Canada is to receive 1,000 visa applications from relatives of Canadians living in Gaza and looking to escape the mounting violence in the region.
This public policy implementation is to take effect from next week onward, after months of protests by Palestinian Canadians as the Israel-Hamas war rages on.
The visa’s duration will be three years if the Canadian families of Palestinians from Gaza are willing to financially support them throughout that duration.
IRCC Minister Marc Miller, while announcing this policy last month, asserted that he was unsure about how many people would benefit through it, as per The Canadian Press’ Laura Osman.
However, he stressed that it would probably be “in the hundreds.”
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A week following that, IRCC released the written policy for the program in question.
Miller wrote in the policy brief that “I hereby establish that, pursuant to my authority under section 25.2 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (the Act), that there are public policy considerations that justify the granting of an exemption from the application of any of the listed provisions of the Act and Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (the Regulations) to foreign nationals who meet the eligibility criteria and conditions listed below.”
The conditions are divided into the following three parts:
Part 1
- The foreign national:
- has submitted an application for a temporary resident visa to Canada;
- was in the Gaza Strip on the day they submitted their application;
- is a Palestinian Territory passport holder;
- has identified a Canadian anchor;
- is the spouse, common law partner, child (regardless of age), grandchild, parent, grandparent or sibling of the anchor identified in condition iv. of Part 1;
- has a signed statutory declaration from the anchor identified in condition iv. of Part 1 in which the anchor attests that:
- they have the intention to provide support for the foreign national and their family members, and
- they have not accepted, and understand they are not to accept, any financial compensation from the foreign national and their family members;
- has submitted the application by electronic means (applied online) or with an alternate application format provided by the department if the foreign national or their representative indicated they are unable to apply online.
Part 2
- The foreign national:
- is a family member of a foreign national who has applied under this public policy and has been found to meet the conditions listed in Part 1;
- has submitted an application for a temporary resident visa; and
- has submitted the application by electronic means (applied online) or with an alternate application format provided by the department if the foreign national or their representative indicated they are unable to apply online.
Part 3
- The foreign national
- holds a temporary resident visa that was issued following facilitation under Part 1 or Part 2; and
- seeks to enter Canada as a visitor.
IRCC will close the program to new requests after it receives and starts processing the first 1,000 applications, or after a year has passed, whichever comes first.
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The National Council of Canadian Muslims, however, is urging Ottawa to remove the cap altogether, to allow any and all Palestinians who can live with their family in Canada to be able to leave the Gaza Strip.
“There should not be a cap,” argued Uthman Quick, the organization’s director of communications.
IRCC spokesperson Matthew Krupovich said in a statement Tuesday, however, that the cap “takes into consideration the volatility on the ground and the difficulty that Canada and like-minded countries are having in moving people from Gaza to Egypt.”
Miller has commented on the situation in Gaza before, saying that it is difficult to ensure the safe passage of individuals out of the Palestinian territory due to Canada’s lack of control over the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
The war between Hamas and Israel was initiated on October 7, after the former launched an attack on southern Israel, killed 1,200 people, and took another 240 hostages.