How a misspelled name threw this couple down the rabbit hole of Canada’s immigration bureaucracy

Nearly a year after Jack Harold Cockcroft filed for, and was granted, permanent residence, one thing is still holding up his paperwork: a typo - one made by the immigration department that's left him entangled in bureaucracy in his and wife's efforts to get it fixed.

It's an issue the Toronto couple say highlights the struggle for applicants to tackle a siloed and irresponsive immigration department, even to fix a simple mistake its staff made.

In early August, more than six months after Cockcroft's wife, Erin Anderson-Birmingham, mailed in the immigration sponsorship application for her husband, she received instructions by email to commence the process online.

The forms issued to Cockcroft, a Brit on temporary status in Canada, for his biometrics screening and medical exam both had his last name spelled wrong, as Cockroft - missing the third c."

While the immigration portal allows applicants to update addresses and other information, they can't change the names that were entered manually by immigration officials in the computer system.

The duo filed a web form to ask immigration officials to correct the name in the documents but only got a standard email reply on Aug. 27 stating that the high volume of inquiries related to the refugee crisis in Afghanistan had affected the department's ability to deal with other cases. They would receive the repeated response with the problem unresolved even with help from their MP Han Dong's office.

With only 30 days to submit the required documents for their spousal sponsorship, the couple decided to go ahead with the biometrics screening and medical exam, hoping that the immigration department would acknowledge their request and fix the error in the meantime.

Then on Sept. 10, they received a letter from immigration that Cockcroft's permanent residence application had been approved and were asked to fill out a template email with information about his name, client number, date of entry to Canada and current address.

Although the official letter addressed him with the correct spelling of his last name, Cockcroft insisted on making a note in his reply about the spelling error in his application portal and biometrics and medical paperwork, as a safeguard. His permanent residence card arrived Sept. 27.

This came in record time, and sure enough that it bit us in the butt," said Anderson-Birmingham, 25, who met Cockcroft, 26, online in February 2019 while he was in Canada on a work-holiday visa. The two married a year ago October in the middle of the pandemic.

The permanent resident card again misspelled her husband's last name.

They just seemed to fast-track our application and then never looked to see that there was an outstanding web form to correct his name," sighed Anderson-Birmingham, who works as an analyst in the health-care sector.

The couple immediately mailed the card back to the immigration department along with a request for a reissuance due to the mistake made by the officials.

Later in October, with no response from the department, Anderson-Birmingham found out from an online forum that in order to correct a misspelled name on the permanent residence card, an applicant must first correct the name that appeared in a document called confirmation of permanent residence."

That's when they started looking for it and found it in his application portal. That document arrived in his portal on Sept. 13, after he had already responded to the email that asked for the address to mail his permanent residence card to.

What's been the most frustrating for us is not being able to contact anyone at all. We're angry, upset and frustrated," said Cockcroft, a sign designer from Huddersfield, whose work permit expired in January. He's now on implied status here. It's put unnecessary stress on us."

The couple said they have not received any confirmation or update to their requests for the reissuance of the permanent resident card or the correction to Cockcroft's name in his confirmation of permanent residence paper.

In response to an inquiry about Cockcroft's case, the immigration department apologized to the couple, saying its operations support centre inadvertently" changed Cockcroft's name on his application on Sept. 13 and later issued his permanent resident card with the incorrect spelling of his name.

While immigration officers processing applications must ensure that all data manually entered in our system matches what is in the client's passport, occasionally there may be situations where human error occurs," said department spokesperson Isabelle Dubois. It was a regrettable error."

Officials have already flagged Cockcroft's case to the operations support centre and case processing office to fix the error and reissue a new permanent resident card, she said.

Cockcroft said he needs those corrected documents to apply for his provincial health insurance and social insurance number.

Anderson-Birmingham said she doesn't understand why correcting a spelling error made by immigration officials is such a complex process when they have all the proof such as his passport and personal documents, as well as marriage certificate, all with the correct spelling of his name.

It just confirms to me that parts of the immigration department are not communicating to each other. We are the results of different departments being siloed and not interconnected," said Anderson-Birmingham, who has been told the replacement process could take six months.

Their error should not become our problem. Something has to be done to hold this department accountable for their actions."

According to the immigration department, it received 13,092 requests to replace permanent resident cards in 2019, before the pandemic hit. In 2020, 6,685 people applied for the replacement and until October, 5,217 such requests were lodged.

Officials do not have the data broken down by reasons, which could be due to misspelled names, cards reported lost, stolen or damaged.

Nicholas Keung is a Toronto-based reporter covering immigration for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @nkeung