Compassionate Reason Prevails

 "She feels very uplifted.  She's jubilant now that my aunt is here, just relieved that she has help taking care of the house."  Bassam Atia

Magda Atia, left, who has Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, had been trying to get her half sister Mona Mustafa Hamad to Ottawa from Egypt for months.Photograph by: Wayne Cuddington , Ottawa Citizen

 

Immigration Canada is loathe to issue visas to those who it deems have every conceivable reason not to return to their own country after their visa expires.  Visas of a casual nature are rarely issued to those without employment in their home country, for example. 

But in the case of Mona Mustafa Hamad, an Egyptian half-sister to Egyptian Canadian Magda Atia, it is possible that personnel in Egypt employed as locally-engaged workers at the Canadian mission, made their own decisions based on how they personally viewed Ms. Hamad's qualifications, principally religion, according to some immigration experts.

The story is a sad one.  Magda Atia, who emigrated to Canada from Egypt 17 years ago, has been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, a disease which will sooner rather than later take her life.  Her family decided she could use some cheering up and some practical help in managing her household during this time of her miserable travail. 

So they asked her half-sister Mona Hamad to visit.  Mona Hamad, the mother of a little girl of 6, meant to bring her daughter with her. That temporary visa to visit with her sister stricken with the last stages of pancreatic cancer was denied Mona Hamad. 

The family appealed to their Member of Parliament, wrote for helpful consideration to Canada's Minister of Immigration, and contacted the local newspaper.  And a reporter who often acts as a public ombudsman of sorts, bringing to the attention of the reading public events or matters of public interest, attempted to intervene by publicizing the situation.

Ah, the power of the press.  Something worked.  The newspaper took up the issue and ran interference with the immigration authorities. 

As can be imagined, that department is a huge, busy bureaucracy and no doubt viewed this attention to a particular case inconvenient and a nuisance interfering with their work - and there are huge backlogs to their work.  That intervention seemed to proffer little hope.  But reason did prevail, and likely because of a newspaper's determination to see that it would.

Magda Atia's family is a credit to Canada and to their smaller community in the capital of the country.  Her husband is a pharmacist, their adult sons are examples of professions that would make any parents proud; one a dental surgeon, another operates a build-design company, and a third is attending business school.  They had the confidence to make themselves and their problem heard where it counts.

The temporary visa was duly issued.  Magda Atia's half-sister has arrived with her little girl.  Their reunion no doubt gave great happiness to both sisters. 

As for any question lingering over whether or not Mona Mustafa Hamad would leave Canada when her visa expired, there really is none.  After all, she has her own family back in Egypt close to Cairo = a job, a husband and four other young children await her return.