effusive with self-praise. And with good reason. Not that long ago, a routine citizenship application would move through the system in about one year. Today, the average processing time on a run-of-the-mill application is 23 months – even longer in some parts of the country. Keep in mind, the option to apply only arrives after three years of permanent residency status.

Worse still is the plight of anyone whose case is not routine. About twenty percent of applicants fall into this category and they are required to complete a ‘residence questionnaire’ to demonstrate that they have actually been residing in Canada. Supporting documents such as pay stubs, tax returns and airline tickets must be submitted as evidence of time spent in Canada. Fair enough, I suppose, if there is a suspicion of misrepresentation. After all, people have been known to scam the system and pretend to have resided in Canada when in fact they have not.

The problem is not in vetting citizenship applications, but rather in the time it is taking to complete the verification. The processing time for these more complicated applications is approximately five years from the date of initial submission, which makes it about nine years from the time the individual first landed in Canada.

No surprise that these would-be Canadians are angry and frustrated. Who wouldn’t be if they had worked, paid taxes and did all the things that Canadian citizens are expected to do but yet are not afforded the full rights and benefits of Canadian citizenship? If the government is truly committed to creating a ‘faster, more flexible’ immigration system, this undertaking should not cease once newcomers settle in Canada.

When it comes to Canadian immigration, actually quite a bit is in a name, especially if the name is “Murphy” or “Sharma”.

Canada has become a magnet for young unemployed and underemployed workers from Ireland. The Murphys of the world and their countrymen have seen a dramatic rise in their fortunes when it comes to Canadian immigration. They are among the beneficiaries of Canada’s International Experience Class (IEC) of immigration. Under the program, Irish citizens below the age of 36, can come and work in Canada for up to two years, without a prearranged job. After one year of skilled work in Canada, they can apply for a Canadian permanent resident visa.

What was once the domain of backpackers looking for a working holiday has become an easy pathway to Canadian citizenship for down-on-their-luck Irish engineers, lawyers, and tradespersons. There is no doubting the popularity of the IEC visa program. This year’s allotment of 6350 free passes was scooped up in a couple of days. But despair not Irish readers, next year our Immigration Minister plans to raise the quota to 10,000, which will mark a 100% increase from 2011.

Contrast the foregoing with the likely Canadian immigration experience of someone named “Sharma”. For one thing, there is no program that allows citizens of India to come work in Canada without an arranged job offer from a Canadian employer. Even with a genuine offer of employment, it is hit or miss as to whether Canadian visa officers will issue a work permit. As likely as not, the work permit application will be refused because it is felt that the applicant will not leave Canada when the visa expires, on the grounds of “insufficient ties to the home country” and “poor prospects for employment in the home country”.

In essence, it is much easier to come work and then immigrate to Canada, without a job offer, from Ireland than it is to come work and then immigrate to Canada, with a job offer, from India. It does seem to smack of unequal treatment. Why would our officials think that an unemployed Irish national without an arranged job offer in Canada is more likely to leave Canada when his/her visa expires than the employed citizen of India with a job waiting in Canada?

On a related matter, it strikes me as quite unfair to put out the welcome mat for thousands of Europe’s “poor and huddled masses” while at the same time terminating the permanent resident applications of almost 300,000 individuals from Asia and Africa, who followed the rules and waited patiently, year after year, for a chance to come to Canada.

Earlier this month, the Federal Court heard arguments in a number of joined cases against the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in relation to the government’s plan to terminate almost 98,000 Skilled Worker permanent resident applications. Including dependents, some 280,000 people will be affected by the court’s decision.

The lawyers who appeared before Justice Rennie on behalf of the applicants were my co-counsel Mario Bellissimo as well as Lorne Waldman, Rocco Galati, Matthew Jeffery and Lawrence Wong. I commend all of them for their demeanor and persuasive presentations.

Each lawyer attacked the government’s position on separate grounds but with the common goal of striking down the legislation that permits the Immigration Minister to toss out the applications before assessing them. Bear in mind that some applicants have been waiting in line for more than seven years.

Mr. Bellissimo’s main argument, put forth on behalf of our clients, is that the enabling legislation, subsection 87.4 (I) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) violates subsection 15 (I) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the Charter).

It is submitted that the manner in which Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) processes applications for permanent residence leads to discrimination on the basis of an applicant’s national origin, an enumerated ground under subsection 15 (I) of the Charter. This is so because applicants may only submit their application to specified visa offices for processing, depending upon either their country of legal residence or their country of citizenship.

Processing times at different visa offices vary greatly and as a result an individual’s national origin will determine the rate at which his or her application is processed. CIC prioritizes certain visa offices – and thus certain nationalities – over others and therefore termination of applications at this stage will disproportionately affect those applicants who submitted to visa offices not prioritized by CIC. Consequently, it is argued that subsection 87.4 (I) is contrary to the Charter and should be struck down as having no force or effect.

To support his position, Mr. Bellissimo relied upon statistics which indicate that visa offices in the Americas and Europe managed to process approximately 90% of their backlogged applications while visa offices in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia only processed about 40% of their backlogged inventory.

To be fair, it should be noted that the Immigration Minister, through counsel, has responded to all of the arguments raised by the applicants and has asserted the right of Parliament to pass legislation it deems proper in the circumstances.

Now we await Justice Rennie’s decision. Even that may not bring this saga to an end, as the losing side will have the opportunity to appeal.

It is a trite, but true, saying that the measure of a society lies in its treatment of its weakest and most helpless citizens. By this standard Canada comes up quite small, particularly when you consider the treatment accorded to one young and extremely vulnerable Canadian citizen.

Sabreena Shabdeen is in a precarious position through no fault of her own. She is a 17 year-old with significant autism and resides with her parents in Paterson, New Jersey. Her parents have an appointment with US immigration authorities in the coming days and face the prospect of being deported to Sri Lanka, their country of nationality. They have decided that, given the circumstances, Sabreena would be better off if she were to return to Canada, the country of her birth.

Canadian authorities are aware of all the relevant facts and, while they don’t deny Sabreena’s right to live in Canada, have done precious little to assist her.

Ontario Youth Services advised that there was nothing they could do until Sabreena makes her way into the province. How she gets there is not their problem.

The Department of Foreign Affairs, tasked with assisting Canadians in distress abroad, was just as dismissive. They suggested Sabreena apply for a Sri Lankan passport.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) refused to allow Sabreena’s parents permission to enter Canada temporarily for the purpose of participating in Sabreena’s psychological assessment and the establishment of a Life Plan by an accredited Ontario health service provider. They did this even though the health service provider advised that it was essential that the parents participate in the process because Sabreena, for the most part, does not communicate in a meaningful way.

CIC’s decision to refuse entry to Sabreena’s parents is based, in part, on the belief that they will not leave Canada at the end of their temporary stay. In the past, they had made an unsuccessful asylum claim in Canada. CIC’s decision is, in my opinion, a red herring because there are enforcement provisions in the law that would allow CIC to remove Sabreena’s parents, if they fall out of status.

The decision to refuse entry is now being challenged in the Federal Court, but is not likely to be heard and decided for a number of months.

Sabreena’s case underlines the challenges faced by Canadians with disabilities. As if life itself isn’t tough enough.

You can read more about this story in a recent Globe and Mail article.