Claude Perras's adopted daughter Ella arrives in Montreal
Claude Perras, a Longueuil resident, is back on Canadian soil with his 20-month-old adopted daughter after months of waiting in Sierra Leone for her to be granted citizenship.
The two arrived at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport late Monday afternoon.
"I feel very emotional," said Perras, holding Ella against his chest in the arrivals section of the airport. "We were looking through the window of the plane and I was telling Ella, 'This is snow.' This is the first time she's going to be seeing snow."
Perras's adopted daughter Ella became a Canadian citizen in February. Perras had travelled to Sierra Leone last October to bring Ella to Canada. He said local authorities approved the adoption, but the Canadian government wouldn’t allow Ella to enter Canada.
Initially, Perras believed the delay in approval was due to concerns about the Ebola outbreak, but Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) had concerns about the legitimacy of the adoption, and requested more information.
"A few weeks ago, I thought this was never going to happen," said Perras. "You are in total no man's land — what will happen? When will they deliver the documents so I could travel? So to be frank with you, I was quite desperate a few weeks ago."
CIC told CBC in February that Ella's citizenship application was approved after the department received the "confirmation" it had requested from authorities in Sierra Leone.
Once Ella's citizenship was approved, Perras sent away his passport to the Canadian High Commission in Accra, Ghana in order to obtain a citizenship document and a passport for his adopted daughter. It took about three weeks for the documents to arrive to Perras's temporary home in Cape Verde.
Perras says his experience with the Canadian government has left a sour taste in his mouth.
"I think the process is quite inhuman, especially that I was stuck in the middle of the Ebola outbreak. The minister had all the tools to be able to allow me to leave and come back to Canada and continue their process of doing the verification, instead of leaving us in limbo for...seven months," said Perras.
The arrival in Canada is bittersweet for Perras, whose mother passed away 10 days ago. Monique Favreau had travelled to Ottawa last December to meet with Quebec MPs in a bid to help her adopted granddaughter obtain citizenship.
"She was anxious to see Ella come to Canada and to be able to hold her and play with her," said Perras, adding that Ella would have been Favreau's sixth grandchild.
