![\"Quebec](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783590972_957_default.jpg\")
Quebec Immigration Minister Fran\u00e7ois Bonnardel recently announced that the province would resume accepting family reunification applications with a cap of 15,700 between now and June 2028. (Radio-Canada \/ Sylvain Roy Roussel)<\/p>\nA Montreal couple doesn\u2019t understand why it\u2019s taking so long for the federal government to decide on their immigration application.<\/p>\n
Sarah Abou-Nassif sponsored her husband, Mohamad Ataya, for permanent residency after they got married in 2020. Abou-Nassif is Canadian and Ataya is from Lebanon.<\/p>\n
At first, it went quickly and Ataya received the Certificat de s\u00e9lection du Qu\u00e9bec (CSQ) in April 2021. With that step completed, all they needed was approval from the federal government for permanent residence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThen it just got stuck,\u201d said Ataya.<\/p>\n
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)\u00a0told them security screening still needed to be done. They thought it would take a year, but now they\u2019ve been waiting nearly six.<\/p>\n
The delay has caused considerable stress and frustration for the couple who have two children under the age of three. For part of that time, Ataya was travelling back and forth between Montreal \u2014 where Abou-Nassif is based \u2014 and Beirut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Due to visa renewals and work commitments overseas, Ataya has sometimes been away from his family for weeks at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI solo parented for so long,\u201d said Abou-Nassif. \u201cI\u2019m strong, but the kids need their dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had to see a lot of milestones being done through videos,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t know what tomorrow holds,\u2019 says applicant<\/p>\n
According to Quebec\u2019s Ministry of Immigration, the number of people waiting to be granted permanent residence in the family reunification category stood at 42,000 as of May 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s a lot of applications, there\u2019s a system failure somewhere,\u201d said Abou-Nassif.<\/p>\n
She has repeatedly asked Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada about what is causing the holdup, but keeps getting the same response back \u2014\u00a0the file is pending security screening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fear the future now because I don\u2019t know what tomorrow holds,\u201d said Ataya. \u201cWhat if they say, after six years, it doesn\u2019t work. What do I do? My kids are Canadian, my wife is Canadian, my family is based here now.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Ataya had applied for permanent residence in any province other than Quebec, he probably would have already received an answer. That\u2019s because processing times in Quebec are two to three times longer, said Marie-Gervaise Pilon, the vice-president of Qu\u00e9bec R\u00e9unifi\u00e9, a non-profit organization that advocates for family reunification. <\/p>\n
Why is Quebec\u2019s wait time exceptionally long? <\/p>\n
Although background checks do take time, Pilon said typically, she sees applicants wait three to four years for an answer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pilon waited years for her British husband to receive permanent residence and now advocates for others.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix years is well beyond what I\u2019d expect to see, even for Quebec,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Part of the reason for the delay is because under the Canada-Quebec Accord, the province sets its own immigration targets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quebec limits the number of permanent residence applications that can be processed a year. That quota has stayed around 10,000 applications a year, said Pilon.<\/p>\n
That cap isn\u2019t in place in other provinces.<\/p>\n
Quebec Immigration Minister Fran\u00e7ois Bonnardel recently announced that the province would resume accepting family reunification applications with a cap of 15,700 between now and June 2028. (Radio-Canada \/ Sylvain Roy Roussel)<\/p>\n
Quebec also limits the number of new applications it will accept.<\/p>\n
Between June 2024 and June 2026, that number was capped at 13,000.<\/p>\n
By July 2025, the ceiling had already been reached.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a numbers game, the bucket doesn\u2019t contain enough and the water continues to flow and the lineup continues to grow,\u201d Pilon said.<\/p>\n
Quebec resumed taking family reunification applications earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A limit of 15,700 applications has been set until the end of June 2028 and the government said older applications will be prioritized.<\/p>\n
![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783590973_880_default.jpg\")
Marie-Gervaise Pilon waited years for her British husband to receive permanent residence. She is an advocate for other families who are waiting for family reunification. (Submitted by Marie-Gervaise Pilon)<\/p>\n
Pilon is relieved the province reopened applications, but said it does not address the long waits people continue to face for permanent residence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To tackle that, Quebec\u2019s association of immigration lawyers filed a request with the Federal Court to compel the IRCC to resolve the long processing times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a question of human resources or to hire more people because we have proof that in other provinces in Canada, they have the capacity to do the security screenings in a reasonable amount of time,\u201d said Mohamed-Amine Semrouni, a Montreal-based immigration lawyer.<\/p>\n
The legal action is expected to be heard later this summer or fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frustrated, disheartened <\/p>\n
Ataya can stay in Canada until the end of 2027 with his work permit, but without an answer on his permanent residency, it\u2019s hard to plan beyond that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe uncertainty is not easy,\u201d said Ataya.<\/p>\n
\u201cI genuinely love being here and love to call this home, we just need to reach the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n
WATCH | He applied for residency to stay in Quebec. 6 years and 2 kids later, he’s still waiting:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783590973_104_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
6-year wait for permanent residency leaves Montreal father of 2 in limbo<\/p>\n
Mohamed Ataya, a Lebanese citizen, has been waiting for permanent residency in Quebec for six years in hopes of staying with his family, who are Canadian. As of May, 42,000 people are waiting for permanent residency in the family reunification category, according to Quebec\u2019s Ministry of Immigration.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve contacted the Canadian Embassy in Beirut, their member of Parliament and spoken to immigration consultants about the bottleneck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They thought about going to Ontario and reapplying for permanent residence there, but worried it would send them to the back of the province’s line and impact Ataya’s ongoing case in Quebec. <\/p>\n
They also considered hiring a lawyer, but couldn\u2019t justify the cost.<\/p>\n
Frustrated by the lack of answers, Abou-Nassif has twice filed an access to information on her husband’s IRCC file.<\/p>\n
Most of what she got back were her own online inquiries to the Ministry of Immigration about why the security verifications were taking so long.<\/p>\n
But on the last access to information request, which CBC reviewed, it revealed embassy staff in Lebanon may be having some difficulty accessing files remotely. At one point, their file was sent to Beijing, China.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is our file in Beijing?\u201d said Ataya.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The IRCC said it is \u201csensitive to the emotional stress\u201d that can be caused with cases involving family members.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Security screening is done by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).<\/p>\n
\u201cThese processes operate independently, and their timing is outside of IRCC\u2019s control,\u201d said Jeffrey MacDonald, a communications advisor for the IRCC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Government of Canada is working to address the high volume of applications. To do that, both the CBSA and CSIS are training and onboarding additional officers and improving processes, the CBSA said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese steps are beginning to show results \u2014 beginning in 2026 the security screening inventory began to decrease for the first time since 2021 and further reductions are forecast for fiscal year 2026-2027,\u201d wrote Luke Reimer, a spokesperson for the CBSA.<\/p>\n
At this point, Abou-Nassif and Ataya hope their application hasn\u2019t been lost.<\/p>\n
They empathize with other families who are also stuck waiting in the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we just fix whatever is broken?\u201d said Abou-Nassif.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Montreal couple doesn\u2019t understand why it\u2019s taking so long for the federal government to decide on their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-790254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}