OPINION
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY January 1 - 20, 2019
New and improved intake process for sponsorship of
parents and grandparents to launch on January 28, 2019
Ottawa, ON –Minister of
Immigration,
Refugees
and
Citizenship, the Honourable Ahmed
Hussen, announced the Parents and
Grandparents (PGP) Program interest
to sponsor form will be available to
potential sponsors starting at noon
EST on January 28, 2019.
The launch of the 2019 PGP
Program will include a new and
improved intake process. The
Government of Canada has listened
to and addressed concerns from
clients and stakeholders about
the previous intake process, and
has taken steps to provide a first-
in-first-served approach for 2019.
This approach will further enhance
the client experience by keeping
the application process fair for all,
while remaining an easy-to-access
electronic method for applicants.
Immigration, Refugees and
Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will accept
interest to sponsor submissions for a
limited time and then invite potential
sponsors to submit a complete
application, in the order their
submissions were received, until
the 2019 cap of 20,000 complete
applications is reached.
Interested potential sponsors are
encouraged to familiarize themselves
with the new intake process for 2019,
as other improvements have been
made. These include a requirement
for potential sponsors to upload a
copy of a status in Canada document
when submitting their interest to
sponsor form.
The interest to sponsor form has
also been enhanced from previous
years to include features that will help
IRCC detect duplicate submissions
and potential fraud.
Potential
sponsors
should
submit an interest to sponsor
form as soon as possible once it’s
available online, after confirming that
they meet the necessary minimum
income requirements. The onus is
on potential sponsors to ensure they
are eligible before submitting an
interest to sponsor form.
As a family reunification
program, the PGP Program gives
Canadians and permanent residents
the opportunity to have their parents
and grandparents come to Canada
to live permanently. Given the
continuing interest in the program,
IRCC has increased the annual cap
on applications it will accept in 2019
to 20,000 – 4 times the number of
applications accepted in 2015. This
increase was made possible by an
over 80% reduction of the application
backlog and processing times that
have been shortened from 7 to 8
years, to about 2 years.(cic.gc.ca)
Why Canada garbage still in PH after 5 years
while Korean trash is going back
‘Canada
refused
to
take
responsibility over trash’
The Philippines will just have to
wait until Canada agrees to take back
heaps of trash illegally shipped to the
Asian country nearly 5 years ago, a
lawyer and environmental activist said
Wednesday.
Unlike South Korea, which
immediately agreed to take back
around 6,500 tons of garbage illegally
shipped to Mindanao last year, Canada
refused to take responsibility for the
waste it brought to Manila, said Antonio
La Viña, former dean of the Ateneo
School of Government and also an
ex-environment undersecretary.
“Hindi tinanggap ng Canada.
‘Yung Korea tinanggap naman nila.
It’s really accepting responsibility.
There’s nothing else except that,” he
told ABS-CBN News, saying the only
move left for the Philippines would be
to wait and to continue talking with
Canada.
A total of 103 containers of
Canadian waste, consisting of
household trash, plastic bottles and
bags, newspapers, and used adult
diapers, arrived in Manila in batches
from 2013 to 2014. Trash from at
least 26 containers (out of the 103)
have already been buried in a Tarlac
landfill.
Chronic Plastics Inc., the
Valenzuela-based consignee, was
accused of violating Republic Act
9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste
Management Act and the 1995 Basel
Convention on the Transboundary
Movement of Hazardous Wastes
and Disposal. The garbage was
misdeclared as plastic scraps.
The international convention,
to which both Canada and the
Philippines are signatories, provides
that “the exporting country must
take back the waste materials if the
receiving country refuses to accept
them.” But Canadian officials earlier
said there was no violation of the
Basel Convention as the shipment did
not contain hazardous waste.
In 2016, a Manila court ordered
the importers to take the waste back
to Canada but the garbage heaps
continue to rot in the country’s ports
nearly 3 years after, leading green
group EcoWaste Coalition to question
the government’s current efforts.
“What happened to the ruling?
How long do we need to wait?”
said Aileen Lucero,
national coordinator of
EcoWaste Coalition, a
group that since 2013
has repeatedly urged
Canada to take back
its waste.
“’Yung Canada,
from 2013 hanggang
2016, may problema
dun sa batas nila.
Pero 2017, sinabi
ni (Canadian Prime
Minister
Justin)
Trudeau na ‘theoretically possible’
to get them back na,” she added,
referring to a statement by Canada’s
leader in a 2017 regional summit in
Manila.
In a press conference on the
sidelines of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations Summit in
November 2017, Trudeau said he and
President Rodrigo Duterte touched on
the topic during informal talks.
“We also discussed the garbage
issue which has been a long-standing
irritant and I committed to him as I
am happy to commit to you all now
that Canada is very much engaged in
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finding a solution on that,” he said.
Trudeau said the Canadian
government worked around its laws
so it can take back the garbage
shipment, adding that it had been
barred by its rules.
“Canadian legal regulations
prevented us from being able to
receive the waste back to Canada. We
had legal barriers and restrictions that
prevented us from taking it back, but
that’s done now,” Trudeau said.
There were still questions being
discussed, he said at that time, such
as “who will pay for it, where the
financial responsibility is.”(P. Quintos,
abs-cbn)