A remnant of the Kenney years passed as a regulatory amendment to the Immigration Act now lowers the age under which dependent children can apply for Canadian immigration under their parent's application.
The cutoff age for dependent children used to be 21 - a not uncommon benchmark worldwide for adulthood, but Kenney, despite objections for immigration experts (and especially those dealing with refugee and humanitarian issues) decided in his omniscient wisdom to lower the bar to 18. Why?
Money. The logic is that those who are over 21 likely have finished their schooling, and government studies (don't get me started on how this government uses so-called "research") imply that those individuals who don't get a Canadian education don't have the best "economic outcomes" compared to those who do. This is despite the fact that with waiting times the way they still are, an 18 year-old has a slim chance of getting any Canadian education either before they are an "adult".
Regardless - are future (and unknown) "economic outcomes" really that a good reason to tear families apart when their children are at the cusp of adulthood?
Canada's own census found that 40% of young Canadian adults lived at home with their parents. What does that tell you about "dependency" in the modern age? That it's real. That we continue to rely on family ties long after some arbitrary age limit. And if you were to set a real age point when children become fully independent, it's more like 25.
I'm hoping that Canadian citizens who were once immigrants themselves will support a new government that encourages family reunification - one of the bedrocks of our immigration programs - and stop supporting the Tories who are literally tearing families apart at our borders.
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