OTTAWA – A Quebec man spent over $10,000 on a sponsorship application filed last year to bring his Cuban wife and her son to Canada only to be told by the immigration department last week that it lost the file and he must reapply.

“My wife isn’t a dirty rag, she’s a human like the person who reads her application, like the person who verifies it,” a discouraged Yves Charbonneau told National Post during an interview.