FAMILIES APPLYING TO REUNITE IN CANADA (AND THOSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO) NEEDED FOR A RESEARCH PROJECT

The purpose of this study is to examine the Canadian family class immigration stream (including spousal/partner inland and outside Canada, dependent children, and parents and grandparents). This survey will be carried out with individuals who are in the process of sponsoring, or who have completed an application, or who would like to sponsor but believe they cannot, their family members to immigrate to Canada through the Canadian Family Class stream of immigration. The survey asks about their experiences of the application process or the reasons they cannot apply. The goal is to determine which aspects of the family class immigration stream work well and which aspects need improvement.

If you are currently in the process of sponsoring a family member(s) through Family Class or received a decision on an application in the last 3 years, or if you would like to apply to sponsor family members to Canada but believe you cannot, you can participate in this survey.

If you agree to participate:

• If you have applied to sponsor family member(s) you will be asked about the parts of the process you have already gone through and your opinions about different aspects of the Family Class program. If you would like to sponsor family member(s) but think you cannot, you will be asked about what is preventing you from applying.

• You will also be asked for basic demographic information about you and the person(s) you have sponsored or wish to sponsor (e.g. age, gender, country of origin).

• The survey will take between 15-30 minutes depending on how much of the process you have completed. It may take a little longer if you add further comments where space is provided. The survey is available in English or French, depending on your choice.

• You can choose to skip any questions you do not want to answer.

• This is an anonymous survey. You will be asked questions about your application to sponsor a family member(s), but you will not have to provide your name or any other personally identifying information. If you provide information for the draw this will be stored separately and will not be linked to your responses.

As a token of appreciation for your time you will be offered the chance to enter a draw for one of six $25 gift cards.

If you have any questions please contact Beth Martin at b22marti @ ryerson.ca, or 613 618 5572.

This study has been reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Board, Ryerson University.

To access the survey click on, or copy and paste, the link below :
English : https://survey.ryerson.ca:443/s?s=4526" target="_blank">https://survey.ryerson.ca:443/s?s=4526
Français : https://survey.ryerson.ca:443/s?s=4526&lang=fr" target="_blank">https://survey.ryerson.ca:443/s?s=4526&lang=fr

Thanks so much everyone for reading this - I really appreciate it.

Requesting all CD's to boycott this poll.

The gift for spending your valuable time is just a draw for one of 6 nos. of $ 25 cards.

From my experience, you stand a very little chance of getting it and so you can assume that you will not get it.

My past experience in dealing with this survey is atleast $ 20 for a 10 min. phone survey or a $ 30 for a 1 hr. gambling study (Univ. of Waterloo).

By filling in this survey, you will prove that immigrant's are cheepo's.

Murali

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

This is from the survey link itself. This is to help someone with their PhD. I dont see anything wrong with that. Remember that not everyone is qualified for this survey. As per the note, the findings will also be shared in public forums. Why boycott? Not everyone is looking for hand outs all the time. Go and get a drink TK.



Benefits and Risks
You will not benefit directly from your participation in this project. Your participation in this study will help me complete my Ph.D. dissertation and present the findings in public forums. The information you provide will thus help me and those who use my work to advocate for improvements to the Family Class stream.

Please note that I am not affiliated with Citizenship and Immigration Canada in any way. Your participation in my study will have no effect on either your application for family reunification, or on any services you receive from any organization through which you may learn about this survey.

In thinking about your experiences, you may remember something that upsets you. You can stop the survey temporarily or permanently at any time and for any reason. You may also skip any question that you do not wish to answer in the survey and still submit it. However, please remember that accurate and detailed information will improve the quality of this work.

Thank you for taking the time to read my initial post and for your responses Tamilkuravan and northyork_desi.

Tamilkuravan, I certainly agree with you that immigrants are often not valued as highly or recognised as much as they should be. The fact that family class has been pretty much ignored in academic studies up until now is one of the main reasons I decided to do this research (I am an immigrant myself and used to work with people who were separated from their families and saw how difficult it was for some of them to reunite).

In regards to this survey, the goal is 150 respondents so you will have a 1 in 25 chance of the gift certificate. I wish I could compensate everyone individually, but I am a student and unfortunately do not have the resources. The other surveys you mention may have been funded by the university or an external body and if that were the case they would have had compensation built into their budgets (for my PhD research I pay any compensation out of my pocket).

Ultimately, I am just trying to document and give some exposure to experiences of family class, so that we finally have some academic research that can be used to support advocacy efforts to improve the system.

Of course the survey is completely voluntary, so people are free to ignore it if they want. But obviously I would love to hear from, and am very grateful to, those who are interested in sharing their experiences (even though because it is anonymous I will never know who they are!).

I hope this clarifies things somewhat. Do let me know if you have any other questions.

northyork_desi thank you so much for your kind and supportive words.

That's a very noble cause Beth.

Try forums like

http://www.settlement.org" rel="nofollow">LINK ( Settlement org ) and

http://www.canadavisa.com" rel="nofollow">LINK ( Canada Visa )

Canadian Immigrant ( http://www.canadianimmigrant.ca" rel="nofollow">LINK ) - their comments section

Plus settlement agencies like COSTI, YMCA, Skills For Change, ACCESS employment . Or some Learn To Speak English as a Second language Gov. Funded classes.

You might have to visit them physically and ask their staff or post on their Notice board. Or leave some forms with their staff.

Also colleges like Geroge Brown, Seneca, Centennial or your own uiniversity also get lot of International students, who generally want to settle down here permanently by applying for PR and then later on sponsor their families are also good candidates for this survey

adamthorat thank you so much for your supportive words and excellent suggestions. They are much appreciated and I will follow them up. As Family Class sponsors are spread out throughout society it's hard to find them, so I'm trying as many different strategies as I can!

On a side note, you may be interested to know that OCASI - the umbrella organisation for settlement organisations in Ontario - is supportive of my research. The settlement sector has been trying to advocate for improvements to Family Class for a long time, though it has lacked academic research to support its arguments and as I said above it's this gap I'm trying to fill.

Thanks again

I just did the survey. I felt that there were too many questions - 65 questions. Thats too much. I gave up after 30. I also felt that many questions were similar. Sorry.