Minister said ‘hundreds’ of Canadians might use Gaza visa. More than 7,500 applied.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — More than 7,500 Canadians signed up in the first three months of the year to get family out of Gaza through a federal visa pathway that lawyers have described as onerous, chaotic and nearly impossible to complete.
The numbers obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom of information request are “shocking,” said Debbie Rachlis, an immigration lawyer based in Toronto. She said they show that thousands more Canadians are scrambling to rescue family members from the Israel-Hamas war than Ottawa first estimated when it launched the program in January.
Rachlis, who represents dozens of applicants in the program, said some applications cover seven or eight Gazans in the same family, meaning the actual number of people seeking to get to Canada is even higher. “To me, it’s just another indication of how grudging this government’s response was to the plight of these people,” she said.
The data show Canadians filed 7,549 initial applications, or statutory declarations, to obtain temporary visas for their family members from the day the program opened on Jan. 9 through April 1.