Actually there were close to 194,000 new arrivals in France alone in 2012 (http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/03/29/le-nombre-d-immigres-entres-en-france-en-2012-est-reste-stable_3150336_3224.html), 52,000 of which were spousal/family visas. Germany, UK & others surely rival those stats, so Canada not that unique. Granted these countries have bigger bureaucracies than Canada to handle it, but I think the big difference especially in spousal areas is the basic right in EU law of family reunification for all its citizens. There is more "benefit of a doubt" as it were, and they leave some of the "proving" and other bureaucratic hoops to be carried out from within the country. So at least you can be with your loved one(s) while doing it. Visa processing fees are much less than Canada's but getting set up (health insurance, driver's licence etc.) involves greater expenditure and bureaucracy so maybe that dissuade scammers? And the only requirement to being allowed to immediately look for work is mandatory completion of French training (paid by the state) that is really basic level stuff. Of course it's also tougher to find a good job without a decent level of French but if you're at least there you're going to learn (is maybe how they see it?). Don't understand how we cannot do the same kind of thing in Canada - assuming couples are 'real' until proven 'fake' rather than the inverse, it often seems. And yes immediate expulsion for anyone who does try to cheat the system. Since embarking on this adventure I've often said this could be a great subject for someone's university thesis, how did it get to this? Just look back to 2012 on this forum, processing times were easily 50% shorter in many cases, that's not right.
