In January 2024, the Canadian government unveiled a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) programme, presented as a compassionate response to the war in Gaza. It promised to reunite Canadian citizens and permanent residents with family members trapped in the besieged territory.
However, the programme had limitations: an initial cap of 1,000, which later expanded to 5,000 applications, a three-year visa term, and a rigorous application process that required details such as scars, employment history from age 16, all past addresses, and social media handles.
As of April 27, 1,177 individuals had been approved to come to Canada, with 811 having already arrived, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
Just ten months later, over 40 human rights organisations have urged the federal government to reform the programme.
On the ground, Gaza remains engulfed by Israel’s bombardments, blockade, and mass displacement. Nearly two million Palestinians face dire conditions, with families sheltering in overcrowded tents and struggling for basic survival.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) accused the authorities of racism in its report, stating: “Canada’s half-hearted attempts to feign rescuing Palestinians in Gaza are broadly recognised as reflecting anti-Palestinian racism (APR) domestically.”
Over a year later, the gap between Canada’s stated compassion and the programme’s reality has widened.
Amnesty International’s 2024 report found Israel in breach of the Genocide Convention, yet Canada’s TRV scheme, despite its humanitarian language, has proved largely inaccessible.
For a Canadian-Palestinian man, who asked to remain anonymous, failure is a painful reality. “My family is scattered all over Gaza, in the north, the south, the middle,” he says.
“But the truth is, there’s no safe place left. They’re moving from one tent to another, just trying to stay alive.”
The illusion of access
To qualify for the TRV, the applicants must first leave Gaza for biometric processing in a third country, typically Egypt. But with the Rafah crossing tightly shut and controlled by Israeli and Egyptian authorities, the passage was virtually impossible without paying thousands to brokers.
However, since Israel took control of the crossing in May 2024, it has been shut. And Canada doesn’t offer any diplomatic or logistical support, leaving families to fend for themselves.
The Canadian-Palestinian anchor relative had placed his faith in the system. “I expected to hear back within weeks, any updates or guidance on next steps,” he says.
“Instead, it was silence. They kept asking for documents I had already submitted. No one answered calls. There’s no way to track anything.”
The government’s website, he adds, only shows signs of life when lawyers or families pressure IRCC directly. Over a year has passed with little movement. “If this programme were a priority,” he says, “we would see it.”
All he wants now is clarity. “If my file is moving, say so. If there’s no hope, at least be honest,” he said with frustration and disbelief.
Bureaucratic failure and a legal fight
By April 2024, frustration over the TRV programme’s dysfunction had spilt into the courts. Three Canadian Lawyers, including Hana Marku, Damey Lee and Debbie Rachlis, filed a legal challenge on behalf of dozens of Palestinian applicants, arguing that the system was riddled with discriminatory and structural barriers.
“We’re representing 71 applicants currently in Gaza,” Hana elaborates. “Of those, 53 never received any response after submitting the initial web form back in January 2024. The remaining 18 got codes and submitted the required documents promptly, but then the silence resumed.”
The core demand, she emphasised, was not extraordinary. “We’re not asking for automatic approvals, just that each case be reviewed and moved forward. That’s the core of the legal challenge.”
That silence, however, has come at a cost.
The anonymous applicant recounted the collapse of trust in the system. “Compared to the support Ukrainians or Afghans received, this process felt chaotic,” he said. “I applied and waited. That’s all I could do.”
In the meantime, it was a month into the war, and his family had to evacuate under Israeli bombardment when his father left behind his vital medications. He suffered a stroke and, amid blackout and medical shortages, he passed away.
In addition to the programme’s rushed rollout and narrow eligibility, the statutory declaration by IRCC requires sponsors to secure accommodation, meet essential living needs, arrange medical care, collect family members from airports, register children in school, and assist with employment.
“This level of obligation is excessive for a visitor visa and unprecedented under a temporary public policy,” Marku explains.
Many webform submissions received no response from IRCC, while others were met with vague notices stating that the sponsor’s declaration was “incomplete,” without clarifying what was missing.
Hana Marku and Damey Lee, who personally reviewed their clients’ files, found no issues in the submitted documents.
“We handled a few of these cases where the incompleteness findings were incorrect, and they were resolved with the Department of Justice,” said Marku. “But what concerns us more are the applicants who haven’t heard anything at all from IRCC.”
Meanwhile, the disparity between Canada’s response to Palestinians and its rapid action for other crises is striking.
Between October and mid-December 2023, despite escalating Israeli airstrikes, there was no policy in place for Gaza. The Canadian government only announced its policy on December 21, 2023, with the TRV programme officially launching on January 9, 2024, three months after the deadly war began.
By contrast, Canada established a dedicated visa pathway for Ukrainians within a week of Russia’s invasion, ultimately approving close to a million visas.
By the end of 2023, more than 200,000 Ukrainians had already arrived in the country. Similarly, 46,000 Afghans were resettled following the Taliban’s return to power, and over 40,000 Syrians have been granted refuge.
“Canada has proven its ability to move fast, to scale up responses when it chooses to,” Lee said. “But for Palestinians, urgency never arrived.”
That absence of urgency is most visible in the stories of those the policy claims to protect.
“Our youngest client was born in a tent because no hospital was accessible and their home had been bombed,” Marku said. “At the other end, our eldest client is in his 80s, suffering serious health issues, also living in a tent, deteriorating daily from hunger and lack of medicine. These are the people this policy was meant to protect. Yet, the government’s response has been to close the program. This is not just tragic, it is macabre.”
Designed to fail
While former Immigration Minister Marc Miller continued to describe the TRV programme as a sincere humanitarian initiative, he also acknowledged the diplomatic hurdles involved, pointing to the complex relationships between Canada, Egypt, and Israel. But even he could not deny its shortcomings.
Speaking on national television on 29 February 2024, Miller admitted, “We are all failing Gazans.”
That quiet admission reflected the deeper contradiction built into the programme itself. Though Canada positioned the TRV as a humanitarian pathway for Palestinians, the structure on which it rests has excluded those who need it most.
By March 2025, the programme had officially been closed, leaving hundreds in limbo. The legal case is still ongoing, and applicants are awaiting updates from the government regarding their files.
But as Israel’s genocide grinds on in Gaza and each new bombing pushes families deeper into crisis, the gap between what Canadian policy claims to offer and what it actually delivers continues to widen.
For those who placed their faith in the system, the disappointment runs deep.
“The programme was designed to fail,” the anonymous applicant said. “They wasted our time, our money, and most of all, our trust.”
Aparajita Ghosh is a journalist based in Canada. She covers environmental justice, Indigenous rights, climate issues and social movements
Follow her on X: @_aparajitaghosh
