Editor, The Times:
We recently submitted a petition on Change.org (End Immigration Canada’s age discrimination against Annette Stock and Lisa-Marie Morgan) after a failed application for express entry to Canada.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s streamlined application system requires you to take an eligibility test prior to applying online. If you pass their age, education, language and skills test, you can then apply online.
In April 2016 Annette applied despite having failed the eligibility test. Since the eligibility test does not identify specific sections of failure, we applied in the hope that the online application offered a broader request for information relating to our skills, but primarily Annette’s skills as the primary applicant. It did not.
Annette’s online application was rejected and two areas of ‘improvement’ were cited – age and education.
Our ages are: Annette, 54 and Lisa-Marie, 49.
We are both retired police officers from London’s (UK) Metropolitan Police.
Annette was an experienced English butcher (meat cutter) prior to joining the police and it was a skill she continued to work in even after joining the police. The National Occupation Classification (NOC) lists meat cutters as a ‘needed’ skill on the immigration skills list.
Annette attained secondary school education and advertisements for meat cutters generally do not require education past that level.
Sadly the application for express entry did not cater for our extensive skills as police officers. It did not cater for our home-based business of the last two years making and selling jams, pickles and market garden produce.
Having failed our application, we wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau, Minister of Immigration Mr. Hussen, and the head of the Immigration and Refugee Board, Mario Dion. Not one of them responded to our letters.
We have been coming to Clearwater for 14 years, for the last three years on a longer basis.
We have been welcomed with open arms into the community. We have formed lifelong friendships and consider many friends as ‘family’.
We already receive a combined fixed monthly income from our pensions of about $5,000. Just as importantly, we have skills to contribute.
Recently, we attempted to submit a CIC online application through the self employed portal. To our disgust, the website (which clearly states that you do not need a lawyer to apply) re-directed us to a U.K.-based company – Skillclear – a firm of lawyers. There was no online application through CIC.
Skillclear re-directed us to a Canadian immigration company called Gateway Pacific. Their first hour consultation fee was $275.
We will spend not a penny more on lawyers who grab your money, make false promises and demand more money to proceed with an application.
We have paid hundreds of pounds to take the required English examination (IELTS) and paid for criminal history reports.
We are not submitting this petition to be given blanket resident status. We are doing so to:
a) highlight and hopefully stop Immigration Canada’s discrimination on the basis of age; and
b) to request meaningful conversation with an actual Immigration official, either here in Canada or in the U.K.
We respectfully ask if the community of Clearwater would consider supporting our online petition?
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Annette Stock and Lisa-Marie Morgan
Upper Clearwater, B.C.