Who knows better the problems faced by immigrants in Canada then those who have gone before them... those who have been put through the various cogs and gears of Canada’s vast and profitable bureaucratic, immigration and employment mess? We have not only gone through all that but also various other connected obstacle courses while seeking justice and accountability. The high point or low point as you might see it, was suing the Canadian government and bringing our case before the civil courts. Yes, we had to sue the government to embarrass it into opening its sleepy eyes and peeking out at the reality that immigrants face daily.

We might not have won our fight or personally gained anything, but we have succeeded in bring the issues out in the open not only in Canada but worldwide. If there’s one thing that keeps us going it is the fact that others will benefit from our efforts.

The immigration system in Canada with its many flaws is a disaster and the government knows that only too well. Yet struggling between not knowing how to repair the system and trying to implement certain fixes without upsetting all of the involved special interest groups is a delicate balance. And it’s a tilt that is in favour of the bureaucracy first, and then various other sectors of Canada’s profitable “immigration industry”.

Basically the federal and provincial governments tend to take the old system and give it a face-lift every few years just to satisfy the public in order to show that something is being done. And these governments, these bureaucrats need to be seen doing something to mollify the ugly undercurrents in Canada, whose voices say Canada’s immigrants and minorities, especially professionally qualified, skilled immigrants and minorities, are not ready to engage in the professions here.

Through our own personal experiences and the amount of government and privacy documents obtained in the process we discovered the various problems in the system and created a unique and workable fix, that could have been strategically implemented quite easily.

This proposal was handed over to Rahim Jaffer, the Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament, who subsequently forwarded it directly to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office. According to the correspondence we received, the Prime Minister seemed in favour of the proposal and forwarded it to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Diana Finley.

But this is where the trail has come to a grinding and predictable halt. To this day, we have yet to hear from the office of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Repeated inquiries made by our Edmonton MP, Rahim Jaffer and ourselves, have produced a deafening silence.

So the questions are these:

Is the proposal lost between Canada’s usual suspects; the various government boffins in various government departments; or is the government hesitating to try and fix the problems faced by a huge underclass of professionally skilled immigrants before the next election campaign?

 Communication between the various government departments seems to be in a shambles anyways. Ministers don’t get responses to questions. Federal and provincial bureaucrats don’t talk to each other. So just imagine how you the immigrant or minority individual will cope?

 Canadians themselves on a personal level have no sympathy or knowledge of your troubles, and frankly they don’t care. That’s why governments don’t care either. So it looks like it is up to immigrants and minorities to act, and let the world know the real face of a “Teflon Canada”.