National Post (National Edition)
Is this how we treat good, productive people?
Outright shame if family was forced to leave
If there was ever a more glaring example of Canada’s immigration and refugee system being incomprehensible and counterintuitive to most Canadians, this has to be it.
Guillermo Rojas Vertiz, his wife, Irma Canut, and their two children face losing everything they have invested in Canada — including their life dreams — because of a technicality, while thousands of people simply walk into Canada to jump the queue.
On Thursday, Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report that said for the year 2017-18, asylum claims of so-called “irregular asylum claimants” walking into Quebec from the United States at unmarked border crossings cost taxpayers $340 million — or $14,000 for each claimant.
Meanwhile, not only have Vertiz and his family not cost Canada a penny since setting up their home and business in Okotoks, Alta., but they have pumped more than $1 million into the local economy — hiring local architects, consultants, builders, carpenters and plenty of lawyers.
Instead of welcoming them, the federal government is threatening to send them back to Mexico because of a bureaucratic ruling that contradicts another federal agency decision.
“We have followed every rule and done everything right, from the beginning to the end,” says Vertiz, 44, an industrial engineer with a master’s degree in business administration.
“We hired lawyers and consultants to help us with the process, we have invested all of our savings here in Canada, our children are honour students and love it here, and now the government says we don’t qualify, so I really don’t understand,” he says.
It’s no wonder.
This story is not understandable, and made less so when you know the full picture of what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is allowing to happen at our southern border.
“It’s very stressful,” says Canut, a psychologist and early childhood educator who is holding down two jobs — working at an Okotoks daycare and also at a foundation that helps children with special needs.
“And despite all this stress, we have never been as happy as we have been here,” she says in their stylish home, already decked out for Christmas. “We love the peace and security here,” says Canut, who is also a talented artist — her paintings and sculptures evident throughout their home.
“In Mexico, we had to be more on alert for our children, but here we can let them be a bit more free, and that holds a lot of value, but we have paid a very heavy price to enjoy that,” she adds.
It was the freedom and fun they experienced on Halloween during a chance stop in Okotoks in 2012 that made the couple decide to move to the community 18 kilometres south of Calgary.
During their travels around Western Canada, someone in Calgary suggested they check out Okotoks.
They checked into a hotel and realized it was Halloween. They raced off to Walmart, bought some costumes and were greeted with such friendliness (and mounds of treats) they realized that Okotoks would be a perfect place to raise their family and realize their dream of running a restaurant they hope to franchise.
That could all be dashed. An immigration officer ruled July 31 that Vertiz’s application for permanent resident status in Canada through Express Entry under the Canadian Experience Class was refused on the basis that his employment from September 2013 to May 2018 was deemed to be “self-employed” and not an employee.
The family was let into Canada because they planned to start their own business, Cafe Cancun.
After receiving legal advice, Vertiz made his 50 per cent share in the family business non-voting shares, and was hired as the general manager of the café. They followed legal direction to the T.
The Canada Revenue Agency, however, ruled that Vertiz is an employee. The CRA found that although Canut and Vertiz are related, “we concluded that you would have had a substantially similar contract of employment if you were not related.”
The couple’s latest lawyer, Michael Greene, wrote in a Nov. 26 letter seeking a reconsideration of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada’s decision denying the family’s permanent residency application: “It is incongruent for two departments of the Canadian government to find, on exactly the same facts, that Mr. Vertiz is an employee for the purposes of income taxation … but self-employed for the purposes of permanent residence, particularly when they are all applying essentially the same test.”
To add injury to everything, after spending $450,000 renovating the new space to open their business, the building flooded and now they are dealing with more bureaucratic headaches with insurance and their landlord.
Their MP, John Barlow, managed to get the couple’s work permit extended for two years, but without permanent residence status, the couple cannot take out a loan to continue with their business plans.
“I love it here,” says the couple’s daughter, Constanza, 15.
“I’ve made a lot of really great friends and am doing well in school,” she adds before heading off to one of those friend’s homes to watch a movie. Their son, Guillermo Jr., 12, concurs.
Inge French has become the family’s best friend.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say this,” says the local real estate agent, “but I have never met higher quality people, ever.
“They are kind, hardworking, educated, articulate, loving. I love them, I really do. They are everything that Canada should want to roll out the red carpet for, and yet the way they’ve been treated has been shameful. I’ve never been more embarrassed for Canada,” says French.
The Liberal government has repeatedly said that those people streaming over our border “should be treated with compassion.”
Is compassion in Canada’s immigration system only reserved for queue-jumpers?
If this family is forced to leave Canada, it will be our loss, our shame and this family’s financial ruin.
THE WAY THEY’VE BEEN TREATED HAS BEEN SHAMEFUL.