Cinderella Canada

A Canadian fairy tale.

Cinderella Canada

Once upon a time a handsome prince had scoured all the maps and websites that he could in order to find the perfect highway to ride his motorcycle on. He had already found himself and had covered many lands in his travels and had plans for many more, then, one night, almost by accident, he stumbled upon the secret to the answer of what he had been looking for all along.

A tiny advertisement for a matrimonial website had caught his eye. An admirer mail and a picture had captured his attention. It was after meeting in a foreign land that the handsome prince found the one true heart that he loved and bonded with the most, the girl behind the picture captured his devotion, she was soon swept off her feet, the pictures in his camera were suddenly filled with people and welcoming smiles, happy families and laughter instead of winding roads, barren tundra, painted deserts, and rocky peaks.

Cinderella and the handsome prince decided to seal the bond and pledged to love each other forever by registering to be married. After Cinderella and the handsome prince had celebrated with her family, the handsome prince and Cinderella tried to return to the castle to meet his family and to start out on their honeymoon.

It came to pass

That the guards at the gate did not like Cinderella anywhere near as much as the handsome prince liked Cinderella.

The guards had been specially trained to be hyper vigilant to spot couples who did not speak the same language and the guards had been given the authority and the power to use an invisible fence to stop these lovers from being together. The handsome prince begged the guards to allow Cinderella into the castle so that she could meet his family, so she could expose herself to a foreign society and see where he lived and worked and to visit with his friends and so that she could immerse herself into her new language.

The Cinderella in this story has grandchildren that have not met her yet. The couple needed this time together. The guards denied Cinderella entry to visit the castle three times.

They explained that they believed that Cinderellas profile could not be trusted to comply with the expiry date for her visa; they said their concern was that the motivation for her to remain in the castle was greater than for her to return to her family. With an uncaring flourish of the pen the guards used their power to insure that Cinderella would never, ever, be allowed to even visit the castle.

Never.

Ever.

Due to their forced separation, the handsome prince returned to work and Cinderella stayed home.

He and Cinderella worked separately on the resident application for one whole year with the use of a computer and translated e-mails, each page had to be carefully translated, explained to each other, discussed repeatedly, and then checked again, before they were able to finally complete the application and be granted an interview.

 At the gate the guards stripped Cinderella and the handsome prince of their electronic and communication devices then met with Cinderella and the handsome prince, behind a bullet proof glass partition. They spoke through an intercom.

The lady guard stated that they realized that Cinderella was not well educated and that they had not expected educated answers. In the interview the guards confirmed their suspicions; indeed Cinderella could not speak English. Nor did the handsome prince speak Mandarin, and how could this couple even pretend to have a relationship when they did not share a language the guards demanded.

They also confirmed, as they had suspected, that Cinderella could not accurately describe the shape of, nor details about the inside of the castle. The guards then proceeded to reveal that Cinderella could not accurately identify dates and relationships between members of the handsome princes family.

They found her to be digressive in her answers.They also stated that she had tried to answer questions that had not been asked in her interview. Statements that she wanted to make were not welcome during their conversation.

The handsome prince tried to explain that it did not seem fair to be asking these questions to Cinderella about the intricate details of a home and family that they themselves had denied her to visit.

The lady guard replied that the decisions that the other guards had made had nothing to do with the decision today. By their own testimony the couple had proven that they used translation devices both written and video to communicate with. The couple had obviously developed a chat relationship during the time of their enforced separation, but they had produced no telephone records. How could this couple even dare to pretend to be having a relationship if they could not even produce telephone records between them?

Cinderella had answered the questions only with facts that she knew of, she even got a couple of them wrong, and she was unable to tell stories about castle life.

Her credibility was challenged; the guards felt that Cinderellas motive revealed itself, there was no need to look at the evidence. There was no time to look at the evidence. The guards had concerns. The decision had already been made.

The guards accused Cinderella of only marrying the handsome prince in order so that she could gain status in the castle. The guards then accused Cinderella of fraud, they refused her status as a member of the family class, They now rejected Cinderella a fourth time; they denied her application.

The guards then, as a final display of their disdain, confiscated Cinderellas marriage certificate.

Cinderella would be required to live alone across the great ocean at the farthest corner of the earth where the handsome prince had found her. The guards accused the handsome prince of only marrying Cinderella so that he could visit her country. They accused Cinderella of only seeing the handsome prince as a big fat visa.

They were both accused of discussing matters of the application extensively in their communications, they accused the couple of using interpreters to communicate, and they accused the couple of not using a telephone.

The guards then informed Cinderella of their decision and sentenced her to a two year appeal process.

When the handsome prince asked the guards what they could have done differently, they were told that it would cost them a lot of money to find that out.

The prince wanted to move out of the castle to be with Cinderella but he would have to forfeit his job as the handsome prince, the couple needed him to keep that job, it was a job worth saving. If he quit the job, they would lose their source of income, and he would then be disqualified as a sponsor.

The handsome prince thought that he now knew first hand what it felt like to be treated like a foreign national by the Canadian government.

With the seriousness of the crime they had been accused of there was little hope of an arbitrated appeal in the first year, the couple faced the entire two year process for the full appeal.

Some would say that he had gotten off lightly for falling in love and marrying a foreign girl; citizens falling in love and marrying foreign girls was a very big concern for the government of Canada.

The handsome prince was given the same two year appeal sentence as Cinderella, he would spend the time in a silk prison of his own.