Sixty days: this is the period given to the Minister of Immigration, Francization and Integration in the Quebec government, Christine Fréchette, to find a solution to the increasing delays in family reunification files, otherwise the minister may end up before the Quebec Superior Court. An official notice was sent to the minister yesterday.

The federal government is also partly responsible for this issue, although to a lesser extent. Therefore, an official notice was also sent to the federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marc Miller.

This final warning comes from lawyer Maxim Lapointe, a specialist in immigration matters, who argued that waiting an average of 41 months for a Quebecer to reunite with a foreign spouse is not a common practice.

Lapointe also added in a press interview that as an immigration lawyer handling “dozens of files annually,” he observes “a service standards gap for Quebec files compared to files from the rest of Canada.”

In other Canadian provinces, the average waiting period for Canadians waiting for spousal reunification is only 12 months. This discrepancy is largely attributed to approximately 40,000 family reunification files still awaiting processing in Quebec.

Despite this large number of accumulated files, the immigration plan presented by Minister Fréchette at the beginning of last month stipulated that the number of immigrants Quebec receives in the family reunification category in 2024 would range between 10,200 and 10,600 people.

This causes an increase in the already significant delay in processing files, known as the “bottleneck” phenomenon, and causes much distress and psychological pain for the couples concerned.

However, under the immigration agreement between the federal government and the Quebec government, which defines the role of each government in immigration matters, Quebec does not have the authority to impose a quota in the family reunification category, lawyer Lapointe pointed out.

The Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers (AQAADI) shares lawyer Lapointe's opinion.

Therefore, by processing only the number of files requested by the François Legault government in Quebec, the federal government would have breached the agreement with Quebec, according to Lapointe.

Hence, lawyer Lapointe requests in the official notice that the federal government process within 60 days all family reunification files related to Quebec that have exceeded the current 12-month deadline followed in other Canadian provinces.

Regarding the Quebec government, Lapointe calls on it to “fully alleviate the congestion” in family reunification operations and to cancel its goal of accepting between 10,200 and 10,600 people annually in this category.

Lapointe also asked both governments to reopen the immigration agreement between them to renegotiate their respective roles and responsibilities.