Canada’s Immigration Minister Marc Miller has announced plans to get around Quebec’s self-imposed cap on permanent residency (PR) applicants. This is a big step toward speeding up family unity. After months of failed talks, this decision comes after months of talks between Immigration Canada and Quebec to improve the province’s “artificially low” family unity capacity.
Miller said in an interview with Radio-Canada, “We’re talking about people who are husbands, wives, parents, grandparents, and are waiting in vain to be reunited with their families in Quebec.” He called the backlog of applicants a humanitarian disaster and said that fixing it is both the right thing to do and the moral thing to do.
At the moment, Quebec only lets 10,000 people apply for family reunion each year, which is a lot fewer than what is needed. Miller has been trying to get Christine Frechette, who is Quebec’s Immigration Minister, to lift the cap, but he is tired of waiting. In response, Miller has told the federal immigration office to handle all PR applications for family reunifications that have been sent in with the right paperwork from Quebec.
This order will affect around 20,500 applications as of January 31, 2024. Miller has said that Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will continue to give PR to applicants within normal timeframes, even if the backlog gets worse than what Legault’s government set.
Yahoo News says Miller’s choice could make things worse between him and the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government. The CAQ government is already being sued over delays in reuniting families in Quebec. In Quebec, it takes 34 months to process applications for spousal support, while in the rest of Canada it only takes 12 months. In the same way, the wait time for parents or grandparents is 50 months in Quebec and 24 months everywhere else in Canada.
Miller thinks that the raised limit will be very good for Quebec, both officially and ethically, because it will make it easier for families to become part of Quebec society. But Fréchette’s press secretary, Maude Méthot-Faniel, says that the way the federal government is handling things hurts Quebec’s authority and is not acceptable.
Maxime Lapointe, the lawyer for the people who are suing Fréchette, said that he would be happy to drop the case if Ottawa goes through with its plan. Still, many people are against the federal government’s move. One of them is Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, who is the immigration spokesman for the Bloc Québécois and sees it as an invasion of Quebec’s sovereignty.
In response to the news, Fréchette’s office said that Miller’s order went against Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction and emphasized that Quebec is the only one who decides what its permanent immigration goals are.
