Residence card delays leave many immigrants short of IDs: lawyer
VANCOUVER — When Prasanga Edirisinghe looks out the window of her downtown apartment and sees the Immigration Department building across the street, she feels a gnawing sense of frustration.
Edirisinghe and her family have been waiting for the department to renew their permanentresident cards for almost two years. Without this crucial piece of identification, the family runs into problems doing almost everything, from boarding a plane to applying for jobs to enrolling in university courses, she said.
“I am totally without an ID,” Edirisinghe said. “I cannot open a bank account.”
Her lawyer, Richard Kurland, said there are thousands of people across the country in identical situations. They are stranded without identification as they wait months for permanentresidency cards to be renewed.
Kurland said he discussed the issue with other immigration lawyers at a recent national meeting and they collectively estimated the number of people affected to be “in the high thousands,” to say nothing of those who are not represented by lawyers.
Permanent-resident cards are valid for five years and must be renewed. While status in Canada is not contingent upon having a valid card — “the status attaches to the person, not the plastic,” said Kurland — proof of that status is necessary to get other forms of identification such as driver’s licences or health cards.
Kurland fields requests from family members on an almost weekly basis to write letters explaining their predicament. That includes to potential employers of Edirisinghe’s four sons, university registrars and provincial health officials.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokeswoman Jennifer Bourque said there were several factors that led to delays in permanent resident card renewals last year.
These included increased residency requirements for citizenship, which meant more people had to remain permanent residents longer, a spike in requests for urgent permanent residence card renewals, and the launch of a new card with upgraded security features in November.