In reaction, next Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard revealed within the January 1999 advised changes toward immigration law and you will laws and regulations to provide lesbian and you can gay people on family relations classification terms

46 Joseph, along with a number of other commentators, believed that the bigger race involved depriving them of brand new discretionary stamina given to immigration officers and also make friends reunification to possess gay men and you will lesbians part of the law enjoy it is for married heterosexual partners.47

Comparable questions had been raised by the Immigration Legislative Opinion Consultative Class (Consultative Category) with its 1997 declaration called Not merely Numbers: A great Canadian Construction to possess Immigration.48 The newest Consultative Class conveyed question one lgbt candidates was depending through to new below uniform application of unpublicized management directives.forty two During the indicating that definition of partner end up being revised so you’re able to include exact same-sex couples, the brand new Consultative Group stated that the reason for the family reunification arrangements might be visibility, equity and equivalence away from cures, and [that] this type of need to be enshrined in-law.fifty So it testimonial echoed one to produced in 1994 by people so you’re able to a national appointment with the immigration off nearest and dearest whom recommended the federal government to deliver gay guys and you may lesbians immigration support liberties equal to those of heterosexual maried people.51 For most immigration supporters, the time had come to expand the term loved ones so you can echo both changing thought of friends when you look at the Canadian residential legislation, and also the