As a Canadian immigration lawyer, I can be frequently heard swearing under my breath (or

sometimes at much louder volumes) about Canadian immigration policy.

Unfortunately, spousal sponsorship processing times have ballooned in recent years. If you are sponsoring a spouse and the two of you live in Canada, you can expect it to take more than 2

years before the sponsored spouse obtains permanent residence.

I’ve encountered many couples who have had children during the sponsorship processing period. If one spouse happens to fall out of status, that spouse may not be able to access health care, or may have

to pay tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to access health care.

To make matters worse, a child born in a province like Alberta is not automatically entitled to health care in

this province. Entitlement to health care is often tied to the legal status of the mother, even if the baby is born

in Canada, and therefore a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, may not be able to see a doctor to get things

like basic immunizations.

To summarize, women, children, and Canadian families are still being screwed over by

government policies, but their plight is now significantly less bleak. Kudos, Harper government.

Kudos.