More Chinese immigrants sue Canadian government

Forty-six Chinese applicants to Canada's investor immigrant program have joined a lawsuit against Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) for what their lawyer says is the "warehousing" their applications.

In December a Canadian court dismissed an injunction brought earlier by 14 Chinese immigrants saying it could not rule on a law that does not yet exist.

Their lawyer is now pushing forward with another court challenge, which 46 immigrant applications have now joined and 76 others are considering joining.　　

Timothy Leahy, the Canadian lawyer who represents the Chinese immigrants, told the Global Times in an email on Thursday that in 2010 the CIC increased the funds required for its investor immigrant program and are now processing those applications ahead of the qualified applications that were filed prior to the increased requirements.　

Leahy also claimed that between 2004 and 2008 the CIC accepted more applications for its skilled worker immigrant program than they could possibly process and then reduced the quota for immigrants.

To deal with the backlog the CIC simply "abolished" the applications of more than 280,000 skilled workers in June 2012, said Leahy, suggesting the applications of many qualified immigrants were never properly processed.

"The Minister (of CIC) does not hesitate to abolish files of those whom CIC had promised would have their files processed. As a result no one can trust the promise the Minister makes today will be honored tomorrow. That uncertainty and treacherousness is the fundamental problem with the Canadian immigration program," wrote Leahy.

The CIC declined to comment on the details of the case, but told the Global Times that the case was dismissed by the Federal Court in December 2012.

"The court rejected the motions saying it would not pronounce on legislation that does not exist," read an official statement from the CIC to the Global Times.