February 26th, 2014

Quebec’s Bill 71, introduced in the National Assembly last week to change the province’s 1968 immigration law, would be unfair and create uncertainty for those who want to emigrate to Canada, says immigration lawyer Mitchell Brownstein.
According to the proposed law, those who want to come to Quebec must send an “expression of interest” to the immigration ministry, and those who are eligible are placed in a bank to be considered. The government is saying the processing time for potential immigrants would be reduced to two years as opposed to up to five years.
Brownstein, who is also a Côte St. Luc councillor, said that in Bill 71, “for the first time ever, they’re saying they can retroactively refuse files.
“They’re saying they’ll be able to take people’s processing fees when they submit an application for immigration — the government says it’s going to be faster — and in the time they decide to process the file, they can [later] decide that this person is no longer in demand based on his occupation, even though at the time he applied, he was in demand. They can just say ‘no’ and send back his money.
“This doesn’t give anybody any certainty whether they’re eligible for immigration or not, which is a really bad thing,” he added. “When they accept a file, and the person’s occupation is in demand, they should process it within a reasonable time, so they can get here while the occupation’s still in demand. It shouldn’t take them five, four or three years.”
Brownstein pointed out, as have media reports, that there is a backlog in Quebec of 80,000 files and the government is claiming the process is currently taking up to five years.
“That’s ridiculous, they’re just not managing their inventory properly,” he said. “They have a large backlog because they’re accepting too many files or they don’t have enough staff to process the files in the various Quebec delegations around the world. If they want to accept that many files, they need more staff. If they want to accept less files, then they should accept less files. But they shouldn’t take people’s processing fees — they’re on a track and waiting, and to then be in a position, that later on, they could just be told no, they’re not eligible, that’s just not right.”
Brownstein said a similar situation took place on the federal level in 2001, when immigration rules were changed with the effect that most of 300,000 clients would not be eligible to emigrate to Canada, and that those who had applied would just be sent back their money.
“At our office, we had 125 files, and 72 of them authorized us to take the files to a Federal Court judge to send an order of mandamus (a judicial remedy) to the Canadian consulate where their files were being processed, to ensure that the files would be reviewed and they would be called to an interview before the date the law was to come into effect. We won that case.
“Our clients, two days later, received  letters from the embassies, were called for an interview and they were either accepted or refused — 98 percent were accepted. But then the law came into play, and it was similar to the Quebec bill. It was going to be retroactive, so a group of 70 lawyers across Canada formed a class action and took the federal government to court, and settled with them. They decided to allow the  300,000 clients to be considered based on the old and new laws, whatever was more favourable to them.”
Brownstein said governments have the right to apply retroactivity, but it should be done in a reasonable way.
“If the rules of play are being put into the law before the candidate applies, it wouldn’t be deemed unconstitutional, it would be acceptable. It’s not fair, it’s not properly treating people making plans for a future life, but it’s legal.
“It’s a sad day for immigration, because it’s showing there’s less respect for individuals coming to this country.”
Another aspect of Bill 71 is establishing francization as a guiding principle for immigration to Quebec.
“I don’t think that’s anything so new,” Brownstein said. “They’re just putting it into the law. They’ve been doing it for years. I don’t think it’s great because they’re not necessarily getting the best immigrants for this province by insisting they pass a French test, and come here with a high score on the test. They’d be better off bringing the most qualified individuals, all of whom can learn French.
“By limiting immigration to Quebec to individuals who come from French countries, you’re really limiting your pool and not getting the best out there.”