Regulation 90(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (the “IRPR”) identifies who qualifies as a member of the Quebec investor class. Under this provision, a foreign national is considered part of this class if two criteria are met:
(a) they intend to reside in the province of Quebec, and
(b) they are named in a Certificat de sélection du Québec (CSQ) issued by the Quebec government.
Jurisprudence
In Quan v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 576, Justice Gascon ruled that procedural fairness does not require that officers specifically warn applicants prior to interviews that they may be concerned about intention to reside in Quebec. He wrote:
As pointed out by the Minister, this Court has determined on several occasions that immigration officers have no obligation to share their concerns regarding the evidence submitted in support of a permanent residence application when these concerns arise directly from one of the requirements of the statutes and regulations (Naboulsi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1651, at para 92; Zeeshan v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2013 FC 248 at paras 33, 46; Rukmangathan v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2004 FC 284 at para 23). In the case of Ms. Quan, subsection 90(2) of the IRPR only requires two things from an aspiring Québec Investor class member: 1) a CSQ; and 2) the intent of residing in the province. Ms. Quan had obtained her CSQ in 2016. Logically enough, Ms. Quan must have had an inkling that the Officer’s concerns pertained to the second of the two elements she had to prove to obtain her permanent residence visa, namely, her intent to reside in Québec.
Procedural fairness does not require visa applicants to be given the opportunity to respond to concerns about information that they are aware of and have provided themselves. In this case, the reasons given by the Officer in the Decision were not based on extrinsic evidence, but rather on concerns about information that Ms. Quan had herself provided. More generally, it is well accepted that visa officers do not have a duty or legal obligation to seek to clarify a deficient application, to reach out and make an applicant’s case, to apprise an applicant about concerns arising directly from the legislation or regulations, to provide the applicant with a running score at every step of the application process, or to offer further opportunities to respond to continuing concerns or deficiencies (Sharma at para 32; Lv at para 23). To impose such an obligation would be akin to giving advance notice of a negative decision, an obligation that the Court has expressly rejected on many occasions. In the context of a visa officer’s decision on an application for permanent residence, the duty of fairness is quite low and easily met ““due to the absence of a legal right to permanent residence, the fact that the burden is on the applicant to establish [his/her] eligibility, the less serious impact on the applicant that the decision typically has, compared with the removal of a benefit, and the public interest in containing administrative costs”” (Tahereh v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2008 FC 90 at para 12).