Hamiltonians call on Canada to speed up Palestinian family reunification

When Mahmoud Fares calls his family in Gaza, "I don't even have the guts to ask them, 'How are you doing?'" he says. "We know how they are doing. They're doing bad."

The Hamilton man said he has 16 family members — 10 of them children — in the war-torn region, including his elderly parents, who he said have diabetes and high blood pressure. He said they lack reliable access to food, water and electricity. 

Due to the territory's unsafe conditions, he's been trying to bring them to Canada under this country's special reunification measures for people with family in Gaza, Fares told CBC Hamilton. 

He said he applied for them all to get temporary resident visas and all passed the criteria. Some have passed background checks but none have been evacuated, he said. "I worry for them every day and I hope Canada will keep its promise to evacuate them as soon as possible."

Fares was one of two family members of Gazans who spoke to CBC Hamilton during a demonstration outside the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) office in downtown Hamilton Tuesday. The gathering was one of multiple rallies throughout the country calling on the government to speed up its reunification efforts.

Rani Hemaid is a Palestinian-Canadian who also shared his story.

He has has been speaking out about efforts to reunite his family and calling for change since the start of the latest war, which began with a Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 Israelis and led to about 250 people being taken hostage in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. 

Israel's subsequent military offensive has killed more than 58,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded more than 139,000 others, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

Hemaid's parents fled the war and arrived in Canada through IRCC's resettlement program in May 2024, nearly half a year after Hemaid applied to the Canadian government to bring them here. He said his brother's family was also able to get out of Gaza and come to Canada.

But almost 18 months after he applied to get his sister, her partner and their five children to Canada, Hemaid says he's still waiting to learn if they can come. 

On Wednesday, he told CBC Hamilton he had just spoken with his sister.

"She said she dies every day a thousand times seeing her children might die from starvation, from lack of medical treatment, from bombs. She suffers the pain of seeing them not being able to act like children," said Hemaid, who came to Canada in 2014.

Initially, Canada's special reunification program accepted 1,000 temporary resident visa applicants, but in May 2024, then-immigration minister Marc Miller announced the cap would expand to 5,000. As of March this year, IRCC says, the agency reached that cap. 

Applicants need to meet eligibility requirements and undergo security screenings conducted by agencies outside IRCC, agency spokesperson Julie Lafortune told CBC Hamilton in an email. Therefore, she said, IRCC is unable to provide average processing times.