Practicing Exclusively in Canadian Immigration Law

Section 40 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides that a permanent resident or foreign national is inadmissible to Canada for directly or indirectly misrepresenting or withholding a material fact relating to a relevant matter that induces or could induce an error in the administration of Canada’s immigration laws. The general consequence of misrepresenting is a five-year ban from entering Canada. Canada is very strict on misrepresentation.  In Bundhel v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 FC 1147, for example, Mr. Bundhel had been charged and convicted with an offence, which had been overturned on appeal.  Mr. Bundhel would accordingly not have been criminally inadmissible to Canada.  Because of this, he put on his immigration forms that he had never been charged or arrested.  When it discovered thathehad been previously charged, what is now Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada wrote to him and provided him with an opportunity to explain why he misrepresented.  After the immigration officer reviewed Mr. Bundhel’s explanation that it was an innocent mistake, the officer refused the application, and declared the person inadmissible to Canada for misrepresentation. The Court wrote (citations removed): Mr. Bundhel’s complaint that the Officer should have considered the fact that he owned-up to the ...