Thanks
@canuck78 for your objective outlook. I agree that PR isn't guaranteed and Canada has Supervisa and PGP in place for family reunification. However, PGP hasn't opened since 2020. I still blame myself for not entering the pool when it was open in 2020 (I was eligible, but I made an error during currency conversion and thought I didn't meet the financial criteria in 2018 when I clearly did). Right now, my mom doesn't have the option to enter the pool. Only other option left is SuperVisa which she already has. Tragically though since the Visa is linked to her passport both are expiring in Apr 2024. Life is fragile and cannot wait for an unknown to work in our favour. I am not alone in saying that our parents need us now. No one has seen tomorrow.
I agree that H&C is not meant to circumvent parent specific programs. Canada does have a decision to make. Either allow family reunifications or be ready to accept that high tax paying individuals (top 5%) will leave Canada. Canada needs to stop treating immigrants as cash cows.
Family reunification by Canada’s definition are spouses and children under 22 it used to be 18 but Canada recognized that children are rarely independent at age 18 these days. Parent and grandparent sponsorship was never guaranteed. It isn’t guaranteed and often not possible at all in countries with access to public education. I agree that Canada should be more open with the fact that parent sponsorship is not guaranteed and you should not move to Canada if you would be happy without living with your parents and grandparents. There are no shortage of people who will still come to Canada. There have been long periods of time when parent sponsorship was not possible and people still immigrated. There is zero proof that higher income earners will leave. This has not been the case in other countries that do not allow parent sponsorship. Immigration is a two way street. Most immigrating or coming to Canada are benefiting in their own way. Canada gives out citizenship very easily for example. There are no shortage of H1B workers from the US who come to Canada for 3 years and leave. They will leave as soon as they qualify for Canadian citizenship and never had any intention of living longterm in Canada. Thos forum has lots of posts wanting to know where the least expensive schools are located and while also being able to secure employment. How to get accepted to a school without caring about what type of program, the qualify of the education, what program will give you the best future in Canada, etc. International students attending pretty poor quality schools are not coming to Canada to study they are in Canada to work and try to secure PR. Provinces need to close the degree mills but this won’t stop half of the fact that half of international students coming to Canada are not genuine students they are coming to Canada to work and secure PR. This is a worldwide issue when it comes to international students. Lots of international students who arrive and disappear
the underground economy while in Canada there are opportunities to get PR as an international student. Many countries don’t provide a pathway to PR for international students or make it much more difficult. Many students also are taking out loans 6+ months before applications in order to be able to show that they have the savings to pay for schooling in Canada. The international students are also trying to get something from Canada. The ironic thing about the fact that people claim that immigrants are being treated as cash cows by Canada when it is typically their own community members that are typically the ones taken advantage of them the most. Go to Brampton, Surrey, Richmond, Richmond hill, etc. and see who is charging a fortune to rent a room or a bed, see who is hiring people to work for cash under minimum wage, who is selling/trying to sell LMIAs, etc.
I am very sorry that you lost your father but if you have used the healthcare system you also realize that the system can not accept an unlimited amount of seniors who will likely never pay Canadian taxes. Realistically if you work in healthcare you know that Canada can’t absorb any more people especially seniors. As PRs they would qualify for healthcare programs and almost free access to things like drugs, dental care, etc. and after 10 years likely OAS, GIS, etc. I also see the hundreds of thousands of others waiting patiently in line to sponsor their parents who are in the exact same situation as your mother or your parents and feel bad for those following the rules, waiting for their turn to be selected while on a supervisa or coming to visit every once in a while (like many Canadian grandparents) who realize that their situation is no different than others don’t apply for H&C. There is an influx of H&C applications for parents after PR selection criteria is announced for the year and after every draw so people do try to use the H&C system as a parent sponsorship program if you don’t get selected. The wait list for H&C has skyrocketed in good part because there hasn’t been a new EOI for PGP which Is not what H&C is supposed to be used for. It has also skyrocketed because knowing the government couldn’t justify increasing PGP quota they increased the length of visit on a supervisa to 5-7 years. Some bureaucrat in IRCC or consultant was extremely unrealistic when created this plan and thinks that most won’t interpret a 5-7 year visit as a permanent move and assumes parents will be happy to return home after 7 years. Realistically it will likely be the next government’s problem to deal with. With the crisis in healthcare hopefully some politician and the media will start being honest about the feasibility of supervisa and PGP and the use of H&C to try to sponsor parents meaning the quota announced for PGP does not reflect the reality of seniors remaining in Canada. Instead everyone talks about these issues off the record and behind closed doors. Before anyone says supervisa applicants have to have their own insurance it is emergency medical insurance, it only provides 100k of coverage which is not a lot, the big issue in healthcare is resources like staffing so even with insurance someone without provincial insurance is taking up a bed, a gurney in the ER, etc.and most do not use the repatriation function of supervisa insurance so eventually need to pay out of pocket and many don’t have the funds. Many are offered a payment plan which in many cases goes unpaid especially because we often allow the foreign national who is sick to sign up to reimburse the hospital. When the patient dies there is no more repayment. Even if the Canadian takes responsibility for a payment plan the reimbursement rate is often an extremely low amount per month since many are living paycheque to paycheque so in the and the hospital has to try to absorb a lot of unpaid medical debt. Hospitals are already short of money so any extra debt they have to absorb means a cut to services somewhere. I know that in your case you did pay for all the case your father received which is not common.
For those who don’t want to read what I wrote the summary is that Canada needs to have an open discussion about whether parent and grandparent sponsorship is actually feasible and whether it is fair to allow only a small fraction of those wanting to sponsor their parents and grandparents to sponsor without a timeframe of when it will actually happen. Would it make more sense to say no parent and grandparent sponsorship especially give our healthcare crisis which is set to get worse over time and allow families to make educated decisions about whether immigrating to Canada makes sense for their family. Allowing people to try and circumvent the existing policies are leading to extremely long wait time for H&C applications which are extremely expensive to process (fees don’t come close to covering costs).