Dear Minister,
I have been experiencing emotional cycles of hope and disappointment for my application over the past long years. IRCC promised to finish processing an immigration application in the category of Québec experience program in one year, when I passed my French proficiency exam of B2 to obtain the Certificat de Sélection du Québec in 2016. However, my application was transferred to Hongkong for no apparent reason, after I went back to China in 2016 to look after my family affair. IRCC HK took over my case but kept withholding its decision, failing to establish communication with me in a meaningful manner, especially between 2018 and 2019 when no information update came to my application, and in October 2022 when I was again required to provide my personal history after the age of 18 (I was already 38 years-old by then, it took me a lot of pain to reflect on the past 20 years) and obtain a new non-criminal-record certificate from RCMP for my stay in Canada before May 25, 2016 (I already included a non-criminal-record certificate issued by RCMP in 2016 into my original application, before I left Canada in 2016). It has been a confusing practice of IRCC HK to ask me to take the expensive medical examination first, then either leave me waiting for years before sending me a renewed request of medical examination, or leaving me waiting for many months before granting me a very narrow temporal window to submit various supportive materials. The long delay finally led to upsurge of uncontrollable variables within and without my family, when the Chinese citizens in Shanghai were confined at home in 2022 by the unfair COVID-19 lockdown policy. I was strong enough to withhold depression, but my parents suffered in their old age from all senses of unfairness mixed together. My vision of a new life with my ex-wife in Canada cracked like a bubble, after alienation worn down conjugal relation during the lockdown and post-lockdown period.
From my understanding of IRCC’s department regulations, a delay that more than doubles the normal processing time should be regarded as abnormal. Without tenable justification, the delay should be considered as a denial of the procedure justice to the applicant. Considering that my application was already undergoing background checking early in 2018 (which is confirmed by two official emails from IRCC HK, the first in November 6 2018 and the second in August 26 2019, stating that my application is pending the results of background checks, in response to my inquiries about application progress), and taking into account the official letter I received around January 21 2023, that made extra demand for a recent CV and a non-existing military record of mine (I thereby submitted a solemn statement to declare my non-involvement with any political party and any military organization after the age of 18, despite my master degree in cryptography labelled with the category of military science by Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2010), I believe that the background check on my person, continued over long years by IRCC HK, had been the crucial cause of the long delay in processing my application. The background check procedure had been kept underway, or rather, overstretched under extraordinary conditions, without any conclusion until the beginning of 2023. I find from reliable sources that IRCC agencies normally investigate an applicant’s history over the past five years before the day of application, while I already graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University (where my first master degree is obtained from) in 2010 and obtained a student visa and a CAQ from Canada in 2011, six years before 2016 when my application was submitted. Therefore, I feel the stubborn suspicion from some IRCC HK officer, and I believe that it had been rooted prejudice that had been leading down a winding path for my return to Canada, i.e., lasting but unfounded suspicion of a hidden military record. Under such circumstance, I request a review of the decision-making process over my case, in order to verify the existence of prejudice from IRCC HK.
I fully understand that IRCC HK has the right to reinforce national security and select certain applicants for close scrutiny. But the office should prioritize its function to deliver basic service, regard all applicants as valuable customers and operate in time with transparency. The office should have enough consideration for an applicant’s personal welfare (I think a background checking spanning more than four years should be more than enough to lead to a meaningful conclusion, rather than the eventual little progress reflected by the overdue inquiry in January 21 2023 from the IRCC HK office), sufficient understanding and expectation of difficulties from applicants in special periods (It was still very difficult to enter a notarization institute for my fingerprint certificate in the late half of 2022 in Shanghai in the post-lockdown period. Moreover, it was extremely difficult at that period to mail my fingerprint certificate from China to Canada and obtain the non-criminal-record certificate from RCMP in the given length of one month by IRCC. Consequently, RCMP barely issued the certificate before the deadline of 19 November 2022) and adequate knowledge of recent law updates (The new marriage law in China enacted in the beginning of 2021 prerequires a cooling period of one month officially registered before formal divorce, in my case. IRCC HK agreed to put off the deadline from March 24 2023 to May 24 2023 after I pointed out this requirement in law, so I could barely obtain the divorce certificate before the deadline) in the applicant’s resident country. It is my thought that the office should set a reasonable time length for the investigation, even if they truly regarded me as a potential threat to the national security. Even a timely refusal of the application, based on good reason, could be regarded as a benign act to save extra unnecessary financial and emotional investment from the applicant. Instead, such a long waiting stretched from my early thirties to my late thirties in silence, forming a twisted path of pain and indignity. My ex-wife and I got married in November 2019, then I included her into my permanent residence application in 2020. She started a hope of new life in Canada, but her hope faded through endless waiting, and finally the image of Canada lost appeal to her. I feel very sorry for all the challenges brought to her by the permanent residence application procedure before we proceed to divorce.
