60-day deadline to the Minister of Immigration of Quebec to resolve delayed family reunification cases

The legal pursuit of a Quebec immigration lawyer has led to the announcement of a 60-day deadline for Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Freicht to resolve long-standing delays in processing family reunification immigration cases or face the issue before the Quebec Supreme Court.

In this 60-day deadline, in addition to Quebec's immigration minister, Mark Miller, his counterpart in the federal government, is also the target of criticism.

Maxime Lapointe, an immigration lawyer whose legal pursuits led to a 60-day ultimatum to Quebec's immigration minister, told RadioCanada that the average waiting time of 41 months for a Quebecer to review a case of “joining a foreign spouse” is unusual in Canada. It shows a large gap in the standard of service of immigration cases in the province of Quebec compared to the rest of Canada.

The average waiting time for family reunification cases in other Canadian provinces is about 12 months. The 41-month waiting time in Quebec has caused more than 40,000 “family reunification” cases to be in the waiting line. The situation of these cases in the province of Quebec was bad enough until the Quebec government reduced the quota of these cases to 10,400 cases per year, and this caused a bigger crisis.

However, Maxime Lepoint and the Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association (AQAADI) take the Canada-Quebec immigration agreement, which defines the role of each government in immigration matters, that the provincial government does not have the power to impose quota restrictions on “family reunification” immigration cases. .

This immigration lawyer points the finger of accusation towards the Federal Immigration Department because the Federal Immigration Department has exceeded the immigration agreement between the two governments by complying with the quota limit imposed by Quebec.

He asked the federal immigration department to review all the family reunification cases related to the province of Quebec that have passed 12 months since they were sent, and asked Quebec to cancel the quota limit, otherwise he will take the case to the Supreme Court of Quebec within the next 60 days. The offices of the federal and Quebec immigration ministers have not yet reacted.

@parsikhabarcanada