Immigration

My husband, who moved to Canada in September 2006 from Sweden, got his work permit in the mail on Friday. The government has decided he's allowed to pay taxes! Finally! Oh wait.. no... he still has to pay $500, a "right of residency" fee. Could you imagine if everyone, including natural-born citizens, had to pay a right of residency fee? What if, upon your birth, your parents had to pay the thousands of dollars H has had to pay for the privilege of working in this country? For the privilege of simply BEING in this country?
And think of it if the situation were reversed: for me to immigrate to Sweden, as H's spouse, I have to fill out a 3-page questionnaire and photocopy my passport. There's a small fee - maybe 100 euros? I'll have to look that up. But it's nowhere near the thousands of dollars H has had to pay for Canadian permanent residence.
Sweden is WAY smaller than Canada, geographically speaking. They have way less room than we do. So why are we being so hard on our immigrants? The more legal immigrants we have, the more tax revenue we'll receive. And for the small percentage who arrive in Canada with the intention of selling drugs or otherwise ripping shit up, there's a large percentage who just wants the chance to live a happy life.
Okay... I know... 9-11. But H is SWEDISH, fer goshsakes. He has no criminal record, no political leanings, no red flags at all (except for liking metal, in fact, he's a regular Joe Wholesome...). He moved here for love, and all he's asking is for the chance to pay his own way.
Thank you, government, for finally giving my husband a work permit. I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I'm very happy that he'll be able to work (and I'll be able to quit my job and focus on school.) But why has it taken so long? I know for a fact it took the case worker LESS THAN A DAY to go through all the information... I know that because he told us so. So why has it taken 17 months to get to this stage?