On July 11, the CBA Immigration Law Section sent a letter to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, voicing concerns with the lengthy processing times for various immigration applications at the CBSA’s Southern Ontario Region, as well as with the Flagpoling pilot project that was initiated on June 16, 2017.
Recently, members of the Section have heard troubling accounts of applicants being kept waiting for 8 to 10 hours (or more), and being denied services, redirected to apply elsewhere or told to return on another day.
In the letter, the Section supports a more collaborative approach to addressing the excessive immigration wait times at all ports of entry across Canada, and discourages an extension of this pilot program to other ports of entry.