I lived in America for 7 years getting my PhD at an Ivy League university. I was always known among my friends in the States as a proud Canadian and one who generally defended Canadian ideals such as health care and so on. In the end I got a job offer in Canada and was thrilled and proud to move back to the country of my birth.
But I made one mistake: I married a Pakistani.
Now, a year after filing our spousal sponsorship application, I am beginning to feel that the Canadian government does not want to welcome my wife into Canada, and all of my idealism about coming back to Canada is going down the drain. Although we have done much better than a lot of people on this forum, we have been continually disturbed, depressed and frightened by the long waiting times, the nightmarish complications, and especially the impossibility of getting solid advice from anyone, whether lawyers, employers, or the people at CIC itself.
There are so many reasons why my wife is precisely the sort of person who shouldn't be subjected to this stress. For instance:
- she is the wife of a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, and married entirely legally
- she has a Masters degree from an Ivy League university, easily one of the best schools in the world
- she speaks impeccable English, better than many native English speakers
- she is also taking classes in French
- she is the daughter-in-law of the owners of a Canadian business that has been in operation for more than 30 years, and which is worth at least a few million dollars
- she is a member of a minority which is persecuted in Pakistan; her grandfather was murdered by the Taliban during a suicide bombing several years ago
Why, then, is she facing all of these problems?
I've given it as much thought as I can. First of all, it seems to me that the immigration system is simply broken to a large extent (like the myCIC website, which is definitely broken). The system is incredibly complicated, and no one has the answers. Why is it so terrible? It may be incompetence on the part of the government, or an obsession with downsizing everything including the immigration system, or it may, instead of or in addition to these things, be linked to a desire to stop the influx of immigrants from certain "have-not" countries, including most of Asia and Africa. There is no doubt that there are unscrupulous people out there gaming the system to get in. But what the government is doing—well, doesn't it amount to collective punishment?
The question is, how long are we going to stand for this, and how can we, especially those of us who are Canadians, express our disgust with the government's handling of immigration matters? There are so many of us, it seems; surely we could produce some change? I want to feel proud of being a Canadian again!