A Qualitative Look at Serious Legal Problems Facing Immigrants in London and Toronto, Ontario

Results

Research Question 1: What types of problems have recent immigrants experienced in the last three years? Where there has been more than one problem, how are the problems connected?

Description of the Types of Serious Legal Problems Faced by Immigrants

The immigrants reported serious legal problems in the following five domains: 1) immigration, 2) housing, 3) family issues and relationship breakdowns, 4) employment, and 5) problems obtaining government assistance/services. The most frequent types of problems were immigration problems, closely followed by housing problems and family issues and relationship breakdowns (see Figure 1). In fourth position were employment-related problems followed by problems obtaining government assistance/services. This last problem type involved only three cases.

Figure 1: Frequency of Each Type of Legal Problem Reported by Immigrants

Immigration problems: The types of immigration-related problems that immigrants in this study encountered depended on their immigration category and their unique circumstances. The following are examples of immigration-related cases:

A refugee claimant had to wait 25 months to have his refugee hearing (he claims the process took much longer than for others in his situation).
A refugee claimant paid a paralegal to help her submit her refugee claim. The paralegal charged the refugee claimant without delivering the service.
A refugee claimant was told to leave the country after her initial application was rejected. However, she could not leave the country due to the pandemic. She is currently waiting to apply for permanent residence based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
A government-assisted refugee submitted an application to the UNHCR for herself and her daughters in order to come to Canada. However, one of the daughters got married after submitting the application. When they were approved to come to Canada, the daughter was not allowed to come. The daughter is still overseas hoping to immigrate to Canada. However, due to the pandemic, no progress has been made.
A government-assisted refugee had to flee an urgent situation and was allowed to enter Canada on a temporary visa. Once in Canada, he still had to submit his permanent residence documents. This was at the beginning of the pandemic. During this time, he received little support from the settlement agency/Government of Canada and lacked information on the steps he had to take (e.g., when to apply for a Social Insurance Number and health card). His medical exam was also delayed because it was not clear who was supposed to pay for it.
An international student came to Canada with her husband and two children. Due to COVID-19, she and her husband lost their jobs. They could no longer pay tuition and now face the risk of deportation if she loses her immigration status (study permit):

My husband and I were working, both of us – I was working remotely for a company in Spain, and my husband and I own a company in Colombia. But after COVID, I lost my job in Spain and we had to close our company in Colombia because we’re a sports company and we couldn’t work now with COVID. So, by the end of the term, I was due to pay 15,000 dollars and that’s not possible now.
A woman was sponsored by her husband to come to Canada. The woman eventually left Canada after dealing with relationship problems with her husband and lost her permanent residence status. She started an appeal process to get her permanent residence back.

Housing problems: Another common type of problem faced by the interviewees were housing-related problems. Immigrants faced different issues with housing, including disputes with their landlords and roommates (i.e., threats of getting kicked out, invasions of privacy, unlawful orders from landlords). In many cases, the landlords were former immigrants themselves from backgrounds similar to the immigrants interviewed for this study. The following are examples of cases with housing problems:

Immigrants arranged for housing (and paid for it) prior to their arrival in Canada just to find out that they did not get the accommodation they were told they would get:

It was horribly furnished with very used things, and the thing was it was an underground basement which should not be rented and it’s not legally suitable for renting. It doesn’t have any window.
Landlords accused their tenants of causing property damage that the tenants had not created. The landlords demanded money for repairs.
Landlords threatened tenants or became verbally and physically abusive (they had a rental contract):

A few days after I arrived, he started complaining about things I would do. I started to think why he would rent out his room if he got easily irritated by the people he would sublet to. When I was in the bathroom, the guy knocked on the door and cursed at me. He physically harassed me and spat at me. I didn’t know what to do so I called my friend and asked for advice. My friend told me to call the police, and they arrived. I had to move out that same night, along with my belongings as well as search for another person who was able to sublet to me.

Another woman in a similar situation could not afford to leave her one-year contract and mentioned that she would put blockades on her door in case the landlord tried to come in or do something against her and her children.

Immigrants rented a room based on a verbal agreement (without a signed contract). Then there were disagreements about the verbal agreement (payment of deposits, end of contract). As the following quote shows, this was often also accompanied by poor living conditions:

I had the interview with the renter and was offered the room with a mattress for a fee of $500 a month. I explained to him it was only for a short amount of time as I was waiting for my wife to arrive from Colombia, which the renter said he didn’t have a problem with, and we both agreed for me to pay for 2 months of expenses. I rented the place because I was in a very bad living environment beforehand and it was too expensive. Upon arriving, I noticed the mattress provided had a very bad smell as the person was a marijuana user. I asked if I could bring my own mattress, but the renter said I couldn’t change anything to do with the room. I tried to clean the room and mattress as much as I could, but the renter was a very heavy smoker and no matter how much I cleaned, the smell always lingered.

Family issues and relationship breakdowns: Another common problem faced by the immigrants in this study had to do with family conflict and/or relationship problems. This included going through a divorce, trying to leave relationships marked by domestic violence, and disputes about child support. The following are examples of cases with family issues and relationship breakdowns:

A woman wanted to get a divorce.
Three women faced domestic violence that led to either separation or divorce.
- One of these women was sponsored by her husband to come to Canada. She was pregnant when she arrived and gave birth in Canada:
  
  I faced many difficult situations. For example, he got me a credit card. We went to the bank for the process, but as soon as we left the bank, he took the credit card. He explained that this was just proof for the government that we were married for the immigration process. He started forbidding me to have friends and to make contact with other people. He made threats about my immigration status and deportation. He thought I was too naïve to know what my immigration status was. He thought I didn’t know that I was already a permanent resident… He controlled all my phone calls and prevented me from contacting my mom… I was not allowed to leave the house. I couldn’t meet his friends or go for a walk or get to know the country. I had post-partum depression due to this situation and being locked in.
  The same woman mentioned the following about her situation (and her daughter’s situation):
  
  The situation is becoming more and more unbearable. We are not allowed to use water; if it was up to him, we wouldn’t even shower. We are not allowed to use electricity; we have been in trouble about the heat. He said that we could stay here for a year, and that year is coming to an end. I don’t know what we are going to do in the future. The present situation is not the future I want for my child.
- Another woman was physically and emotionally abused. The harassment was so severe that the police became involved and forced the husband to leave the household as he became dangerous.
- Another woman wanted to get a divorce after her husband told her he wanted to have a second wife.She was left with no money, fighting for child support. Her ex-husband abused her physically and emotionally and treated her very negatively afterwards, doing things such as stealing her possessions (car keys, their children’s passports, etc.) and attempting by any means he could to deny her spousal support.
In most cases, the relationship problems were between a husband and a wife. However, in one case, the problem relationship was between an individual and family members who had sponsored him. This individual reported being harassed, verbally assaulted, and pushed to work for very little pay (below minimum wage; no contract). The sponsor also opened two credit cards in this individual’s name without his knowledge, leading the individual into debt. Eventually, he was told he would have to leave. From that day on, they refused to serve him food they cooked, and he was forced to go out in harsh, cold winter nights to get food for himself. They completely denied and ignored his presence in the house. He tried to stay out of the house as much as possible when this started to happen. However, it was hard for him to leave completely. He did contact a few of his friends and asked them if he could stay at their places temporarily until he figured out his situation. None of them helped him out. At that time, he felt his life was getting too hard and he attempted to commit suicide.

Employment-related problems: A fourth area of problems faced by some of the immigrants in this study centred around employment issues. This included cases of poor working conditions, pay below minimum wage, withheld salaries, and being fired for no clear reason (as stated by the immigrant). In another case, an immigrant (who was a temporary foreign worker) suffered a workplace injury and the employers contested the outcome of the Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) claim. In two cases, the employer was a larger organization. In the other cases, the employers were other immigrants. The following are examples of cases with employment-related problems:

An immigrant was not paid for his work and tried to confront his employer about it multiple times:

My employer was too smart. I saw him writing cheques for other employees. I confronted him about it. My employer said not to worry that he would pay me later, that I should trust him because we are from the same country. He told me that he would give me money every three or four months. At that time, I believed him. And I waited. He reassured me that he would pay. He was telling me that he was going to pay me because I am an honest guy, and that he will pay me extra. It was for four months he always looked for an excuse. After four months, when I found out that other two employees were not paid either, I realized that my employer was a cheater. Maybe he played the other guys the same as me. Then, I talked to him seriously and he scared me. For two months then I had problems with him every day.
A temporary foreign worker suffered a physical injury due to very repetitive work at a farm. The temporary foreign worker submitted a claim to the Workplace Safety Insurance Board. While the claim was approved after the initial submission, the employer decided to appeal the decision of the Workplace Safety Insurance Board twice. The temporary foreign worker explained his situation as follows:

I felt very uncomfortable working at the farm. I needed to keep taking breaks and I could feel the tension between my employer, my co-workers and me. In the end, I decided to leave the farm.
An immigrant alleged that he was fired for no apparent reason. In the following quote, the immigrant recalls being called to the manager’s office at the end of his shift after having had a “normal” interaction with his supervisor during the day:

At the end of the day, the manager called me and I went to see the manager. He told me that my supervisor came and complained that “she wanted to talk to you, but you were very tense and nervous, and she didn’t like that.” I said, “no, no, no, I was not,” and I wanted to tell them what happened, but they refused to listen to me. They just told me, “don’t come to work until we call you, we don’t need you now.” I said, “okay, wait, just listen to me,” they didn’t want to listen. So, I said, “okay, I’m going to complain.” They took my work card, and told me, “go home and don’t come until we call you.” I went back home. I stayed home two weeks, nobody called me. So, I called and asked HR, “nobody – now two weeks, and nobody called me to go back to work,” and he told me, “okay, stay home until we call you.” A week after – so three weeks after they sent me back – they told me, “we decided not to return you to work.” I asked them, “okay, I have to know why you don’t want me back to work.”
An immigrant worked at a grocery store and had a negative experience with management:

I worked for one month in a grocery store. I left because the manager was too tough with me. So tough that I became depressed and stressed. Many others were in the same situation and left the job after one month. My rights were not respected. The supervisor had the mentality of being an owner thinking that they can do anything with their workers. They expected me to do everything they asked me to do. If I said no, I was threatened to be fired.
Another case is an immigrant who was sponsored by a family member. The sponsor pushed the immigrant to work at a hair salon for a salary below the minimum wage for several months. The immigrant also faced difficulties with the co-workers as they made fun of him and talked negatively about his sexuality.

Problems obtaining government assistance/services: The final type of problem faced by the immigrants in this study related to obtaining government assistance/services. The following are examples of cases with problems obtaining government assistance/services:

An immigrant submitted an Ontario Disability Support claim, which was not approved. The immigrant tried to appeal the initial decision without success.
Another case had to do with an immigrant who initially came to Canada as a refugee claimant but whose claim was denied. He then applied and was approved for permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. During the change in legal status he had difficulties obtaining his health card. The following quote describes his struggle to obtain a health card after having received the confirmation letter for permanent residency:

I called my representative, and she said we need to go to a different Service Ontario site, because there are some people in Service Ontario that don’t know about this procedure. I went to the site she told us to, but the person again said no we can’t apply.
A woman stopped receiving her child tax benefit after changing her marital status on her Canada Revenue Agency account.

Connectedness of Problems

Nine of the 21 interviewees reported experiences with two serious legal problems. However, only one immigrant thought that there was a connection between his problems. The refugee claimant who was waiting for his hearing felt particularly vulnerable when dealing with a dispute with his roommate. The interviewee indicated that his roommate knew about his status as a refugee claimant and how he was anxious about getting into any kind of trouble because he was waiting for court hearings. He thought his roommate took advantage of this situation to mistreat him.

Factors Contributing to the Serious Legal Problems Faced by Immigrants

The interviews revealed five themes explaining some of the factors that may have contributed to immigrants’ serious legal problems. These themes are: 1) immigrants’ unfamiliarity with Canadian law and their rights, 2) immigrants’ unfamiliarity with basic Canadian customs and norms for everyday living, 3) self-reported discrimination, 4) lack of or inefficient communication from the government/government agencies, and 5) the pandemic.

Unfamiliarity with Canadian law and their rights: A common factor reported as contributing to immigrants’ serious legal problems was being unaware of or unfamiliar with Canadian law and of their rights in Canada, which made them more vulnerable to manipulation and mistreatment by landlords, work managers (e.g., may not receive a fair salary), or family members. The following are examples that illustrate immigrants’ unfamiliarity with Canadian law and their rights:

A woman wanted to separate from her husband. She did not know much about the law; she just knew that she could not stand the situation at home and things needed to change. She thought that when she arrived in Canada, her husband would change his mentality and things would change. However, things did not change, which is why she decided to take serious action. She did not know that the court and the law would become as involved as they did, with her husband taken from the family and not allowed to see the children without supervision.
An individual who did not get paid for his work mentioned the following:

It was very difficult to find information about employees’ rights and work standards. I tried to find information on Google.
A government-assisted refugee whose daughter was not allowed to come to Canada with her family explained her situation as follows:

We don’t know how to deal with things like that. We don’t think of a lawyer. My family and I, because we are new here and the language barrier is very huge, so we don’t know whom to ask. We only have our case manager… and that’s it.

Unfamiliarity with basic Canadian customs and norms for everyday living: Another commonly described factor contributing to immigrants’ serious legal problems was immigrants’ unfamiliarity with Canadian customs, especially with the rental process.

One immigrant described his unfamiliarity with the rental system in Canada as follows:

In terms of places to go I would’ve looked for an interpreter before leasing so they could help me understand exactly how the renting process works here in Canada. To this day, I still don’t understand how it works and it would’ve been extremely helpful to have an interpreter help me out at the time.
Immigrants also expressed concerns about the fact that the rental system in Canada is not conducive to newcomers (e.g., long-term nature of contracts conflicts with migratory needs of new immigrants; co-signers are virtually impossible to find for most new immigrants.)

Self-reported discrimination: A third factor described as contributing to immigrants’ serious legal problems was discrimination. During the interviews, when asked what factors contributed to the development of their serious legal problems, some immigrants identified discrimination as one of the factors. In these cases, discrimination was self-reported by the immigrants themselves, rather than being interpreted as such by the interviewers. Immigrants were not provided with a definition of discrimination; but discrimination was recorded if the interviewees themselves identified the experience as such. Thus, this category includes only cases of self-reported discrimination. Self-reported discrimination was especially prevalent in the employment disputes, but also appeared in a housing dispute and in a case of problems obtaining government assistance/services. The following are examples:

An immigrant felt discriminated against at work:

What I would say about working at the farm and immigrants is when they come, they don’t know any English and they are treated very badly and oftentimes humiliated. But they have to keep their heads down and keep working because this is one of the only opportunities of work for them.
The same person mentioned:

The employers looked at us differently, like we are lesser and we have to follow everything they say and tell us to do… When signing the contracts, we both agree that we work a certain number of hours. However, no workers ever worked those hours as the employers wouldn’t comply. The farm was very disgusting and was a very horrible working experience. The workers never received any training and they started work the next day they started, although very few of the workers had experience working at farms or with machinery. One day, a worker accidently had gum fall out of his mouth. The employer said to him if she ever saw a piece of gum fall out of anyone’s mouth again, she would make them pick it up with their mouth next time.
An immigrant identified discrimination as one of the factors contributing to his difficulties obtaining government services. In the quote below he talks about the staff member at Service Ontario who refused to give him his health card despite being eligible for one:

Her attitude was very difficult and it was clear that she didn’t want to give me the health card. I was very upset because I know I have rights here. I have the right to a health card, and she didn’t want to give it to me. (…) I don’t understand why some people have an attitude of superiority, since everyone here is an immigrant. The only people who are not are the Natives.
An immigrant tried to explain why she was threatened by her landlord and identified discrimination as the cause:

I think it was discrimination. This is the only way to describe what happened. While this is not the case for all the people, there are people who think that just because you recently arrived from a poor country, they expect the worst from you because of the bad reputation of your country and they then decide to treat you like this.

Lack of or inefficient communication from the government/government agencies: A fourth factor reported as contributing to the immigrants’ legal problems was a perceived lack of or inefficient communication processes between the government/government agencies and individuals. The example below shows the case of a woman who stopped receiving her child tax benefit:

So I called CRA and you know how long you stay on the phone, an hour every time, and then, “No sorry, we have to study your case.” And they updated everything I told them over the phone, and they’re like, “We’ll get back to you.” And time just passed. It was three months, and I haven’t received anything. They did not even send me any mail or anything that says whatever is going on in my case. And then the company where I rented just sent me an email saying, “It’s been like three months now, and you’re not paying your rent — we need to talk about it.” So, receiving that mail of notice, I felt very unsecure because I don’t want to harm my credit. I worked so hard to keep my credit high.”

The pandemic: The pandemic seems to have impacted immigrants’ serious legal problems in a variety of ways. This includes delays in processing immigration applications, delays in obtaining information about the immigration status of individuals, and threats to the legal status of an international student and her family. It was felt that information and communication would have reduced some of the stress associated with these problems.

Research Question 2: How have recent immigrants tried to resolve their problems? What has been the outcome of these efforts?

Strategies Used and Difficulties Experienced

The following themes emerged in terms of how participants tried to resolve their problems:

When confronted with serious legal problems, immigrants often did not know where to go to obtain help. Thus, at times, information was obtained from individuals with whom the immigrants happened to come into contact. An example is:

If the Checkers guy, he hadn’t given us this information, we wouldn’t have known where to go or what to do. After that, we went to a settlement worker… and they have helped us a lot. They have guided us what to do in this situation, and they have guided us also in schooling our children.
Immigrants reported having limited networks in Canada that could help them navigate the system to resolve their serious legal problems. For this reason, they tried to seek advice from family members (in Canada and abroad) and friends. An example is:

I have a few people I know here or even in Montreal, so I would ask them if they knew anyone in Toronto who could help me in this area, so I’ve recently gotten in contact with someone like that. It’s all networking. Whenever I find someone in the same situation, or has been, I’ll ask them.
In the end, immigrants tended to receive help from individuals with whom they were already in contact in some other capacity (e.g., teachers, family doctors, settlement workers). Importantly, this help was often the result of “chance” interactions and not so much the result of targeted efforts to find a solution to their serious legal problem.
Immigrants who entered Canada as refugees or were sponsored by family members were especially likely to have limited knowledge of the official languages and thus often could not resolve conflicts or issues on their own due to the language barrier. The language barrier made it difficult for them to access reliable, legitimate information on resolving legal issues. It also left them vulnerable to manipulation as they were wholly reliant on the information that was provided to them (i.e., cycle of misinformation within immigrant circles; victims of scams by "consultants"). Examples include:

The language is the only barrier. If I knew English, I would knock every possible door to complain and to ask legal advice or whatever. But language is a big barrier. We booked an appointment with the lawyer, but we didn’t speak English, so, we didn’t know how to communicate with him. X went with us to the lawyer the first time, but after that, any time he sent us messages or called us, we couldn’t communicate with him. The first problem was the language barrier, and the second was everything closing down due to COVID-19.
The language barrier also seemed to be an issue when the police got involved. These immigrants felt they could not make their case and feared that they would be misrepresented in front of the police. An example is:

I felt very defenseless at the time because of my lack of English language knowledge and I felt I didn’t have the skills to defend myself when the renter was lying to the police about me. The police questioned me harshly and demanded me to leave.
The internet was not used very often as a source for information on how to solve serious legal problems.

Outcome of Immigrants’ Serious Legal Problems

Five of the 21 immigrants were no longer dealing with their serious legal problems. Two of these individuals were able to resolve their problems and reported being happy about the resolution. The other three did not resolve their problems but simply learned to leave them in the past and to move on. For 11 immigrants, their serious legal problems were still ongoing or only partially resolved at the time of the interview. In the remaining five cases, immigrants were able to resolve one problem but were still trying to find a solution for another problem.

Did any strategies prove to be particularly useful for immigrants to resolve their serious legal problems?

The two immigrants who were happy with how their problems were resolved used different methods. In one case, the immigrant relied on the help of a lawyer paid through legal aid. In the other case, the immigrant relied on help from a settlement worker. In both cases, the immigrants were satisfied with the help they had received.

Most of the other cases that were no longer active were housing cases. Immigrants were able to deal with their problems by finding another place to live. This included relying on advice and help from friends and settlement workers, as well as actively looking for another accommodation. Finally, a general pattern that emerged was that, regardless of the outcome of the serious legal problem, immigrants valued and found the advice from friends and relatives useful. They also valued the advice from teachers, doctors, and settlement workers, which was often obtained through chance interactions, rather than the immigrants purposely seeking advice for their problems.

Research Question 3: Have recent immigrants resolved their problems through recourse to the formal legal system? If not, why not?

Do Immigrants Seek Legal Advice?

Nine immigrants did not try to solve their serious legal problems through the legal system. They did not seek legal advice or go through the formal legal system.

Of the 12 immigrants who were trying to solve their problems through the legal system, five had obtained legal advice at the time of the interview – three of these individuals received legal advice for free through legal aid and a paralegal who did pro bono work, and two of these individuals paid a lawyer for legal advice. An additional five immigrants had active legal cases represented by lawyers paid by legal aid. One other interviewee was waiting for a court appearance after being physically assaulted by her partner. She did not hire a lawyer as she thought the case was on her side. Finally, one immigrant paid for an immigration consultant and an immigration lawyer. In most cases, immigrants found the legal advice and legal representation they had received helpful.

Immigrants did not have a broad network that could help them easily find legal advice and legal representation. Instead, immigrants asked their friends and other people they happened to be in contact with in some other capacity for a referral. In the end, immigrants who paid for legal advice from lawyers found their lawyers through friends. Immigrants who obtained legal aid were often referred to their lawyers by their settlement workers.

Why Did Some Immigrants Not Seek Legal Advice or Go Through the Legal System?

Three themes are relevant to the question of why some immigrants did not seek legal advice or handle their problems through the legal system: 1) immigrants fear the consequences of pursuing legal actions, 2) costs associated with obtaining legal advice, and 3) preference to focus on the future.

Fear of consequences: Immigrants were at times afraid to take legal action against others out of fear that it might reflect badly on them or otherwise affect their immigration status or application process. The following are examples that illustrate this point:

An immigrant with an employment-related problem stated the following regarding the situation of temporary foreign workers:

When tied to a certain business, they’re scared to talk and share their experience for fear of getting sent back home, as they don’t have other options for work.
A refugee claimant dealing with a dispute with his landlord indicated that he was too anxious to take action against the landlord who acted wrongly toward him because he worried it would affect his hearing results. He mentioned that if he didn’t have his hearing coming up, he would have done something different about the situation. He would have reported the landlord for his unacceptable behaviour.

Costs: At times immigrants did not take legal action because of the anticipated costs, including mostly financial costs, but also costs in terms of time. The following are three examples:

I always wondered what kind of legal advice I could get. I got the name, phone number and address of a lawyer that speaks Spanish, but she charges $200 for an appointment. Because of my working situation, I just started working in July, I didn’t have the money to get an appointment with her. Also, the pandemic started and COVID made it more difficult. I have been waiting for the COVID situation to get better so I can get advice from her. I just want to get my legal separation from my husband. I don’t want any child support or anything, I just want to be legally separated.

Well, the stress was worse about all of it because as international students we are vulnerable, we don’t have a lot of information or we don’t have a lot of tools that we can access when we are in trouble. We’re not refugees, we’re not permanent residents, so there is very limited help we could have. If you have money, you can solve most of the problems, but if you don’t, then it’s more difficult.

We went for legal advice; we went to a lawyer. We’re now in the process of putting together the humanitarian application ourselves. We went to a lawyer. We went to a first advice consultation for them to explain us where to go and how to do, but financially, we cannot afford it because it’s almost five thousand for the whole process. So, we decided to make ourselves our application for the humanitarian visa, and that’s where we are now in the process.

Preference to focus on the future: Some immigrants did not want to have continuing problems and decided to focus on the future instead of pursuing legal action.

Research Question 4: What has been the economic, social and health impact of these problems on recent immigrants?

Economic Impact

One theme that emerged was that immigrants had additional expenses because of their serious legal problems. This included paying for an immigration consultant/lawyer, paying additional deposits when moving, and paying money for subpar or unmet services (e.g., paralegal scam, payment to arrange housing prior to arrival in Canada). As a result, the immigrants often had to borrow money from friends and neighbours. This included immigrants with different types of legal problems, such as a woman who wanted to separate from her husband and did not have enough money to support herself and her children, and a government-assisted refugee who waited a long time to get his social insurance number and had to turn down a job as a result, missing the opportunity to make money. Another common economic consequence was that the immigrants often had to apply for social assistance (e.g., Ontario Works, Employment Insurance benefits). For example, two women who separated from their husbands had to apply for Ontario Works. Two men with employment problems (unpaid wages, fired) applied for Ontario Works/Employment Insurance.

Another economic impact that emerged was that the immigrants’ housing situations were affected at times. This was the case for immigrants with housing problems and immigrants with relationship breakdowns who had to find other places to live. The result was having to accept poor living conditions or expensive rentals given that there was often not enough time to look for new housing.

The following is a quote from a woman who separated from her husband:

He left us without any money, without anything. The money we get from Ontario Works was not enough to pay the rent, so we couldn’t pay. One day, we were shocked with a decision from the owner that we have to leave at this date. That was a final decision for him. I tried, I looked everywhere for a place to move in until I found an apartment, two bedrooms only. Though it was small for us, that was the only option in front of me. So, we moved to that small apartment.

Social Impact

Immigrants with different types of problems also suffered social consequences. Examples include:

A woman got a divorce and found that it affected her socially:

The situation with my ex-husband ruined my social life. I had a close friend. We were meeting almost every day. All our trips with each other, all our phone calls, I don’t have them anymore. We had this warmth, we liked each other. But her husband supported my husband with the divorce and with everything. After that, my friend’s daughter had a heart surgery. I went to see her. I brought a gift with me. I was trying to separate what happened in my life with the relationship with my friend. My friend was so sad because she believed everything from my ex-husband. She believed that I kicked him out, that he was the victim, that he was having headaches. He is good at acting… When we first met with this family, it was through my ex-husband. The other relationship was with a woman. She was the wife of the sheikh, a religious man, so she would never accept that I did that, that I asked for a divorce, that I went to the court. They believe that if I want my rights, I need to have my rights in a religious way. My husband also mentioned this to me. If I had gone to the religious man, my husband would have given me my rights. Because I went to court, my husband will never give me my rights, give me anything. It was kind of a manipulation. So, my friend, the wife of the sheikh, she is a religious woman, and she has been in Canada for almost 30 years and she never had a problem with anybody, and she never went to court. Even with my clothes, when I got separated, I had a different style, a different way of thinking. She will never accept that. She thinks that if I change my way of dressing, if I ask for a divorce, it’s kind of I am against the Islamic rituals.
A temporary foreign worker had a workplace injury and had a dispute with his employer. The temporary foreign worker found that many of his co-workers did not agree with how he had reacted to the employer, even co-workers who came with him from their source country.
A man who was fired for no apparent reason describes his situation as follows:

Yes, it caused a family conflict, of course, because my wife was hoping that we will finally leave this small apartment and go out for a bigger house, a house we own. Even the kids, they thought we finally go out from this apartment. So yes, everyone was really pissed off and frustrated.

Health Impact

Overall, most immigrants experienced health problems due to their legal problems. This includes:

Increased stress, anxiety, and depression (feelings of helplessness)
A man who lost his job reported:

It has affected me – I wish I could go back to my country, but it is impossible with the war there. I don’t even like to eat, sometimes I will sleep without eating anything. Emotionally and psychologically, I’m not feeling well. I just want to go back to work. I don’t want to stay home.
A man with unpaid wages said the following when talking about his employer:

Whenever I brought about the salary, he threatened me like that… I was depressed. This experience made me question Canada. Is Canada like this? I came here to find peace. I am looking for a better life. Sometimes I was crying. I did not want to show what was going on to my family. Maybe I will complain about that, my employer really hurt me during these six months. Still when I remember that time, I feel sad. It makes me upset.
A man who had problems getting his health card reported:

I think it was less financial and more emotional. After some time you start to feel tired. You have to think all the time, if I go here or there what’s going to happen? If I show this paper or that paper, it is very exhausting. (…) I know that I have to work more to pay for anything that happens to my wife or my son. I don’t want to tell my son that he can’t play sports or be a kid because if he gets hurt, we don’t have insurance to cover it. I have to work harder. That is not a problem for me because that is my family, but it is more pressure.
An international student uncertain about her legal status in Canada stated:

If you see my face, you can notice I had some paralysis, two years ago. So, whenever I go through some stressful situation, the paralysis come back. And, well, it’s very hard for us because we came here with a lot of hope, we came with a lot of energy to make this plan come to reality, and we didn’t have a lot of money, but we had some savings and we had our work. But when all this situation started, our situation radically changed, and we still don’t know what will happen to us – we still don’t know if we will be here next month. [she starts crying] I’m alright. I am not embarrassed a bit about crying, it’s just comes to me when I remember all the situation and, well, we are now alright because our housing situation has resolved, but we are still in a hard point. Nobody told us that it was going to be easy, so….
Feelings of loneliness

Looking back, being alone and not having anyone for support, in addition to language barriers was very hard. I wouldn’t wish this experience of being alone in a different country to my worst enemy.
Problems sleeping

I cannot sleep without medication.
Increased physical health problems (e.g., high blood pressure, headaches, back pain, weight loss)
Immigrants with relationship problems also reported that their problems had affected their children. A woman said the following when talking about her daughter:

She is very depressed right now. I am very scared about that. She doesn’t have friends. Even if we go to the mall, she doesn’t want anyone to see her. If someone from school comes to the house she starts crying. Her situation is very delicate now because she is very depressed.

Three immigrants also expressed the desire to move or relocate once their problems are resolved due to worries about their safety or their desire to have a fresh start.

Date modified:: 2021-12-15

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Bouchard (Phoenix pay system) class action

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