Jim Humphries

CBC.ca
Mom, Dad: Forget coming to Canada to live
Toronto Star - ‎28 minutes ago‎

Starting today, Ottawa will stop accepting applications for immigration sponsorships of parents and grandparents until 2014 in hopes of reducing a growing backlog.

mandymoochops

The super visa looks a good idea though

mandymoochops

(although at the risk of upsetting some that have sponsored parents - I am in the camp of "If your parents mean that much to you, either don't move in the first place - or go back to the UK" - or wherever you emmigrated from).

Simon Legree

I agree with that.

ExKiwilass

I agree. I don't understand why, when Canada already has an aging population, they'd want to add to it.

mandymoochops

Without knowing too much about politics / state of the health service here in detail, how would it be possible if, say, an old parent was too ill to go home at the end of their visa. Would they want to go home, would there be humanitarian cases all over the place? Would Canada have to suck it up and end up paying for treatment. What if aged parents decided to sell everything to fund ther move on their 10 year super visa, then the kids wanted to emmigrate again somewhere else????

I think the super visa is a great idea in principle, however without being privvy to all of the discussions that went into making this decision I suppose they must have thought of every eventuality that might crop up????

Or is that too much to ask from politicians????

cornmatthew

Then my wife gets to abandon *her* parents. It's not always that simple.

For the record, I'm not looking to sponsor anybody, but I do feel for people caught up in this mess.

cornmatthew

According to the press release, visa holders will have to buy private medical insurance. Not saying there won't be loopholes or anything.

Jim Humphries

My wife and I arranged private health insurance for her father years ago at the request of a Border Services Agent. Now it is more official but it has always been there.

Alan2005

That's more than a little unfair. Canada needs immigrants and part of the attraction for many was the ability to sponsor their parents in the future. If they knew the government was going to remove this possibility then they may have gone somewhere else or not come at all.

Also, maybe the parents want to come to Canada. It's quite hypocritical to deny others the opportunity to have what you all wanted for yourself not that long ago.

(edit: I haven't sponsored my parents and nor do I intend to)

PMM

Hi

Well they could emigrate to Australia. Where you can sponsor parents if at least half their children reside in Australia/NZ. Non Contributory parents, cap of 1000 per year, present waiting list is 20 years. Contributory parents, the visa cost is $39K per parent, cap of 7500, wait list 24 months.

ExKiwilass

I like that idea.

Alan: no, I just think immigrants shouldn't be wagging the tail of immigration policy, it should be what makes sense for the country as a whole. It doesn't make sense to me that Canada would bring in MORE old people when all we hear about is how the population is aging, our health services stretched and we need to increase our tax base.

If that makes me a hypocrite (??? My parents aren't here) then so be it. I'm okay with that *she sniffs and walks away*

Coffeepot

Whilst I do feel for those in that que, there's still a lot of us waiting from 2007 never mind our parents, they do need to clear the backlog, yes it's selfish, sorry .

ExKiwilass

Agreed

Alan2005

My view is that:
- It is not ok to entice people to immigrate with a set of rules and then change them and tell them they can just bugger off back to where they came from if they don't like it.
- It is mildly hypocritical for immigrants to be anti immigration. You may not have been bothered, but you are here and yet you would deny the same opportunity to others based on their age? They may cost more, but given the choice between bailing out banks, going to pointless wars and paying for some elderly persons warfarin I know which one I would choose.

The government has a problem here. The immigrant vote is now generally a conservative one - this whole shake up has probably come about because immigrants have been complaining a lot. Sure harper is probably anti-immigrant, but wants the immigrant vote. We'll see if the end result is less of those old people turning up.