As a result, following Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard launched when you look at the January 1999 suggested change towards the immigration laws and statutes to add lesbian and you can gay people in the friends classification arrangements
46 Joseph, along with a number of other commentators, considered that the higher competition on it removing this new discretionary energy made available to immigration officers to make members of the family reunification to possess gay dudes and you may lesbians an element of the law think its great is for hitched heterosexual partners.47
Equivalent issues were raised by the Immigration Legislative Opinion Consultative Classification (Advisory Category) in 1997 report called Besides Numbers: A good Canadian Framework for Immigration.48 The fresh Advisory Class conveyed concern one gay and lesbian applicants try reliant up on new less than consistent applying of unpublicized administrative directives.forty two When you look at the indicating your concept of lover become amended to become same-sex couples, the brand new Advisory Classification stated that the intention of the household reunification provisions shall be transparency, fairness and you may equivalence off therapy, and you can [that] these should be enshrined in law.fifty It testimonial echoed one produced in 1994 by the participants to a national visit with the immigration out of loved ones which urged the government to provide gay men and you will lesbians immigration sponsorship rights comparable to the ones from heterosexual married people.51 For the majority immigration advocates, it was time to enhance the word friends so you’re able to reflect both developing thought of family into the Canadian home-based laws, therefore the
Continue reading Lawyer Mary Joseph warned one [W]e possess claimed a combat, but not the battle