Son ‘cautiously optimistic’
Family hoping new rules will enable reunion
HALIFAX — Roger Langille checks up on his 84-year-old mother who suffers from severe arthritis every other day — even though they're more than 2,000 kilometres apart.
Langille, a dual AmericanCanadian citizen, typically sees his mother Helen Langille twice a year. She'll go down to visit him, his wife and two daughters in North Carolina for Christmas and they'll come up to see her in Nova Scotia in the summer.
This year, due to COVID19 travel restrictions, those family reunions have come to a halt and been replaced by regular phone calls.
Since Roger Langille lost his Canadian citizenship certificate during some moves many years ago, he‘s been unable to prove he's Canadian and has thus been barred from entering Canada amid the pandemic.
But on Friday, the federal government announced changes to COVID-19 travel restrictions that will allow more families to reunite, including those in long-term exclusive relationships, international students and entry for “compassionate reasons.”
“The updates announced ... respond to the needs of Canadian families who have been separated from their loved ones by international borders, some of whom are facing the most difficult period of their lives,” said Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marco Mendicino, in a statement.
More details on who may be eligible to travel to and enter Canada are to be announced this Thursday, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
While Langille said this recent development is “exciting,” he's not ready to celebrate until he knows when exactly he'll be able to see his
mother again — as he worries her days are numbered.
“I'd like to say I'm excited about the news, but I'm cautiously optimistic it'll be as fast as humanly possible,” said Langille in a phone interview from his Charlotte, N.C. home.
“It's just been kind of a long road of seemingly people not caring.”
Langille said he spent months trying to get clear responses from government officials as to when he could see his mother again. He also submitted an application to get proof of his Canadian citizenship urgently from the federal government five weeks ago, attached with a doctor's note detailing her arthritis condition.
According to a spokesperson from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the federal department received 6,688 citizenship proof applications from January to August 2020.
Langille said he's “extremely blown away and impressed at how Nova Scotians and the Maritimes handled COVID” and said he plans to be “very respectful” of the COVID-19 guidelines in place in Nova Scotia and Canada at large when he gets to cross the border.
Visiting Nova Scotia, Langille said, would allow him to help his mother out with regular tasks that she's struggled with in recent months such as buying groceries, cleaning and making doctor's appointments due to her deteriorating health.
“Every time I talk to my mother, there's a story about some terrible pain,” he said.
Langille said he plans to come to Nova Scotia with his wife, their children and possibly his mother-in-law, adding they have their “quarantine (plans) down.”
“Our plan is to come in, figure out how to rent a car there ... then we're off to the quarantine place,” he said, noting they plan to quaran
tine either in Lawrencetown or at the Banook Canoe Club in Dartmouth.
After their 14-day quarantine comes to an end, Langille said he wants to make a trip to the Mic Mac Mall to buy gifts for his mother, who he has not seen for nearly two years, and go straight to her home in Enfield.
As a “Canadian citizen trying to see his Canadian mom,” he said he hopes the federal government irons out the details surrounding the new travel exemptions as soon as possible so that he doesn't miss out on another minute with her.
“Let's say for example she has six months of ‘Wow, let's go live life' left and I can provide that and three of it's been wasted on paperwork and phone calls, that sucks. … Every single one of us who loses a loved one will say, ‘I will give anything for just one more minute,' well I'm losing months, not minutes on bureaucracy.”