Stewart Sharma Harsanyi Immigration Law Firm Blog

Live in Caregivers and the Hurdles they Face to Stay in Canada

My client is a 40 year old woman from the Philippines. Trained as a dressmaker, she came here 6 years ago as a temporary foreign worker. Unfortunately, she, like many other foreign workers were exploited. She would work at one position during the week and told to do unpaid work on the weekends. Constrained by her obligations (her school age children back home; her common-law is without work and her father has a serious and ongoing health condition) she kept quiet, but luckily found a family that needed a caregiver. The family had obtained a Labour Market Opinion (now called a Labour Market Impact Assessment) to allow them to hire a foreign national. What the employer, and my client did not know however, was that a "LIC" work permit needs to be issued outside Canada (and you need to enter Canada as a LIC). Apparently neither did the immigration officers out of CPC Vegreville, because they issued just such a work permit. They also extended it. The next work permit that followed expressly advised as to my client's eligibility to apply for permanent residence under the LIC program. Because of this, my client applies for permanent residence once she met... Read more →

Chris Alexander, Rosemary Barton and Canada's Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis

The plight of Syrian refugees has never been so heartbreakingly rendered by a single image. Canada has a wonderful humanitarian tradition, exemplified by our response to the Vietnamese arriving by sea in the 1970's. Canada took in tens of thousands and, since the MS St. Louis Canada was unstintingly generous towards refugees. There's been significant changes to Canada's "welcome mat" since this government has taken power. Particularly for refugees. The passage of the Balanced Refugee Reform Act resulted in a significant drop in refugee referral rates. The numbers of resettled refugees remains more or less constant over the past ten plus years (even though the nature of refugee claims ought to be recurrent or episodic, and not constant). There were disincentive regimes, ranging from the tragic (denial of health coverage) to the farcical (putting up billboards in Hungary to dissuage potential refugees from flying to Canada and making a refugee claim): In conjunction with the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Minister sought to implement other disincentives to individuals coming to Canada and making refugee claims. These disincentives ranged from the farcical (putting up billboards in foreign countries) to the tragic (denying refugee claimants health coverage). The latter best betrays the... Read more →

Refugees Can Lose Status if They Return to Their Country

Successful refugees are termed "protected persons" in Canada. They are entitled to health coverage and can obtain a travel document. They can also apply for permanent residence. However, their status can be revoked if they either lied in obtaining refugee/protected person status or they've "reavailed" or returned to the country against which they have made a claim for protection (this former option is not available against those that have obtained Canadian citizenship). This makes sense. Individuals that have lied to obtain status don't deserve international protection (or simply don't need it as they are not at risk, their claims being fabrications); and we don't expect individuals, who assert a well founded fear of persecution or a risk to their lives to return to the same place where they experienced this persecution; where they would face this risk to their life. The reality of course is that many successful refugee claimants have returned to their countries soon after obtaining status here. It looks like Citizenship and Immigration/Canada Border Services Agency will be putting a stop to that practice. The provisions allowing the government to strip status away from successful refugee claimants aren't new. These powers were part of the Immigration and... Read more →

The Summer so far...

It's been an interesting last couple of months. I've been honoured to have been asked to speak and contribute my thoughts in a number of venues, including for the Calgary Herald, for Law Matters (on the TWU matter); at CIVITAS; at the CBA National Conference in May; and the Human Rights Forum at GlobalFest. I heard Justice Diner speak at the Conference, and appeared before him just a couple of weeks later on a judicial review of a H&C refusal. Unfortunately, from my point of view we are visiting the sins of the father upon an innocent child, but I understand the fetters that bind courts on judicial review. Summer officially started off with a Vacate hearing to determine whether my client is excluded from the refugee definition by virtue of Article 1F(b). The Minister's application was allowed; we are in the midst of seeking judicial review against that decision (for the second time, as this is not the first time a vacate application has been allowed against this particular client). Federal Court registry staff let us know that our firm had the majority of the immigration hearings scheduled this summer in Calgary, and it definitely felt like it. Justice... Read more →