‘All I want is to start a family’: Canadian’s foreign spouse denied visa for Canada

According to lawyers, Canada's family reunification program meant to bring couples together is denying visas at an alarming rate. Adrian Ghobrial reports.

A Canadian trying to move his spouse from Iran to Cape Breton says he feels like his government has abandoned him and his partner.

Speaking to CTV National News from an apartment in Bangkok, Thailand, Cape Bretoner John Charles MacNeil has tears in his eyes.

“It’s been five years of this, and all I want is to be able to settle down at home with my husband and start a family,” he said.

MacNeil and his common-law husband, whose identity CTV News is protecting, have been moving from country to country on temporary visas since 2019 as they’ve tried and failed multiple times to receive a visa to be together in Canada.

MacNeil, who is in a same-sex relationship with his common-law spouse, faces the challenge of his partner’s expiring visa in Bangkok. If his spouse is forced to go back to Iran, he could be persecuted due to his sexuality.

“His life’s in danger,” says the couple’s immigration lawyer, Lana Roberts. “There’s absolutely a threat that officials from Iran could seize his phone and laptop. And if there’s anything in there that shares that he’s in a same-sex relationship, he could be in danger.”

Roberts tells CTV News that her colleagues in immigration law across Canada report a troubling trend: visa applications that appear to check all the boxes, but are nonetheless refused by Canadian government officials.

MacNeil and his spouse met on an online dating app in December 2017. MacNeil’s future life partner lived in Iran and was just beginning his mandatory two years of military service. For the next 24 months, they only connected virtually until they each travelled to Istanbul in 2019.

“The elevator opened and the first words he said to me were ‘Oh my God, you’re real,‘” says MacNeil.

From there, he says it was love at first sight. The couple became engaged and lived together for a number of years in Istanbul, now living in Bangkok. The visa allowing MacNeil’s husband to stay in Thailand expires on April 8th.

The possibility of being separated — potentially forever — is weighing on the couple.

“All I want in this world is to settle down in Cape Breton and have our children go to the same elementary school I went to,” says MacNeil.

Under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the couple submitted two visa applications, one in May and then another in July of 2022. Both requests were denied for “failing to meet the requirements” of the act, according to immigration officials.

In May of 2023, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) launched a family reunification program that claimed to help foreign spouses receive a Canadian visa as they waited for their permanent residency to be approved.

Under the reunification program, the couple filed a new visa request with the IRCC to come to Canada in 2024.

Their paralegal, Chloe Talarico, tells CTV News, “We would never submit an application that we thought would be refused. We felt really strongly about the family reunification measures that, seemingly, was created for a couple just like this.”

Their visa request under the government program was once again refused. Roberts, their immigration lawyer, believes the couple are being wrongly penalized by a government policy that’s meant to bring them together.

“The whole reason they created this was for people in this exact scenario,” says Roberts, who adds that the program was designed “to allow people who are sponsoring their spouse to have their spouse wait with them in Canada to wait for their PR papers to come through.”

The couple are now just days away from being kicked out of Thailand. They’ve been there for months, waiting for an interview with IRCC officials at the Canadian embassy in Bangkok.

In an email, Immigration Canada told CTV News that the IRCC in Bangkok is reviewing the couple’s eligibility and will invite them to an interview if required.

CTV News pressed Immigration Canada and asked if there’s anything they can do to expedite the couple’s case at the Canadian embassy. The IRCC would only reiterate that they’re currently reviewing their file.

In February, Cape Breton MP Mike Kelloway even wrote to then-immigration minister Marc Miller vouching for the couple, highlighting the fact that “the couple have been living in limbo and constant fear of separation for many years, and the situation becomes more dire each day while they wait for a decision.”

With their visa in Thailand expiring, time is in short supply. MacNeil and his spouse have been left to beg the Canadian government for action – in the name of love.

“As a gay person, I never really thought I’d have a normal life, or find somebody that makes me feel the way my husband does, and all I want in this world is to settle down in Cape Breton, together.”