º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍø

“I’ve been here for such a long time, and I finally have a family member in this country,” said an emotional Mortel, 55, who first left home in 2005 to work as an assistant nurse in Abu Dhabi before coming to Canada in 2008.

Mickhus’ arrival offers little comfort after Mortel’s epic journey to reunite with her family, during which she was made to wait years for the processing of her permanent residence, abandon her ailing husband in the application, and watch two of her three children age out of their eligibility as her dependants.

“I am still very thankful to Canada because it opened the door for me to work here,” said Mortel, whose husband, Manolito, died of renal kidney failure in early November. “If I had not come to Canada, I wouldn’t have been able to support my family and give my kids a good education and a better future.”

This gratitude comes from a wife and mother who has lit a candle and prayed with a rosary in her hands every day for her family reunification since she left Manila to become a migrant worker. Her children were then 2, 9 and 13.

A trained midwife in the Philippines, Mortel was happily married with her husband Manolito, a tricycle driver, but their incomes couldn’t support their growing children. While working in Abu Dhabi, she heard about Canada’s live-in caregiver program that provided a pathway for permanent residence after applicants fulfilled their employment obligations.

It felt like a promising option.

However, when she arrived here in January 2008, she was released immediately by her intended employer, who sponsored her work visa to Canada. It took her eight months to find her current employer in Toronto, initially caring for the wife and later her widowed husband.

In 2010, Mortel applied for permanent residence after meeting the 24-month live-in employment requirement. In 2013, her family was invited to do their biometrics and medical exams, during which her husband was found to have kidney problems, even though he was asymptomatic at the time.

Three years passed with radio silence, until the Immigration Department notified them that their permanent residence would be refused because the husband was medically inadmissible to Canada. Mortel would spend the next two years fighting to seek compassionate consideration. The family’s application was refused in 2019.

To keep the Canadian dream alive, Mortel re-applied for permanent residence that same year but listed her spouse and children as “non-accompanying dependents.” She was approved in September 2021. Since the rest of her family was split from her application, they couldn’t automatically join her and would need to be sponsored separately.

Mickhus said his mother had promised to bring the family to Canada since he was a little boy, and he was sick and tired of people asking him where his mother was.

“But I knew mom was fighting very hard for us,” said Mickhus, whose two older sisters both graduated from university. “I’m happy to be able to live with my mom to make up all the time we lost. But it’s bittersweet because my dad is no longer with us and my sisters can’t be here.”

Mortel’s older daughter, Alyza, now 32 and a nurse, couldn’t wait any longer and moved to Finland this year after marrying someone from there; the younger one, Meghan, 28, had her sponsorship refused in September.

Meghan, who works in IT, said she was a “clingy child,” and it was hard to grow up without her mother by her side on the special moments like Christmas, graduations and birthdays — she has the same birthday as her mom. She always longed for Mortel’s visits to the Philippines but it’s also painful to see her go — and feel abandoned.

“It’s very difficult because she is not physically with us,” said Meghan, who loves her mother’s chicken adobo — a signature Filipino dish — and baking. “Whenever Mom leaves, the house feels so empty again. There’s no joy, no energy.”

Mortel, who sends the bulk of her salary back home, said she doesn’t feel like a mother but more like a provider to her children.

“As a mother, I don’t know what they like or dislike because they were growing up with their father,” said Mortel, who was diagnosed with irregular heartbeat (SVT) a few years ago. “I am not there. I just send money to support them.”

Yet, she does not regret her decision to come to Canada and is proud that her sacrifices have allowed her children to go to private colleges and receive the best education.

In an email to the Star, the Immigration Department said it received Mortel’s initial permanent residence application in October 2010, but her spouse and children were not included as dependants. The application for the rest of the family came only in April 2013.

However, immigration consultant Nir Rozenberg, who is appealing the refusal of the sponsorship of Mortel’s daughter, said the now defunct live-in caregiver program was a two-step process where the principal applicant must get first-stage approval in Canada before the application would be sent to the local visa post in the country where the dependants resided. Mortel’s family was part of the 2010 application, he noted.

Rozenberg, who represented the family from the very beginning and now helps them for free out of empathy said Mortel has dedicated more than 16 years of her life not only to care for a fellow Canadian, but sacrificed the care for her own children.

“When you really look at the facts in the circumstances of this case, Canada doesn’t seem so compassionate.”