Misrepresentation
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 … Read More
H&C Applications
The following is the IRCC Manual on H&C applications.
Study Permit Compliance
In 2020, over 400,000 international students at the post-secondary level in Canada will return to school. Many will want to stay and work in Canada after graduating. All will be subject to mandatory conditions of their stay as a student in Canada. It is important for all international students, and especially those who wish to one day work in or immigrate to Canada, to understand these conditions, as the consequence of failing to comply with one of the them is removal from Canada and a one year bar from returning. The Law on Study Permit Compliance Regulation 220.1(1) of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations provides that the holder of a study permit in Canada must enroll at a post-secondary institution that accepts international students, also known as a designated learning institution, and remain enrolled at the designated learning institution until they complete their studies. As well, students must actively pursue their course or program of study. Canadian immigration authorities typically interpret this legislative requirement as being that students must be enrolled full-time or part-time during each academic semester (excluding regularly scheduled breaks), that they must make progress towards completing their program’s courses and that they cannot take authorized leaves … Read More
Assessing the Genuineness and Primary Purpose of a Marriage
Regulation 4 of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, SOR/2002-207 state that a foreign national shall not be considered a spouse, a common-law partner or a conjugal partner of a person if the marriage, common-law partnership or conjugal partnership (a) was entered into primarily for the purpose of acquiring any status or privilege under the Act or (b) is not genuine. Statistics From 2012-2017 around 4% of spousal sponsorship applications were refused because an officer determined that an applicant’s marriage was either not genuine or that it was primarily motivated by an immigration benefit. A Hasty Marriage In Nadasapillai v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 FC 72, Justice Diner held that the fact that a marriage was entered into after a short courtship is not determinative of a mala fide marriage. He stated: The Panel criticized the haste based on Ms. Raman’s troubled past relationship and marriage, and the fact that Ms. Raman was 38 years of age at the time, i.e., getting on in age for a single mother. There are two reasons that this is a weak conclusion. First, one can easily understand why Ms. Raman was ready for the companionship that she clearly explained she had longed for: older couples can be quick in deciding … Read More
Labour Market Impact Assessments – The Genuiness and Actively Engaged Factors
Section 203(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (“IRPR“) requires Service Canada to only issue a positive Labour Market Impact Assessment (“LMIA“) when it is satisfied that an employer’s job offer is genuine. The IRPR lists several specific factors which Service Canada officers must consider in a genuineness analysis. The Genuineness Factor In addition to regulation 203(1)(a) of the IRPR, regulation 200(5) of IRPR provides that: Genuineness of job offer (5) A determination of whether an offer of employment is genuine shall be based on the following factors: (a) whether the offer is made by an employer that is actively engaged in the business in respect of which the offer is made, unless the offer is made for employment as a live-in caregiver; (b) whether the offer is consistent with the reasonable employment needs of the employer; (c) whether the terms of the offer are terms that the employer is reasonably able to fulfil; and (d) the past compliance of the employer, or any person who recruited the foreign national for the employer, with the federal or provincial laws that regulate employment, or the recruiting of employees, in the province in which it is intended that the foreign national work. … Read More
Responding to Procedural Fairness Letters
Where an applicant submits a complete application, but an immigration officer nonetheless has concerns regarding the merits of it, the immigration officer will often provide a fairness letter to the applicant. This requirement has arisen from Federal Court of Canada jurisprudence which provides that the duty of procedural fairness can require that an applicant be given an opportunity to respond to a decision maker’s concerns when those concerns go beyond simply whether the legislation or related requirements are met on the face of the application. When, for example, the applicant may be unaware of the existence or the basis of the concern, procedural fairness may require prior notice of the concern before a decision is made so that the applicant has an opportunity to try to disabuse the officer of the concern. As the Court noted in Kaur v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 809, this is the case for both temporary and permanent residency applications. In Asanova v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 1173, the Court stated: Even so, at a minimum procedural fairness requires that an applicant for a visa have an opportunity to participate meaningfully in the application process. Consequently, the duty of procedural fairness can require … Read More
The Best Interests of a Child
Yesterday, an individual called wanting to know if the fact that she was pregnant would guarantee a successful H&C application because of the duty to consider the “best interests of the child.” The father is Canadian.