A letter to Canadian Immigration Minister, Mr. Jason Kenny protesting the huge delay and mishandling of cases at Canada Immigration Office in Damascus

Written by Ali Mokhtari the CEO of Canpars Immigration Services Inc. (www.parscanada.com)





Thursday, February 24, 2011


Mr. Jason Kenney
The Honourable Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism

Dear Sir,

Every year, tens of thousands of people around the world, more than anybody else in Canada, wait impatiently to hear your words in order to find out about immigration programs declared, so that they learn how honestly and efficiently our homeland, Canada, could host them. Many of them have not been able to move on with their lives and important family and educational affairs have been neglected for years, in order to see when and how given promises will be implemented. We are not exaggerating if we claim that Canada, to a large number of citizens of other countries, is not evaluated only by its scientific, technological, economic, and social improvements, but also by the degree of order, speed, and success in immigration programs and therefore no vital and significant decisions and promises regarding this issue is neglected by them.

In the annual programs of the Ministry and in your frequent speeches, skilled worker immigrants were supposed to enter Canada quickly in order to fulfill the needs of the labor market. We wonder if this has happened yet.

The representatives of the Canadian citizens in the federal parliament may have forgotten under which conditions the federal government and you have urged them to vote for Bill C-50, reasoning that its ratification will lead to "more flexibility in processing and management of applications, putting an end to piling up the files, and increasing our abilities in attracting immigrants to Canada"; the imposed bill which in practice, meant making fundamental modifications in Canadian immigration programs and gave you limitless authority.

The representatives of the Canadian citizens in the federal parliament may not remember that in your annual report dated on October 30, 2009 when you talked about an Action Plan to shorten the time required for receiving the immigration visa, you emphasized that "the people who have already applied for the federal skilled worker program, can expect to get the result in a 6- to 12-month period of time, whereas based on the previous program, this period could be up to 6 years." This explanation may be convincing for those who have turned you into an unaccountable captain of this ship with ratifying the Bill C-50, and that may be why they do not follow it, but it is different for the applicants of the immigration visas in the Damascus office.

Sir, if you are too busy to have a look at the reports and statistics of this office, let me give you an image of what is really going on. Other than a very short period of time about 6 months- when files were examined quickly and according to the promises in this office, in practice, all procedures have returned to as it used to be and even worse, since the amount of executive mistakes made by officers have increased.

It seems that all that speed was just because you wanted to give your annual report and secure your position! Since then, not only has the Damascus office not examined the files in a 6 to 12 months period, but this period has been increased to more than two years, and the formal letters or emails still emphasize the declared dates which seems to further insult the applicants. This is the fact that everyone who comes to this office knows about.

I remind you that social networking tools among human beings which have made trouble for unaccountable kings, with the help of today's technologies, will not let anybody hide realities and have false claims.

Dear Mr. Kenney, I, on behalf of all my clients, and also because of being familiar with the situation of thousands of applicants to whom I should listen to, as my job is to consider their anxieties and problems, ask you to consider the following instant and serious corrective actions:

- Taking necessary steps to reduce the delay in Damascus Office and keep your promises

- Declaration of the policies of the Ministry regarding the average time required for examining the files in Damascus and giving order to this disorganized office;

- Clarifying and updating the information regarding the examination of files, so that the applicants will have a good estimation of the time they will enter Canada;

- Establishing strategies to make the immigration offices clearly and transparently answer the clients and help them in this regard;

Sincerely yours,
Ali Mokhtari, LLM, CCIC


CC:
Honourable Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Stephan Harper.
Honourable Member of parliament, Westmount- Ville Marie, Quebec, Mr. Marc Garneau.
The Montreal gazette
The National Post
The Toronto Star