A few days ago, the Trudeau government decided to allow the almost unlimited family reunification of non-Canadian citizens to join their relatives living in Canada. While the Canadian border will remain closed for “all non-essential travel,” changes are coming to allow more extended family members into Canada on “compassionate grounds” as well as international students to enter the country under the “criteria” that they are essential to Canada’s intellectual status and prosperity.
So far, family reunification was intended only for close relatives, members of the so-called nuclear family, that is, parents, grandparents, siblings or children. However, according to new measures set up by Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino and Health Minister Patty Hajdu, the “close relationship” will now also include uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins and other extended family members. Even “permanent partners” who are neither registered spouses nor partners, foster children, and many other groups of people fall in this category, including foreigners in “an exclusive dating relationship of at least one year and their dependent children”.
“Unmarried couples who do not share an address” will also be welcomed under this new policy as long as they “provide a notarized declaration about their relationship.” Entry to care for a relative living in Canada will also be possible. “These situations could include being with someone you love to say goodbye at the end of their lives, or attending a funeral, or end of life ceremony,” Hajdu said.
Patty Hajdu added that “compassion” is needed in light of the worsening spread of Covid and renewed lockdown measures. More than ever, as whites are kept in lockdown to ensure the health of Canada, the “enriching influence” of foreigners must continue through family reunification.
According to Patty Hadju, her expertise in “cultural anthropology” has allowed her to understand that immigrants in all shapes and forms, in any type of relationship with anyone around, constitute a family. The nuclear family is a white supremacist idea that should have no place in a multicultural Canada. Anthropology has taught her that families come in an infinite variety of forms and relationships. Extending family reunification will bring a “humanizing” atmosphere that will enliven Canadians in lockdown. “There’s a piece of me that’s still an anthropologist at heart, if you will,” Hajdu said in an interview.
As Hadju urges white families to keep their physical distance, the anthropologist in Ms. Hajdu can’t help wondering if unlimited family reunification may be a great way “to change the way that we relate to each other as humans“, “to change the way the human species interacts with each other”, to bring a “new Canada” in the age of lockdown.
