Drimonis: Amid immigration crackdown, it's callous to target family reunifications
My heart sank for them. I thought of Evgeny and his wife, Anastasiia. Jean-Sébastien and his husband, Paolo. Léa and her husband, Ilkay. The Quebecer-half of these couples are now paying the price for having fallen in love and married a foreigner and wanting to start a life with them here.
I thought of all the other unknown couples still separated, not to mention those who have left the province, unwilling to put their lives on hold because of unreasonable delays.
The Immigration Ministry's suspension of applications didn't come as a surprise. The Coalition Avenir Québec government had already announced it was slashing applications by half until June 2026 and would process a maximum of 13,000 applications on a first come, first served basis, leaving 40,000 couples reeling. This most recent announcement can be expected to create more backlogs next year.
Quebec's processing times are nothing to be proud of, according to a study prepared for Québec réunifié, a non-partisan organization supporting these families. Whereas for the rest of Canada the study put the average wait times for family reunifications at 12 months, the Quebec figures were up to three times greater to bring over a spouse or a child from abroad.
Further, Quebec wait times were found to be the worst among G7 and G20 countries the study examined. Not the kind of global list I want to see Quebec topping.
Marie-Gervaise Pilon, a spokesperson for Québec réunifié, was lucky enough to succeed in bringing her husband William here from England last year — and stubbornly continues to fight for couples still separated. The teacher has spent a good chunk of her summer vacation online raising awareness and dispeling myths about family reunification.
The 'green card marriage' is one of those myths.
'The level of scrutiny at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is so high that if someone were trying to 'con' the system they're better off attempting to apply in another category,' says Pilon, who notes that family reunification affects primarily partners and children — young people who are net contributors and rarely a large burden on our social services.
Setting limits on family reunification is something I will never understand. Splitting up families, sometimes for years on end, seems inhumane to me.
Even if the Legault government favours the performative optics of 'cracking down' on immigration, family reunification should be the last area to target. Those who have sponsors are less of a financial burden on the system and already have a place to live and built-in integration system thanks to those sponsors.
Ironically, in the revised Skilled Worker Selection Program, the Immigration Ministry acknowledges that having family ties in Quebec is among the factors key to successful adaptation for applicants.
Arbitrarily limiting this category seems punitive and nonsensical — especially in light of a recent Léger poll showing 64 per cent of Quebecers agree family reunification should be prioritized.
In anticipation of public consultations on Quebec's immigration plan for 2026–2029, Québec réunifié is documenting the real-life mental-health and economic impacts of sponsorship processing delays, hoping to convince the government to show a little more reason. And heart.
Pilon is right to call the government's moves 'callous.' She says the latest news has been met with 'anger and tears.' Newlyweds, she tells me, are the ones most affected by the suspension.
'When we see families torn apart by ICE in the U.S. right now, we're understandably horrified,' she says. 'Just because these families are not forcibly separated by police officers does not make it OK or any less brutal. It's still bureaucratic violence.'
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