Conservative immigration critic Raquel Dancho said Mendocino and IRCC officials have been “evasive”. It is about their plans to help people stranded in their countries of origin. Many of whom quit their jobs in preparation for the move.

“You need to recognise the Urgency for a lot of this people who presumably are going to come to Canada. They contribute to our economy , become Canadians one day,” she said.

“We should be treating them with more dignity in recognizing verbally and publicly the challenges that they are going through and that hasn’t happened to date.” She added.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said the process sof having IRCC officials reach out to each applicant- even when they already have been approved before the pandemic is inefficient.

It is a waste of resources. She is calling on the government to take a blanket approach and honour all of the applications approved for permanent resident status.

“They would be able to come automatically and they could not be jammed in the system with an expired certificate of permanent residence, would save the suffering resources of having to go through the arduous process…which the officials themselves acknowledge is extremely time consuming ,” she said.