Trudeau pushing softer approach to temporary visas, less focus on risk of overstaying
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he's pushing Canada's immigration system to soften its approach to processing visa applications and put less focus on the risk of visitors overstaying their short-term visas.
"We're also trying to do a better job around temporary visas," Trudeau said Friday.
"The system -- I'll be honest -- is still based around, 'Prove to me that you won't stay if you come,' right?" he said, arguing that it is easier for applicants to "convince" immigration officials to grant them visas if they have "a good job and a home and a house and a good status back home."
On the other hand, people who are strongly motivated to be in Canada for family reasons could be seen by officials as more likely to overstay, he suggested: "If your mom talks about how much she loves you and just wants to be there (in Canada), and you're there all alone, that's scary."
Trudeau made the remarks Friday during an hour-long meeting with about 25 Algonquin College nursing students in Ottawa. Many of them told him they are international students, and a handful mentioned visa issues.
During a question-and-answer session, one international student recounted being hospitalized for seven months and feeling isolated. She told the prime minister her mother had tried twice to get a visa to come visit her, but both applications were rejected.
Trudeau responded that it is vital for Canadians to have faith in the integrity of their immigration system. But he also suggested that he had asked Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to take a less defensive posture when issuing visas.
"We have to stop saying 'Well, it would be a bad people, a bad thing, if these people were to choose to stay,"' Trudeau said. "Our immigration minister, Sean Fraser, is working very, very hard on trying to shift the way we look at immigration and make sure that we're bringing people in."
The prime minister told the student that the Immigration Department made the wrong call in deciding not to admit her mother.
"It would seem unfair to Canadians and to all sorts of people if there was a back door. These are all the things we're trying to balance," Trudeau said. "But I absolutely hear you. Your mom should have been able to come and see you."
Trudeau added that the federal immigration system is challenged by Canada's need to fill labour gaps and by numerous crises abroad that are causing people to flee their homes.
Trudeau also said Ottawa has to do a better job helping immigrants thrive. Otherwise, he said, Canadians' warm feelings toward immigration could chill.
"An anti-immigration party would have a hard time succeeding in Canada, because so many Canadians understand how important that is," Trudeau said. "We need to protect the fact that Canadians are pro-immigration."
For example, he said there must be enough housing stock for newcomer families to establish themselves without breeding resentment among the Canadian-born population. But he suggested immigration could also help solve that problem.
"There's a labour shortage in the construction industry and building houses. So as we bring in more people who can build houses, we will solve some of the housing shortage," said Trudeau.
"There are solutions in this. Part of it is shifting the attitudes. Part of it is also just improving our ability to process (applications) using proper digital means and computer means."
Fraser's office confirmed that work is underway to look at how Ottawa issues visas for relatives of people already in Canada.
"Reuniting families is a pillar of Canada's immigration system," the minister's spokeswoman, Bahoz Dara Aziz, said in a statement. "We continue to be guided by principles of fairness and compassion, and work to explore all avenues possible in bringing people together with their loved ones."
Canada's visa denials and processing delays have made global headlines in the past year, with citizens of developing countries finding themselves unable to attend global conferences hosted in Canadian cities.
This week, the International Studies Association went public with its struggles to get visas for hundreds of people set to attend a Montreal conference next month.
Despite presenting plane tickets, income data and evidence of funding they received to attend the conference, many attendees, including panellists, have been denied on the grounds that they can't demonstrate a likelihood of returning home when the event is over.
The issues follow an uproar last year over the denial of visas for multiple African delegates to the International AIDS Conference, also held in Montreal, which had some accusing Canada of racism.
Data updated Tuesday show that visa applications take an average of 217 days to process for people based in Britain. It's 212 days for people in France.
While citizens of those countries don't need visitor visas to come to Canada, academics from many developing countries who are based in Paris or London do need a visa to attend a conference Canada.
The Immigration Department did not respond to the concerns until after The Canadian Press published an article Wednesday.
"IRCC works collaboratively with organizers of international events taking place in Canada to help co-ordinate processing of temporary resident visa applications for delegates or participants to Canada," spokesman Jeffrey MacDonald said in an email.
"We are committed to the fair and non-discriminatory application of immigration procedures. We take this responsibility seriously, and officers are trained to assess applications equally against the same criteria."
The department said the complexity and accuracy of information in a visa application can influence how quickly IRCC processes it, in addition to the staffing and resources of offices that handle the requests.
But the department also noted that the processing times it posts online are often not "reflective of reality."
That's because the estimate is based on how long it took officials to process 80 per cent of applications in the previous six to eight weeks. Those include long-backlogged cases.
"Processing times can be skewed by outliers, in particular applications from our older inventory that were previously on hold for a long period of time and are now being processed," MacDonald wrote.
"Once this backlog of applications is cleared, we will start to see processing times more reflective of reality."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2023.
IN DEPTH
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
Trudeau, key election players to testify at foreign interference hearings. What you need to know
The public hearings portion of the federal inquiry into foreign interference in Canadian elections and democratic institutions are picking back up this week. Here's what you need to know.
Who is supporting, opposing new online harms bill?
Now that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's sweeping online harms legislation is before Parliament, allowing key stakeholders, major platforms, and Canadians with direct personal experience with abuse to dig in and see what's being proposed, reaction is streaming in. CTVNews.ca has rounded up reaction, and here's how Bill C-63 is going over.
As Poilievre sides with Smith on trans restrictions, former Conservative candidate says he's 'playing with fire'
Siding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on her proposed restrictions on transgender youth, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre confirmed Wednesday that he is against trans and non-binary minors using puberty blockers.
TREND LINE What Nanos' tracking tells us about Canadians' mood, party preference heading into 2024
Heading into a new year, Canadians aren't feeling overly optimistic about the direction the country is heading, with the number of voters indicating negative views about the federal government's performance at the highest in a decade, national tracking from Nanos Research shows.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'They needed people inside Air Canada:' Police announce arrests in Pearson gold heist
Police say one former and one current employee of Air Canada are among the nine suspects that are facing charges in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year.
House admonishes ArriveCan contractor in rare parliamentary show of power
MPs enacted an extraordinary, rarely used parliamentary power on Wednesday, summonsing an ArriveCan contractor to appear before the House of Commons where he was admonished publicly and forced to provide answers to the questions MPs said he'd previously evaded.
Trump lawyers say Stormy Daniels refused subpoena outside a Brooklyn bar, papers left 'at her feet'
Donald Trump's legal team says it tried serving Stormy Daniels a subpoena as she arrived for an event at a bar in Brooklyn last month, but the porn actor, who is expected to be a witness at the former president's criminal trial, refused to take it and walked away.
Why drivers in Eastern Canada could see big gas price spikes, and other Canadians won't
Drivers in Eastern Canada face a big increase in gas prices because of various factors, especially the higher cost of the summer blend, industry analysts say.
Customers disappointed after email listing $60K Tim Hortons prize sent in error
Several Tim Horton’s customers are feeling great disappointment after being told by the company that an email stating they won a boat worth nearly $60,000 was sent in error.
Woman who pressured boyfriend to kill his ex in 2000s granted absences from prison
A woman who pressured her boyfriend into killing his teenage ex more than a decade ago will be allowed to leave prison for weeks at a time.
'A living nightmare': Winnipeg woman sentenced following campaign of harassment against man after online date
A Winnipeg woman was sentenced to house arrest after a single date with a man she met online culminated in her harassing him for years, and spurred false allegations which resulted in the innocent man being arrested three times.
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter banned from NBA
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter has been handed a lifetime ban from The National Basketball Association (NBA) following an investigation which found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors, the league says.
Attempt to have murder charge quashed against alleged serial killer dismissed by judge
A motion filed by the man accused of killing four Indigenous women in Winnipeg to have one of those murder charges quashed has been dismissed by the judge – weeks before the start of his trial.
Local Spotlight
Marmot in the city: New resident of North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale a 'rock star rodent'
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
Relocated seal returns to Greater Victoria after 'astonishing' 204-kilometre trek
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Ottawa barber shop steps away from Parliament Hill marks 100 years in business
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
'It was a special game': Edmonton pinball player celebrates high score and shout out from game designer
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
'How much time do we have?': 'Contamination' in Prairie groundwater identified
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.
'Why not do it together?': Lifelong friends take part in 'brosectomy' in Vancouver
While many people choose to keep their medical appointments private, four longtime friends decided to undergo vasectomies as a group in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.
Grain-gobbling bears spark 'no stopping' zone in Banff National Park
A popular highway in Alberta's Banff National Park now has a 'no stopping zone' to help protect two bears.
Deer family appears to accept B.C. man as one of their own
B.C. resident Robert Conrad spent thousands of hours on Crown land developing an unusual bond with deer.
Doorbell video shows family of black bears scared off by dog in Sudbury, Ont.
A Sudbury woman said her husband was bringing the recycling out to the curb Wednesday night when he had to make a 'mad dash' inside after seeing a bear.