Category Archive

In Adams v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1104, an applicant alleged that they had sent Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (“IRCC“) e-mail correspondence. IRCC maintained that they had never received it and questioned whether it had been sent. The Federal Court of Canada determined that the onus was on the applicant to show that a document was sent. The Applicant as proof attached an affidavit stating that an extension request letter was sent as an attachment to an e-mail on January 2, 2020. They also included as an exhibit a printout from the Applicant’s spouse’s Gmail account, showing an unlabelled message from January 2, 2020 at 08:42 to an IRCC e-mail address. The Federal Court held that there were several deficiencies with this, including: The e-mail was not accompanied by an acknowledgement of receipt or confirmation of read receipt; There was no printout from the e-mail inbox to show that there was no bounce-back to the message; The printout did not show that the e-mail was not in the e-mail sent box. That other e-mails that the Applicant sent to IRCC were received. That the Applicant in an e-mail on January 6, 2020 did not reference the previous extension … Read More

A foreign national in Canada with visitor status does not need to leave Canada at the end of six months (or whatever period was granted for their stay).  Instead, they may apply to extend their temporary resident status in Canada. Extensions All in-Canada visitor extension applications must be submitted electronically.  Applicants must apply before their status expires and have complied with the conditions that were imposed on them on entry.  They also must satisfy an Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada officer that they will leave Canada by the end of any extension granted. There are many factors that officers will consider in determining whether to grant an extension.  These include: what the person is doing in Canada; how long the person has been in Canada; how long the person wishes to remain in Canada; whether the person’s plans are well thought out or merely frivolous; taking the person’s situation in their home country into consideration, whether a prolonged stay in Canada is reasonable; whether the person has the means to support themselves or whether someone else is willing to provide adequate support; whether the person has the ability and means to leave Canada; and whether the original purpose of their … Read More

On September 20, 2021 Canada had its 44th Parliamentary election.  The results leave the composition of Canada’s House of Commons essentially unchanged from before.  As of September 21, 2021, the Liberal Party of Canada, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has again won a Minority Government with 32% of the vote and 158 seats, 12 short of the required 170 needed for a majority.  This means that the Liberals do not have enough seats in the House of Commons to unilaterally pass legislation and must collaborate with the other parties.  The Conservative Party of Canada won 34% of the vote and 119 seats. The Bloc Québécois won 8% of the vote and 34 seats. The New Democratic Party won 18% of the vote and 25 seats. The Green Party of Canada won 2% of the vote and 2 seats. The Liberals can pass immigration legislation as long as they have the support of either the Conservatives, the Bloc or the NDP.  They do not have to commit to one party, and can pick and choose which party they get support from depending on the specific change they are proposing. It is accordingly worth understanding these parties’ immigration campaigns. The Liberal … Read More

A discussion of the 2021 immigration platforms of the Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, Greens, Bloc Quebecois and the People’s Party of Canada. Chantal Desloges is the Founder and Senior Partner of Desloges Law Group. Borderlines · #60 – Where Canada's Political Parties Stand on Immigration in 2021, with Chantal Desloges Heading – The Election and Canadian Immigration On September 20, 2021 Canada will have its 44th Parliamentary election.  There are six main political parties running.  The first is the Liberal Party of Canada, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  The Liberals are generally regarded as a centrist party and have governed since October 2015.  The second is the Conservative Party of Canada, led by Erin O’Toole.  The Conservatives are a centre-right party that previously governed Canada from 2006-2015 under Stephen Harper.  The third is the New Democratic Party, a left-wing led by Jagmeet Singh.  The fourth is the Green Party of Canada, led by Annamie Paul, a party that is typically known for its environmental platform.  The fifth is the Bloc Québécois, led by Yves Francois Blanchet. The Bloc is a Quebec nationalist party that only runs candidates in Quebec.  Finally, there is the People’s Party of Canada, a right-wing … Read More

One of the leading cases on procedural fairness is Charkaoui v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2007 SCC 9.  There, the Supreme Court of Canada stated: Last but not least, a fair hearing requires that the affected person be informed of the case against him or her, and be permitted to respond to that case. This right is well established in immigration law. The question is whether the procedures “provide an adequate opportunity for [an affected person] to state his case and know the case he has to meet” (Singh, at p. 213). Similarly, in Suresh, the Court held that a person facing deportation to torture under s. 53(1)(b) of the former Immigration Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. I-2, must “[n]ot only . . . be informed of the case to be met . . . [but] also be given an opportunity to challenge the information of the Minister where issues as to its validity arise” (para. 123). In Therrien v Canada (Attorney General), 2017 FCA 14, the Federal Court of Appeal stated that the the required specificity of the notice provided an affected person is to be determined in light of all of the circumstances including consideration of whether … Read More

Garcia Balarezo v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) is an interesting case which stands for the principle that it is unreasonable for IRCC to expect applicants to submit ATIP requests to learn the internal status of their file and what submissions they might need to make. The Court noted: The officer recognized that both the May 2012 and June 2015 work permits were issued by IRCC in error. However, the officer asserted that Ms. Garcia’s May 2012 and October 2012 work permits “had clear notes on them that PA [principal applicant] was not part of the LC program.” This appears to have been very important in the officer’s thinking, as they repeated the point both in responding to one of Ms. Garcia’s submissions, and again in their conclusion, stating: The errors made on CIC’s part (including issuing first work permit with med instructions to work in childcare field and adding the incorrect remarks to clients third work permit in 2015) have been taken into consideration and there is still insufficient evidence of H&C grounds to warrant exemptions. PA’s rep stated that PA and her employers were aware of Section 112 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations and were aware that the … Read More

In 2019 the approval rates for permanent residence applications processed overseas was as follows.

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. An issue that often arises is where an applicant mistates or omits information in their visa application, but the information is readily available to a visa officer. Koo v. Canada  Koo v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2008 FC 931 is the most frequently cited case on this issue.  There, an applicant failed to disclose that he had previously applied for permanent residence, and that the application had been refused.  Justice Montigny stated that: I shall now turn to the alleged misrepresentation with respect to the applicant’s previous application for permanent residence. The error occurred when the applicant checked off the “yes” box to the question whether he had “previously sought refugee status in Canada or applied for a Canadian immigrant or permanent resident visa or visitor or temporary resident visa”, but checked off the “no” box to … Read More