MONTREAL - Hundreds gathered at St. Joseph's Oratory on Sunday afternoon to mark the anniversary of last year's devastating earthquake in Haiti.
The ceremony was intended to demonstrate solidarity between Haiti and Montreal, which has the largest Haitian population in Canada.
But nearly one year after the creation of a special humanitarian program to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti which opened Quebec's doors to 3,000 Haitians, there have only been just under 400 who have been able to use the program to make their way here.
Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil admitted Sunday while attending the commemorative mass that she was told in the fall the program has not been very efficient.
The program was put in place with Ottawa's collaboration, and Weil said she has met with her federal counterpart Jason Kenney to see if there was a way to cut some of the red tape involved. Since the meeting, Weil said, applications are being processed quicker.
Quebec received 8,300 requests as part of the special program that ran from Feb. 3 to July 21, and more than 3,000 selection certificates were issued. That document allowed the applicants to make an immigration request to Ottawa, but only 60 per cent of the Haitians who received the certificate followed through to this next step in the process.
Also present at Sunday's ceremony, Premier Jean Charest noted that Quebec increased its number of Haitian immigrants by 80 per cent in 2010, with the government fast-tracking applications received prior to the devastating earthquake of Jan 12, 2010 that claimed approximately 200,000 victims.
Charest said his government would reach the special programs targets "as soon as possible."
