Sunday, September 2, 2012

Welcome to Canada

Do you think Canada is a welcoming country that treats immigrants with respect?

We received our Approved Application to Sponsor earlier this month. As you know, this gives us permission to sponsor our child into Canada, provided that we assume full responsibility for meeting her needs.
Here are some bits from the approval letter:
"Dear Gen, This refers to the Application to Sponsor a Member of the Family Class you submitted on behalf of the child you intend to adopt..."
"... You have met the requirements for eligibility as a sponsor. Accordingly, details of your application..."
"... Should you need to submit additional information or make any enquiries during the processing of the Application [...], you may contact the visa office by email, fax or in writing..."
All in all, pretty courteous.

The email I have received on Monday, addressed to my not-yet-Canadian baby (also not-yet-born, but that's a detail), has a somewhat different tone. Here are a few extracts:
"Dear " ", We have received your approved application to sponsor. We are awaiting submission of a completed application for Permanent Residence..."
"We require the following information from the applicant in order to continue processing the application..."
"... The information /documents we have requested should be provided to us within 30 days from the date of this email. No further requests will be made. If we do not receive the information within the time indicated, we will proceed to assess the application based on the information on file which may result in refusal."
And I did not add the bold and underlined...

Is it me or are they a lot less polite to my child? 
I hate to say it, but I think Citizenship and Immigration Canada thinks potential immigrants don't deserve to be treated as nicely as Canadian citizens.

We see ourselves as a pretty open, tolerant, multi-cultural people. It makes me wonder how welcoming our institutions really are...

1 comment:

  1. Wow! You are right they are far less polite to your child. I would not have expected such a difference. That's upsetting!

    ReplyDelete

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