Wednesday, December 05, 2018

Illegals Welcome, Legal Immigrants Not So Much

"We have followed every rule and done everything right, from the beginning to the end."
"We hired lawyers and consultants to help us with the process, we have invested all of our savings here in Canada, our children are honour students and love it here, and now the government says we don't qualify, so I really don't understand."
Guillermo Rojas Vertiz Cervantes, 44, industrial engineer

"It's very stressful. And despite all this stress, we have never been as happy as we have been here."
"We love the peace and security here."
"In Mexico, we had to be more on alert for our children, but here we can let them be a bit more free, and that holds a lot of value, but we have paid a very heavy price to enjoy that."
Irma Vertiz Canut, psychologist, early childhood educator
Guillermo Cervantes and his wife Irma Rojas Vertiz Canut are relieved to receive a two-year extension on their work permit, which was scheduled to expire on Dec. 1.   Photo credit: Bruce Campbell/Western Wheel

"It is incongruent for two departments of the Canadian government to find, on exactly the same facts, that Mr. Vertiz is an employee for the purpose of income taxation -- but self-employed for the purposes of permanent residence, particularly when they are all applying essentially the same test."
Michael Greene, lawyer

"I'm not exaggerating when I say this, but I have never met higher quality people, ever."
"They are kind, hard-working, educated, articulate, loving. I love them. I really do. They are everything that Canada should want to roll out the red carpet for, and yet the way they've been treated has been shameful."
"I've never been more embarrassed for Canada."
Inge French, local real estate agent, Okotoks, Alberta

"This [two-year work visa extension] gives us some additional time to work on the permanent residency, but this obviously takes a lot of the pressure off for right now. We are working through some different scenarios to move this along — some different strategies for their permanent residency being processed over the next few months, but the best news is we got some time."
"They [office constituency staff] did a lot of work with the minister’s office and I met with Minister Hussen [Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship] on Wednesday and explained the situation and asked him to intervene on the permanent residency application." "A lot of the issue comes down to the two definitions the CRA [Canada Revenue Agency] has as self-employed and what Canada Immigration has as self–employed."
"It was brought to our attention that there is a discrepancy there and it is something the government has to address. Hopefully, they can take a look at it and find some harmony between those two definitions so others don’t have to suffer."
Member of Parliament, John Barlow (Conservative)
For the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau the tens of thousands of illegal migrants entering Canada from the U.S./Canada border, deliberately bypassing official points of entry, to declare themselves 'refugees' when they're stopped by the RCMP, due process must proceed, to recognize the status of economic migrants as 'refugees' as they have declared and to provide housing and welfare for these illegals until such time as their refugee applications have been processed to determine whether they are admissible to Canada in the declared category.

It will take years for these applications to be processed, given the enormous backlog and the relative paltry number of applications processed at the present time. Which means that all of the illegal entrants will be provided with housing, welfare, medical attention, schooling for years. Those whose applications will be turned down will be enabled to appeal at various levels, yet another process guaranteed to take years while the applicants keep drawing welfare and other social services. An estimated $14,000 in initial costs for each claimant has been assessed by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

And then there is the family of Guillermo Cervantes and Irma Canut and their two children, son Guillermo Jr., 12, and daughter Constance, 15, living in Okotoks, Alberta who have used their own savings to establish residence in Canada. Over $1-million of it has been brought into the local economy with their hiring of local architects, consultants, builders, carpenters and lawyers as they strive to open their own business. They made formal application to immigrate to Canada from Mexico.

Irma Canut works two jobs; one at an Okotoks daycare, and another at a foundation established to give aid to children with special needs. She is also an artist producing paintings and sculptures. They had visited Canada as tourists in 2012, liked what they saw and decided to emigrate from their home country of Mexico and become, they hoped, Canadian citizens. They chose Okotoks, Alberta as a perfect place to live, where their children would feel welcomed and part of society in a friendly atmosphere. And they planned to open a restaurant.

On July 31 an immigration officer ruled that the family's application for permanent resident status in Canada through Express Entry under the Canadian Experience Class was refused. Refused on the basis that his employment from September 2013 to May 2018 was in the "self-employed" category, not as an employee. Yet their entry to Canada was based on their plans to open a business of their own, Cafe Cancun. They sought legal advice and ended up having Irma Canut hire Guillermo Vertiz her husband, as the cafe manager.

Ruling that Guillermo Vertiz is an employee Canada Revenue Agency found that though husband and wife are related "we concluded that you would have had a substantially similar contract of employment if you were not related". (?) Leaving their lawyers to seek reconsideration of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada's decision to deny the family permanent residency. Eventually, their Member of Parliament got involved and managed to have the work permit for the couple extended.

However, without permanent residence status, they cannot take out loans to continue their business plans. It is the Liberal government's position that people streaming illegally over the border into Canada "should be treated with compassion". This 'progressive'-labelled government is open to welcoming people who break Canadian law, lie and connive as prospective future citizens. But the absurd bureaucratic-rules plight of a family anxious to profit Canada by their presence, paying their own way in the process is left to flounder.

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