‘Dear Government of Canada’: Separated Canadian-Cuban families send defence to Ottawa

Canadians who are distant from their Cuban family members because of a embassy downsizing in Havana are promulgation Ottawa a defence for help.

“Dear Government of Canada,” the tear-filled video begins. Then 9 Canadians and Cubans — spouses, children, a highbrow and a tyro — explain the massacre a cutbacks have combined in their lives.

“You’re separating couples. You’re separating families by doing this,” Canadian Jacqueline Stein, who spent 9 days creation a video with her Cuban husband, pronounced in an talk with CBC News.

A month ago, Canada announced a consulate in Havana will no longer be estimate visa or permanent residency applications due to staffing cutbacks over unexplained health incidents. 

Cubans now are being told to transport to other countries that have Canadian consulates to finish their applications.

Canadian and U.S. diplomats posted to Havana began angry of unexplained dizziness, headaches and revulsion in a open of 2017. The means of a puzzling illnesses has not been determined, though Ottawa motionless Cuba was no longer a stable work environment. 

The May proclamation was abrupt, ensuing in difficulty for families in a midst of applications to move kin for a revisit or to immigrate. The people in a video are asking Ottawa to cruise alternatives to a sweeping refusal to process applications in Cuba — and perfectionist a supervision finally give them answers.

“It’s like they don’t care,” Amanda Reyes pronounced via Skype from Halifax as she fought behind tears. “It’s literally heartbreaking.”

Reyes and her husband Yoandri Reyes Riverón — who immigrated to Canada dual years ago — welcomed a baby boy three weeks ago.

Right before Mateo was born, they were finishing adult a visitor’s visa papers for Riverón’s mother, Odalys Riverón Martinez, to come to Canada so she could accommodate a baby. They were about to send them when the embassy cutbacks were announced.

The single-income family isn’t creation adequate to means a outing to Cuba, or pay to send Martinez to Mexico to finish her application.

The suspensions meant Martinez won’t get to accommodate her initial grandson for roughly a year, when a family can visit Cuba. 

“The supervision is so large on family reunification and we only feel like now when it comes to Cuba that’s out a window,” Reyes said. 

Similar stories, dozens of families

Each family who contributed to a video has a opposite story, though they’re all in limbo.

Fidel Alejandro Gamboa Traba and Jacqueline Stein married in Aug and immediately began a application for spousal sponsorship to Canada.

In February, a apportionment of a focus was approved. Since then, it’s been “radio silence” from a government, Stein said from Cuba, adding she can’t stay for a generation of a estimate and has to lapse to Canada this summer.

“It feels like a gash in a behind to Cubans. It’s radically observant ‘we don’t wish we here.'” 

Beatriz Diaz, a conduct of a Canadian Studies dialect during a University of Havana, practical for a proxy caller assent to attend an educational discussion in Canada. 

Then news came about a embassy. Now she’ll miss a convention. 

Canadian Nicole Birch-Bayley lived with her boyfriend Sadiel Gómez’s parents in Cuba to be closer to him while she finished her PhD investigate online for a University of Toronto. 

Now married and vital in Toronto, a integrate wanted to show Gómez’s relatives a nation they call home.

Their visitors’ focus for his parents was submitted a same day the embassy proclamation came, meaning it won’t be rubbed in Cuba.

Birch-Bayley says a preference killed what wish they had, and it’s time for a supervision to “live adult to [their] promises” to acquire people to Canada. 

No skeleton to reopen processing, supervision says

A orator for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen pronounced there are no stream skeleton to free focus estimate in Havana.

The embassy issues don’t mean immigration or caller applications are cancelled, though it adds an costly and time-consuming layer of complexity

Residents in countries though a Canadian bureau contingency transport to another nation to yield their biometrics or attend immigration interviews. In most cases, it means travelling to Mexico — where a visa is compulsory for Cuban citizens.

Dairon Morejón Pérez, a Cuban student during Queen’s University, pronounced it was easier for him to get a tyro visa dual years ago. The embassy conditions is a “step back” for Canada and Cuba, he says.

Many of a families are endangered a directive from Canada to transport for estimate means poorer families won’t be reunited, as a losses are prohibitive.

Most Cubans make reduction than $50 Cdn a month, according to their National Office of Statistics. Paying for a craft ticket, accommodations and food in another country is unfit for many.

“We positively commend that this preference has combined hurdles for some people seeking transport papers to come to Canada,” a matter from apportion Hussen’s bureau said. 

“This preference wasn’t taken lightly, though as a government, we have a shortcoming to safeguard that a health and reserve of a employees is protected.” 

Solutions and answers

The families concluded it’s critical to keep a workers safe, though pronounced there are other solutions a supervision isn’t considering. 

They offering several suggestions to the Canadian government. For example, they could implement a biometrics appurtenance during another bureau in Cuba, or make a screening accessible on alighting in Canada. The tests are used to settle height, weight and other identifying characteristics. 

Another choice is to temporarily postpone biometric exam mandate — that have been in place reduction than a year — or provisionally approve field to yield some certainty of acceptance before income is spent travelling to places like Mexico.

How is it probable that Canada closes a doors to this nation who receives them?– Odalys Riverón Martinez, visa applicant

Despite dozens of emails, calls and queries to several levels of government, nothing of a people in a video have perceived answers. 

Martinez says she can’t believe that millions of people get to transport for pleasure, though she’s denied a chance to meet her grandson.

“How is it probable that Canada closes a doors to this nation who receives them?” she pronounced in Spanish.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says a embassy is an ongoing subject with Cuban officials, and it came adult during shared meetings in Toronto this week. 

“I unequivocally wish to echo that a measures that have been taken in a embassy in Cuba are in no approach a domestic decision,” she pronounced Friday, adding officials are now looking during a “nitty gritty” sum of a issue. 

“I have genuine magnetism for a Canadians and a Cubans who are confronting some genuine problems as a outcome of this situation.”

But the families are looking for solutions. 

“People need answers,” Reyes said.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-cuba-embassy-families-video-government-von-scheel-1.5167910?cmp=rss