Rob_TO said:
In my opinion, i agree with Canada using age as a flag for trying to judge if a relationship is legit or not.
Think of it this way... imagine if you're a visa officer and you come across an application of a 25-yr old foreigner, applying for sponsorship after marrying an 80-yr old Canadian. Are you honestly saying there would be no immediate alarm bells going off in your head, no matter what "proofs" were included in the application? No doubt as a VO you would 100% ask for an interview in this case to see in person.
Obviously this is extreme, but what it shows is that at some point age DOES become a legit factor. What differs is a persons opinion about what an acceptable age difference is vs a red flag difference. 20 yrs? 40 yrs? 60 yrs? Every person and culture has different standards, so don't accuse people of being discriminatory when in fact all people would probably be just as discriminatory with a slightly more extreme case.
The visa officers are trained to look for what they call "incompatibility." For example, if an Indian Muslim marries a Canadian Sikh originally from India, the visa officer will say something like "this relationship would never be accepted in India." And then subjects them to what can be a degrading and dehumanizing process that can go as far as asking questions about their sex life. In fact, this is the government of Canada reproducing the very prejudice that might exist in India. It is now Canada, not just India, that is questioning the relationship because it is mixed. Canada is saying a Sikh can't marry a Muslim without being subjected to unfavourable treatment. We would never accept - other than in the immigration context - that India's laws and customs about who can marry whom should be imported into Canada.
Unfortunately, this is not limited to social disapproval in India. If the social disapproval exists in Western countries, such as is the case with age difference, then again they will refer to "incompatibility." Let's not pretend that the notion of "compatibility" is anything other than a proxy for "social acceptability." Visa officers have been known - here on the forum and if you read appeal cases - to make extremely disparaging comments to applicants, which are mostly along the lines of "What do you see in him?" I read about a case of a marriage that was considered phony in Belgium because she was a beautiful African and he was a fat Belgian. The official may have gotten in trouble for writing what they were really thinking, but wouldn't have if only they'd thought it and phrased it nicely in terms of "compatibility." Even if this couple's marriage had been accepted as genuine after being questioned, how do you think they would have felt? Is it worth it to do this to people? Should the government be making official judgments about who is attractive and desirable?
Even when visa officers are tactful enough (or well-trained enough) not to say these things outright, if you read between the lines it's often apparent they're thinking them. The problem is that they are basically trained to say "society would not accept this relationship, so I cannot accept it." Given the authority they have, this also gives them cover to put into practice their own prejudices which they share with some segments of society. But regardless of whether it is their own prejudices or society's, the Canadian government becomes the de facto enforcer of social norms about who can love whom.
Again, I'll refer everyone to the example of racial profiling. If statistics show that for whatever reason members of some ethnic groups are more likely to offend, would that justify that they receive heightened scrutiny from the police? Some people would argue that this would make the police more efficient (analogous to the greater efficiency in rooting out sham marriages). The answer that our society and our courts have given is that this is not acceptable. Any possible gain in efficiency is more than offset by the serious attack racial profiling represents on the dignity of members of the targeted groups. Moreover, practice shows that racial profiling is often closely associated with officers' own prejudices more than with any crime statistics. Likewise, visa officers are human beings with prejudices, but unlike police officers, they're actually given a green light to apply them as long as they can find the right wording.
In spousal sponsorship, the requirement to provide evidence about communication, visits, etc, is non-discriminatory, and already ought to do a good job of identifying phony marriages. Even if a few additional sham marriages could be detected by focusing on "incompatible" ones, I don't think it's worth it to put couples through this on the basis of characteristics such as age, race, religion, etc., or even a visa officer's notion of what makes a person desirable.
If you had a mixed marriage, or a similar one that already caused some people to give you funny looks, how would you feel about the government investigating your relationship for that reason? The implication is generally that the Canadian partner is not desirable for any reason other than their citizenship, and constitutes a sort of official endorsement of the funny looks. This is offensive and has no place in Canada.
