Letter to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau

Greetings honorable Prime Minister Trudeau,

My name is Deepika Bohra from India. I am a 24-year- old student from India’s financial capital, Mumbai.

I had applied for admissions to Brock University, Ontario for a 2-year MBA course and had made initial payments after receiving admission to the said course.

But, despite VISA applications and dual submissions of health certificates, my VISA hasn’t arrived yet from the consulate and the university wants to defer my admissions and deduct a one-time payment to the tune of $3000 Canadian dollars.

Sir, I hail from a lower-middle class family with four sisters and it was a big decision for me to pursue my academics in Canada. My father was hoping I could pave way for my sisters to set their goals higher and pursue education as our community in India isn’t big on girl child's education and girls are usually married by by the time they complete their higher secondary education.

Below is a timeline of how the events transpired:

-I had applied for Canadian student visa on 23rd June 2016 through paper application at Mumbai VFS.

-I could online track that my application was being processed at Bangalore VFS.

-Since the minimum application period was 4 weeks as given on www.cic.gc.ca, I wrote a letter in the 4th week to the consulate to expedite my application as I had the course beginning on 2nd August 2016.

-I had also booked flight tickets of 27th July after paying a hefty sum.

-Then I received a call from Bangalore’s Canadian Consulate saying that my medicals were not cleared. After doing more 7 tests from the panel physician, I was told to get comments on my reports from their referred Gastroentrologist who again told me to conduct another test — sonography.

-The doctor who conducted sonography and the Gastroentrologist, both, had remarks that there was actually nothing wrong with my medicals and the virus shown was merely anti-virus which is non-transmitting and non-harming.

-After submitting the reports on 21st July again after incurring huge expenses and time, I re-submitted an expedite letter for my application and also asked Bangalore VFS to expedite myprocess through an email.

-There has been no update till today about what is happening with my application. I can only track the status on VFS global website which says application is processing at Bangalore VFS and nothing more. The help line numbers can also say only the this status and cannot help in any other way.

Meanwhile, the University has deferred my admission to next year since I did not attend the orientation and mandatory English program offered by them. My MBA course will begin only by 4th September 2016.

-Also, the University in a communication has stated that according to their policy, I won’t get a refund of the fees I paid to reserve a seat i.e. $3000 CAD which is huge amount for me.

-I had also resigned from my current workplace after applying for VISA as I was confident about my paper work and the ability to secure a VIS to complete my academics.

Sir, with all these complications and delays, I have incurred huge losses and will end up losing a year academically as well because of delayed VISA response. This delay also means, I may not be able to pursue my further education, which is a huge detrimental to me and my family. With constant follow-ups and waiting, i am anguished to see the delayed developments and request you to kindly look into the matter, if you can, in any manner possible.

I really want to pursue my further education in Canada and this experience has been very daunting. Kindly please help me out.

Regards,

Deepika Bohra.