A discussion meeting to negotiate all legal ways of challenging the significant delay caused by the Canadian Citizenship Residency Questionnaire(Such as: pursuing a lawsuit or class action)Many eligible Canadian permanent residents who submitted their Canadian citizenship applications have received citizenship questionnaires [hereinafter referred to as RQ] which caused them unexpected delays.
At the Tuesday July 30, 2013 meeting which was held at North York Centre, all ways of challenging the significant delays caused by the RQ were discussed. Almost 90 people attended this meeting and Mr. Lorne Waldman a prominent immigration lawyer with more than 35 years of experience in immigration matters participated this meeting in order to cover all attendees concerns in this regard. From Waldman and Associates office Ms. Clarisa Waldman, an Immigration Lawyer, and Ms. Ariana Adibrad , immigration consultant, also attended the event. The meeting was in English and Farsi.
The most common question asked by the attendees was: Why did I receive an RQ?
Certainly having a contradiction in a person’s citizenship forms or not having clear employment history or education history may have caused the issuance of such Questionnaires. However for those applicants who have had Canadian work experience and attended school in Canada it is not really clear why they received an RQ. Mr. Waldman explained that CIC did not disclose what their criteria in giving applicants RQs are. He then notified that his office communicated with CIC in this regard and they were told by CIC officers that the criteria are secret and they are not willing to disclose them.
The next common question asked by attendees was: what alternatives do we have?
Mr. Waldman advised every individual who received RQs to do as below: 1.Social Activities: create a small or big group and try to stick together. Do not act individually. The impact that a group can create is much more significant that one individual in order to gain a positive result. Try to have meetings in person with your member of parliament also communicate with them in letter and ask them to follow up with CIC for you. Try to contact the Media and publicize your issues so everyone become informed. Put all your efforts in order to get involved with other communities to get their support and ask them to join your groups. Do not get tired! This is your right so fight for it!
2.Legal action: For those of you who are interested in challenging CIC in legal ways, they can communicate with Waldman and Associates office. Please be advised that 1. Pursing legal action should not add any extra delays to your citizenship application. 2. Pursing legal action should not affect your citizenship application negatively. 3. People who go through legal actions might get extra attention from the government so CIC might expedite the processing of their applications 4. We might win at the Federal court and the judge might order CIC to expedite the processing of their applications. 5. Even if we do not win at the Court legal action puts pressure on the government which may help to ensure that they do not add any further delay to the processing of their applications.
To sum up:
These activities seek to benefit the group- that is all individuals who are subject to this delay. They are ways of protesting against all of the new changes in Immigration law and the treatment of CIC with new immigrants and individuals who have submitted their immigration applications. CIC and the Canadian Government has the right to ask applicants for more documents but if they want to increase the number of people who receive this type of questionnaire they must increase the number of their employees as well in order to avoid any kind of intolerable delays.
Those of you who are interested in taking legal actions can communicate with the email below:
Ariana.a@lornewaldman.ca
http://www.jooyaonline.com/en/ViewBlogPost.aspx?&blogid=114&blogpostid=202
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