Isabelle Branco and Jean-Louis Ménard, those two French doctors caught in Immigration and Citizenship Canada’s bureaucratic labyrinth, finally received temporary work permits on Wednesday. The document should allow them to stay in the country for at least three years.
Posted at 7:08 p.m.
“We have been waiting for these approvals since February. Our lives will finally be able to return to normal. This is really good news for us,” said Isabelle Branco, who was reached by phone on Wednesday evening.
The two doctors, who had been based in the Laurentians for five years, were forced to abruptly give up their practice on Friday after their work permit extensions were canceled due to a mix-up. However, in total they care for around 2,700 patients.
The federal government originally claimed that Isabelle Branco never provided the “valid employment identification number” required for her application. However, the lead claimant assured that she uploaded it on September 14, 12 days before receiving a rejection letter.
This affair caused a stir in several media outlets, including La Presse, at a time when the shortage of family doctors is hurting across Quebec. Amid a crisis, Ottawa finally sorted out its situation Monday, but the two doctors were still waiting on the details of their work permits.
“Yes, the bureaucracy is sometimes difficult, but it is thanks to the work of civil servants, not politicians, that we have been able to improve the situation,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller wrote on X on Monday.
He was responding to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who had seized on the story by claiming that “Trudeau officials are preventing 2,700 Quebecers from getting a doctor.” “I will cut the bureaucracy to allow immigrant doctors to treat Canadians “to make it possible,” he said, to which Mr. Miller replied that “governance is more than just false slogans.”
On the way to permanent residence
Relieved, Isabelle Branco and Jean-Louis Ménard are now working on obtaining permanent residency, which would allow them to stay in Canada for well beyond three years.
In recent days, Minister Miller’s entourage had clearly indicated that the two doctors’ applications for permanent residency were in the “final stages” and that a response should be sent to them quickly. “I will not let the matter go,” assures Ms. Branco on the subject.
In her eyes, “it was the fact that you were pushed against the wall” that was the real problem with this whole story. “It’s that position of ejectability that hurt us. We came here, we invested, and then overnight we were told: It’s over, you’re pawns, you have to leave. It’s not easy to live with,” she regrets.
The two doctors say today that they have “a thought for the patients who must have been stressed and anxious about all of this.” “We know that for some of them this meant they had to go back on a waiting list for several years in the hope of finding someone they could trust. We hope they are relieved and we are thinking of them,” concludes Isabelle Branco.
With Mylène Crête, La Presse