Letter to Diane

Dear Ms. Finley,

I am a Canadian citizen, a journalist and editor, who has returned to Canada after almost 6 years abroad in Finland. While I was there I married a Finnish man and last August we moved back to Canada. He came on a temporary work permit (doing translation work for a local agency) and I am employed as an editor at a magazine. We sent in our application for permanent residency under the family class in October, and we hope to have the AIP in May. We are a talented, educated couple who hope to start a family soon.

In the meantime my husband, who is an Internet marketing designer who made $70,000/year in Finland, has been living off a $1,500/month salary and our savings, waiting for his AIP. I am supporting him in every way I can, but the bottom line is he feels frustrated and humiliated everyday, being forced to accept this drop in his quality of life that moving back to my country has entailed. He was denied a drivers' licence in Ontario even though Canada and Finland have a reciprocal agreement on this documentation that Canadian provinces have never honoured. He cannot see where all this investment is taking him, except back to where he was before he left Finland.

He has also been applying for jobs in his field, and last November he was offered a job at an advertising agency, for only slightly less than he was making in Finland. The need to reapply for a temporary work permit has caused a delay of three months (first in the delay of the agency in applying for the LMO, a process they don't seem to be familiar with, and now in the actual application process).

If, as the legitimate spouse of a Canadian citizen, he was granted an open work permit upon arrival in Canada (something he could potentially apply for before entering), then he would be free to make his own way here and his entry into society as a productive member would be expedited. As it stands, being denied this freedom is tantamount to a message from the Canadian government that he is not welcome here, and he would be better off back in Finland, where I am granted work and residence permits, licenses, and other basic rights simply by virtue of being married to a citizen.

He feels that, should his new temporary work permit be denied, he will have little choice but to return to Finland. This puts me in the horrible position of choosing between my marriage and my family and career here in Canada. I never thought that moving to Canada would have the potential to pull my world apart. This is not the way it should be.

Now, I know that Canada is in need of young people exactly like my husband: educated, hard-working, honest. His job description is on the National Occupations List and the list for Ontario, so he is not taking jobs from those who came here before him, but filling a need. I also know that the spouses of temporary workers in Canada are granted an open work permit for the time that they spend here. Why are Canadians' spouses denied the same ability to make their own way?

This simple change would increase the quality of life considerably for new immigrants, and increase Canada's appeal for immigrants who have professional careers already begun elsewhere. It would also work to stop the senseless punishment that most first-generation immigrants suffer here in Canada, for little or no real reward. They put in far, far more than they receive back from this place. Having lived in Scandinavia I can assure you that they would get better deals elsewhere. Canada needs to step up and show these people that they are a valuable part of society, and that begins with the immigration process.

We cannot even consider purchasing a home or starting a family until we have a more stable foundation here. All we ask is to be able to take the jobs we find, work, and live like everyone else. When that is denied to us, the appeal of abandoning this place and going elsewhere becomes stronger and stronger the longer we wait.

Please explain why Canadians' spouses are not granted and cannot be granted open work permits while waiting for permanent residency, and what you are doing to speed the PR application process.

Sincerely,