Government Accountability

OTTAWA — A $7.5-million contract for one of the RCMP’s Black Hawk helicopters has been cancelled, months after the Star revealed the U.S.-made aircraft was grounded for being ineligible to use for border patrols in Canada.

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) said in a written statement to the Star on Tuesday that the government and Ottawa-based Helicopter Transport Services (HTS) “have agreed to terminate the agreement by mutual consent.”

The statement did not say if an ongoing probe into the contract had found wrongdoing by the RCMP or HTS, which won the contract despite questions about whether the helicopter met the licensing requirements to be used for border patrols in Canada.

It also did not say how much money, if any, the RCMP had paid HTS under the contract before it was cancelled.

NDP Public Safety critic Jenny Kwan told the Star she supports the contract’s cancellation but questioned why it was authorized in the first place.

“It is a serious failure of procurement oversight,” Kwan wrote in a statement.

“Canadians deserve to know who approved this contract, how much public dollars were on the hook with this debacle, and what steps will be taken to ensure this kind of procurement failure does not happen again.”

Anandasangaree has defended the use of the Black Hawks as an “off-the-shelf fix” that was implemented quickly to get around procurement challenges, and said their long-term use will be assessed.

*Click image or link to read the full story - https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/contract-cancelled-for-rcmp-s-grounded-black-hawk-helicopter/article_26c08516-3d6a-41ed-9e31-b09bff83ba4f.html

Less than nine months after Parliament allowed those with Canadian ancestors to be recognized as Canadian citizens, the backlog of applications has soared to a new high.

More than 136,000 applications for citizenship certificates are now waiting for a decision — many of them from Americans. Those who apply today face an estimated wait of 33 months, according to figures posted on Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)'s website.

That is a 32 per cent jump in wait time and an 11 per cent rise in the number of applications since the previous update on Aug. 10.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said Prime Minister Mark Carney's government needs to ensure that IRCC has the resources to address the "growing crisis," pointing out that the government's last budget called for 3,300 positions to be cut by 2028-29.

"It is completely unacceptable that people who have a legitimate claim to Canadian citizenship, passed in legislation by Parliament, are being left in limbo," she said in a statement.

"Families [are] facing enormous disruption to their ability to travel, work, study, access services and plan their lives."

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/billc-3-citizenship-by-descent-9.7337738

OTTAWA — The House of Commons public safety committee has voted unanimously to investigate Canada’s security screening processes, after a Canadian woman was arrested in Belgium for allegedly spying on NATO.

The committee adopted a special, out-of-session motion on Monday to probe the vetting of Biwei “Claire” Zhang by Canadian security officials before the start of an internship last summer at NATO’s central military headquarters in Belgium.

On July 25, Belgian authorities announced they’d arrested a “Canadian national of Chinese origin” on suspicion of spying for a third country while interning at the NATO headquarters. Subsequent reporting identified the suspect as Zhang, a computer science and systems engineering graduate in her early 30s who’d previously held positions at multiple Canadian federal agencies.

Zhang’s security clearance for the overseas NATO internship was approved by the Canadian government after she was vetted by CSIS.

The NDP does not have any seats on the public safety committee, or any House committee, but NDP public safety critic Jenny Kwan said she supported the investigation.

”The government needs to conduct a comprehensive review of how this individual was vetted and cleared for a sensitive NATO posting, including the role played by Global Affairs Canada, CSIS and the RCMP,” said Kwan in an email.

Kwan also it was important to ensure that candidate screening remain “evidence based” and “(does) not become a vehicle for racial or ethnic profiling.”

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/house-public-safety-committee-special-meeting-accused-nato-spy

Prime Minister Mark Carney's government left the position of Canada's prison watchdog vacant for several months, despite written warnings from the outgoing correctional investigator that doing so would seriously compromise the office's powers to do its job protecting inmates.

Records obtained by CBC News under Canada's Access to Information Act reveal that former correctional investigator Ivan Zinger advised Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree that the failure to fill his position before he left "would create a serious legal void."

After around four months of sitting vacant, the role was filled by an interim investigator — a move that has itself raised concerns because of the role's temporary nature.

The Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) acts as an independent watchdog for prisoners across Canada, dealing with an average 4,000-5,000 complaints a year.

In previous years its work has helped trigger significant inquiries, such as the commission of inquiry into Kingston's Prison for Women in the mid-1990s that uncovered infringement of prisoners' legal rights and "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment of women there.

During his time as correctional investigator, Zinger flagged several problems in Canada's prisons including lack of access to adequate mental health treatment and the over-representation of Indigenous inmates.

Last year he announced he would be stepping down early from his five-year mandate.

Zinger told CBC News that he gave the government seven months' notice so it could find a new correctional investigator before he left in February.

New Democrat public safety critic Jenny Kwan said there are several issues in Canada's prison system that have to be dealt with, including the over-incarceration of Indigenous people, inadequate mental health support and barriers to rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

"I think that this is not a priority for the government," said Kwan.

Kwan said Zinger should not have had to warn Anandasangaree about the need to fill the position.

"To date, we still don't have a permanent appointment, and there is no clear process of how the government will proceed with respect to that," she said. "That should be alarming for everyone, for Canadians, for the minister who is in charge of Canada's public safety."

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/correctional-investigator-prison-watchdog-ivan-zinger-9.7300344

A Palestinian artist has been waiting nearly a year for permission to enter Canada to tell his own story on a Vancouver stage. Now, that wait could silence The Horse of Jenin for a second time.

The Cultch says the acclaimed solo production, co-presented with Rumble Theatre and scheduled to open October 8, could once again be cancelled because performer Alaa Mohammed Said Shehada’s Temporary Resident Visa remains stuck in security screening.

Shehada grew up in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, and The Horse of Jenin draws from his childhood and experiences as a Palestinian. He now lives in Amsterdam, holds long-term residency in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as well as a British work permit, and has travelled internationally throughout his career.

Getting to Canada has proven considerably more difficult.

Shehada applied for his Canadian visa on August 17, 2025 and completed biometrics in The Hague on September 5. According to The Cultch, he has passed both criminality and eligibility assessments. The remaining security verification has been underway since September, with no timeline provided for its completion.

That delay has already kept the Palestinian artist from a Vancouver stage once.

The Horse of Jenin was originally scheduled to be presented at The Cultch in March, but the production was postponed when Shehada’s visa wasn’t processed in time. The October run was supposed to give Vancouver audiences another opportunity to see the work. With less than two months to go, its fate is once again uncertain.

The Cultch has had to rearrange programming, communicate with ticket holders, process exchanges and refunds and absorb additional operational costs as a result of the uncertainty.

But there is another loss that is harder to quantify. The Horse of Jenin gives a Palestinian artist the opportunity to tell a story about Palestinian life in his own words, on his own terms. As Palestinian stories, art and cultural expression face intense scrutiny internationally, the continued delay means Vancouver audiences may once again lose the opportunity to hear that story directly from the person telling it.

Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan has been pushing the federal government for answers. According to The Cultch, her office has made numerous inquiries with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the Ministerial Centre for Members of Parliament and Senators since January. The response has remained essentially the same: Shehada’s application is still undergoing security screening.

“Our request is straightforward,” Kwan said in a statement. “Mr. Shehada and The Cultch cannot keep rescheduling this performance indefinitely.”

Kwan also noted that her office has assisted with urgent Temporary Resident Visa applications for other performing artists and that, in most cases, particularly once biometrics were completed, applications were processed in time for their scheduled performances.

The reason Shehada’s application has remained in security screening for so long has not been made public. Without an explanation from IRCC, it would be speculative to attribute the delay to his Palestinian identity, but the impact is clear: a Palestinian artist has already been prevented from presenting his work in Vancouver once and, nearly a year after applying to enter Canada, he still doesn’t know whether he’ll be able to do so the second time around.

*Click image or link to read the story - https://www.straight.com/arts/a-palestinian-artists-vancouver-show-is-in-limbo-again#

The federal immigration department is being criticized by Acadian history specialists for unfair treatment of members of the French-speaking diaspora community, after it said they may not be entitled to Canadian citizenship because the sources of their family records are not acceptable.

Acadians living outside Canada who obtained citizenship after the November passing of a new law extending citizenship by descent are among those whom the department recently informed may have been granted the right to a Canadian passport in error.

Peggy Sun, the registrar of Canadian Citizenship, wrote in June to about 100 “Lost Canadians” saying she had reasonable grounds to believe that their citizenship status is not valid and informing them it is now under review.

Most of those sent such letters have now had their citizenship certificates and passports restored. But others have been told, in a subsequent letter, that they may have been granted a citizenship certificate in error.

In the case of Acadians, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has taken issue with some baptismal records, birth records and other documents sourced from France and the U.S.

Acadians, emigrants from France, established distinct communities in what is now Atlantic Canada in the 17th century. But sovereignty over much of their land passed to Britain after the signing of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht when much French territory in North America was ceded to Britain.

British colonial authorities suspected Acadians were helping the French, including by trading with their forces. And they found that some fought alongside the French against them. The British forcibly expelled about 11,500 of the 14,000 Acadians between 1755 and 1764 from their territory in the Maritimes.

Some were deported to England, where they were imprisoned and later released. Some hid and others fled to regions under French control including in what is now Quebec and Prince Edward Island, or across the border into what is now the United States. Others were displaced to France, with many eventually finding refuge in Louisiana in what was then a Spanish colony.

Academics specializing in Acadian history say it is unjust for IRCC to penalize Acadians whose forebears were forced out by the British in the 18th century. Many records, including those held by churches and individual families were destroyed in the upheaval.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said it was deeply concerning that Acadians were “being denied recognition of legitimate historical records from France and the United States, even though these jurisdictions hold many of the primary archival documents.”

*Click image or link to read the full news story - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-acadians-immigration-citizenship-unfair-treatment-historians-say/

For six years, Rajesh Sharma has watched his parents grow older from half a world away.

The Vancouver area small businessman came to Canada from India, built a career, bought a home and met the income requirements to sponsor his mother and father.

His father’s health is failing. His mother now struggles to manage their home alone. Sharma spends his evenings arranging medical appointments from Canada and wondering how many more birthdays and family milestones they will miss.

Ottawa’s recent decision to suspend new applications for the Parent and Grandparent Program (PGP) until further notice has turned that uncertainty into something more final.

For Sharma and thousands of other immigrants, there is now no application date, no place in the queue and no assurance their aging parents will ever be able to join them permanently in Canada.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the decision leaves Canadians and permanent residents with no date to apply, no guarantee the program will reopen and little hope of reuniting with aging parents caught outside the country.

“The government has shamefully once again suspended new intakes to the Parent and Grandparent sponsorship program,” she said.

“At this rate, it will take decades to clear the backlog. Families cannot afford to wait decades to be reunited with their parents and grandparents.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced July 15 that it will stop accepting new interest-to-sponsor forms and will not invite more potential sponsors to submit applications until further notice.

The department said it will continue processing applications already in the system and plans to approve up to 15,000 parents and grandparents for permanent residence in 2026.

The department currently has about 60,500 permanent residence applications under the Parents and Grandparents Program in progress.

Processing times are approximately 33 months outside Quebec and can reach 66 months in Quebec. About 54,000 expressions of interest from the original 2020 pool were still outstanding as of September 2025.

Kwan said the government is managing the backlog by restricting access rather than fixing a system that has kept families waiting for years.

“It has remained closed since 2020, shattering dreams of family reunification for thousands of Canadians and permanent residents,” she said.

“Families who have been eagerly waiting for the application system to reopen are once again being told by the Liberals that they are out of luck. It is a slap in the face of families who have waited so long to reunite with their loved ones.”

The suspension comes as Ottawa sharply reduces the number of parents and grandparents it plans to admit.

Under the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan, the federal government has set a target of 15,000 admissions through the program in each of the next three years.

The previous plan had called for 21,500 admissions in 2026, meaning the new target represents a reduction of about 30 per cent.

*Click image or link to read the full news article - https://asianpacificpost.com/article/10670-%E2%80%9Chow-many-more-years-must-i-wait%E2%80%9D.html

The federal immigration department is facing calls to rethink a key family reunification program after it paused applications to sponsor grandparents and parents to settle in Canada as permanent residents, leaving thousands waiting years for their loved ones to join them.

On Wednesday, IRCC announced on its website that it will not accept any new formal expressions of interest to sponsor parents and grandparents to settle in Canada until further notice. It said it would also pause invitations to potential sponsors to apply to bring their parents and grandparents here to settle.

In a statement, Taous Ait, a spokesperson for immigration minister Lena Metlege Diab said the measures are “part of broader efforts to restore balance across immigration programs and support timely processing, while maintaining public confidence in Canada’s immigration system.”

She said decisions to open or pause new intakes to the program follow assessments of the number of people in “its inventory and application inventory, each year.”

“IRCC will continue processing up to 15,000 individuals this year who have already applied, in line with our Immigration Levels Plan,” she added.

The Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP) is a lottery-like pathway to permanent residence for family members who are foreign nationals. Demand to settle here under the program has far outstripped the number of permanent residence spots available under the government’s immigration targets.

In the 2026-2028 Immigration Levels Plan, published in last year’s budget, the government cut its target for new permanent residents under the parents and grandparents program to 15,000 in each of the three years.

In the previous 2025-2027 plan, its target was to admit 21,500 under the program this year.

Ottawa has allowed parents and grandparents living overseas to join family here for years. But in 2020, IRCC established a system creating a pool of expressions of interest-to-sponsor parents and grandparents. There were more than 200,000 responses in 2020. IRCC invited applications to settle here from this pool in subsequent years.

IRCC has previously been criticized for not opening up the pool to allow other immigrants to bring their parents and grandparents to join them permanently.

In a September, 2025 briefing note prepared for Liberal ministers at Question Period about 54,000 expressions of interest-to-sponsor remained from the 2020 pool that year. Ms. Ait said 60,500 applications for permanent residence under the program are in progress.

But NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the system, which includes windows to formally apply, needed to be changed, including “setting standards to ensure that families are reunited in a reasonable period of time.”

The “government has shamefully once again suspended new intakes to the Parent/Grandparent sponsorship program,” she said in a statement.

“It has remained closed since 2020, shattering dreams of family reunification for thousands of Canadians and permanent residents. Families who have been eagerly waiting for the application system to reopen, are once again being told by the Liberals that they are out of luck. It is a slap in the face of families who has waited so long to reunite with their loved ones.”

“At this rate, it will take decades to clear the backlog of those who submitted their interest to sponsor their parents or grandparents,” she said. “Families cannot afford to wait decades to be reunited with their parents and grandparents.”

In order to sponsor parents and grandparents, people living in Canada must show that they have a certain level of income. They must also commit to financially supporting their parents and grandparents. Although those sponsored gain permanent residence, they cannot use government social-assistance programs. However, they can access health care.

*Click link to read the full news story - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-immigration-department-pauses-applications-to-sponsor-parents/

People applying for proof of Canadian citizenship are now facing a projected wait of about 19 months, as Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s public processing-time tool shows about 99,500 people waiting for a decision.

The July 7 update marks a sharp increase for citizenship certificate applications, also known as proof of citizenship. In April, the wait for the same category was listed at 10 months, with 56,300 applications in line, according to a CIC News report tracking IRCC’s processing-time. By May 12, the wait had risen to 12 months and the queue to about 70,400, according to Moving2Canada. The same platform said the queue stood at 40,400 on Dec. 10, 2025, five days before changes to Canada’s Citizenship Act took effect.

A citizenship certificate is not the same as a citizenship grant. A grant is for permanent residents applying to become citizens. A certificate is proof that someone is already Canadian under the law, including people born outside Canada to Canadian parents, people replacing older proof-of-citizenship documents, and people whose citizenship may have been restored or recognized because of recent legal changes.

The certificate can matter for practical reasons. IRCC says people who believe they may have become citizens under Bill C-3 — the law that changed Canada’s citizenship-by-descent rules — must apply for a citizenship certificate to confirm their status. The document can also be used to apply for a Canadian passport.

Bill C-3 changed Canada’s first-generation limit on citizenship by descent and came into force on Dec. 15, 2025. Under the new rules, some individuals whose connection to a Canadian citizen extends beyond one generation are eligible to apply for citizenship by descent. 

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said IRCC should publish more detailed information, including how many proof-of-citizenship applications are waiting, what counts as non-routine and how many files have been designated that way.

“Publishing a single processing time creates false expectations and leaves applicants unable to plan their lives,” Kwan said in a written response. “It doesn’t work as public policy and it doesn’t work for the people applying.”

She said delays have real consequences.

“People can’t obtain passports, travel, access opportunities, or fully exercise their rights as Canadians,” she said. “Effectively their lives are in limbo.”

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://newcanadianmedia.ca/proof-of-citizenship-wait-jumps-to-19-months-as-queue-nears-100000/

Liberal members of the House ethics committee shut down debate Tuesday over an Opposition motion to investigate the Carney government’s controversial plan to purchase thousands of unsold B.C. condos from developers.

An “emergency” meeting was called by the Conservatives during the summer recess on Tuesday to launch an ethics probe into the program, which would see Build Canada Homes and BC Housing partner to convert 2,200 unsold condo units in the province into affordable housing. The plan, announced unexpectedly, has received significant criticism from housing advocates and opposition parties, who have called it a “bail out” for developers that made bad calls speculating on rising real estate prices.

However, a Liberal MP moved a motion to adjourn debate on the issue, on the basis that summer is not the best time to tackle the issue, and members of the committee should be in their constituencies.

The motion carried with the Liberal majority in support.

Conservative MP Aaron Gunn had tabled the motion to summon Vancouver developer Bob Rennie, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, B.C. Housing Minister Christine Boyle to testify before the committee, as well as representatives from Build Canada Homes, BC Housing, and Brookfield Asset Management, among others. Prime Minister Mark Carney had previously been chairman of Brookfield Asset Management before entering politics.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan questioned the federal government’s track record on funding for affordable housing, adding that the condo initiative does not pass “the public smell test.”

“Make no mistake, this latest announcement of the condo conversion is massive bailout for developers, even though the prime minister wants to pass it off as affordable housing,” said Kwan. “No one is buying it.”

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/liberals-shut-down-debate-over-carney-condo-bailout-connections-at-ethics-committee