Minister Chris Alexander appears to be mulling making changes to the criteria for acceptance of applicants being sponsored by the partners and spouses in Canada. Specifically, the Minister is thinking about making potential Applicants meet minimum proficiency in one of the two official languages before being granted permission to enter Canada as well as have sponsors meet minimum income requirements.
There does not appear to be any articulated rationale for requiring language proficiency as a spouse.
Language proficiency is required for most economic class immigrants. There are good reasons for this requirement. Economic immigrants who have language proficiency integrate more easily, are able to find work more easily and therefore are able to become successful in Canada more so than individuals without such abilities in English or French. Spouses have never been required to meet language requirements for the simple fact that the government has never sought to meddle in or dictate in affairs of the heart.
Unsurprisingly, we see this as yet another misguided, mistaken and foolish potential change to the Act. Obviously such a requirement would clearly and unequivocally impact certain sub-groups of the immigrant population worse than other groups which would result in unjustifiable differential treatment. It goes without saying that sponsored spouses from European countries, the United Stated or Commonwealth or Francophone countries to more easily pass language proficiency test than individuals from Latin America, China or other parts of Asia. Should it be easier to sponsor your spouse simply because you were lucky enough to find a partner from an English speaking or Francophone country as opposed to Latin America or Asia? Given that one of the main purposes of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is to reunite families, why should some families be favoured for reunification over others?
The current test for sponsorship of spouses is an assessment of whether the relationship between the sponsor and applicant is genuine. This should remain the criteria. In the face of clear negative and differential outcomes to Canadians, there is simply no empirical evidence to justify this change. We will leave the proposed income and education minimums for another day, but this is flawed thinking and would be flawed policy.
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