Immigration: Public Treasury

Welfare Payments Dept: The landmark ruling reaffirmed a section of federal immigration law that should not have been unclear to begin with, but that has been increasingly flouted to the point it had become worrisome to lawmakers. Under the law, those who sponsor immigrants agree to repay any welfare payments or other socialservice benefits incurred by the new arrivals once in Canada, according to Montreal Gazette. But the court also showed heart in adding that betrayal of sponsors' trust by those sponsored and unanticipated hardship experienced by sponsors that impinges on their ability to pay should be taken into account by authorities. Two of the cases involved sponsored fianc es who left their sponsors shortly after being let into Canada. Others involved sponsors who had lost jobs or been cynically exploited by relatives they sponsored. In such cases, the court advised, the government does have leeway in recouping money owed the treasury, though it is ultimately obliged to collect outstanding debt incurred by sponsors and the Supreme Court of Canada ruled with both head and heart when it issued a judgment this month that upheld the right of federal and provincial governments to recoup social-service payments collected by sponsored immigrants from those who committed to sponsor them. The unanimous ruling by the country's highest court overturned a previous appealcourt verdict that would have let sponsors off the hook for reasons of hardship. At issue were eight individual cases that involved repayments of $10,000 to $94,000 owed to the Ontario government. The total amount involved was just shy of $300,000 - not a huge demand on the public treasury, but what mattered here was the principle. Using its head, the court made the point that sponsorship undertakings are in fact legal contracts sufficiently clearly spelled out that sponsors should understand that they are assuming a financial liability for relatives admitted to the country at their behest and on that condition. As Justice Ian Binnie rightly wrote on behalf of the court: "The risk of a rogue relative properly lies on the sponsor, not the taxpayer." As reported in the news.
@t federal immigration law, justice ian binnie