During their 18 months in power the Parti Quebecois made it more difficult for skilled workers to immigrate to Quebec by hiking up language proficiency requirements with new rules that came into force on August 1, 2013.
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Four months prior to that change, Tatiana Stasenko, a Russian woman living in the United States, paid $900 to apply for acceptance as a skilled worker.
The government attempted to apply the new rules on the old application.
The application had been received four months before the new rules came into effect.
Stasenko hired lawyers, went to court against the Quebec government for incorrectly using later rules to process her application.
She won, as Justice Kirkland-Casgrain ruled that the government erred in applying later rules to the earlier application.
No word on whether she will get her certificate but she exposed some shameful government incompetence.
How many other applicants were incorrectly processed and refused due to the same mistake? We may never know.
The Quebec chamber of commerce has pleaded with the Liberal Couillard government to loosen the language restrictions to allow businesses to recruit talent, but so far nothing.
The decision mentions that 50,000 people apply for said certificate in Quebec, presumably per year. That's $40 million received.
Stasenko's request came in one third of a year before the new rule was passed, so that suggests that at least 16,000 applicants had their requests evaluated under the improper language proficiency criteria.
Four months prior to that change, Tatiana Stasenko, a Russian woman living in the United States, paid $900 to apply for acceptance as a skilled worker.The government attempted to apply the new rules on the old application.
The application had been received four months before the new rules came into effect.
Stasenko hired lawyers, went to court against the Quebec government for incorrectly using later rules to process her application.
She won, as Justice Kirkland-Casgrain ruled that the government erred in applying later rules to the earlier application.
No word on whether she will get her certificate but she exposed some shameful government incompetence.
How many other applicants were incorrectly processed and refused due to the same mistake? We may never know.
The Quebec chamber of commerce has pleaded with the Liberal Couillard government to loosen the language restrictions to allow businesses to recruit talent, but so far nothing.
The decision mentions that 50,000 people apply for said certificate in Quebec, presumably per year. That's $40 million received.
Stasenko's request came in one third of a year before the new rule was passed, so that suggests that at least 16,000 applicants had their requests evaluated under the improper language proficiency criteria.