Stewart Sharma Harsanyi Immigration Law Firm Blog

The Foreign Pardon

Foreign Pardons Foreign convictions can easily result in inadmissibility to Canada if the offence is equivalent to a proscribed offence here. A pardon, however, can overcome such a finding. There are different terms for the “Pardon” concept which, in effect, acts to set aside the stain of a finding of guilt. For example, the UK Rehabilitation of Offenders Act automatically pardons eligible individuals without the need for an application. This does not however, obviate the applicant’s obligation to disclose their prior criminal law interaction on applications to Canada. The pardon may well be acceptable for IRCC, and the person concerned may well be found admissible, but non-disclosure may result in an allegation of misrepresentation. Not all pardons or findings setting aside guilt are made equal. A foreign pardon does not bind Canada’s hands. If confronted by a foreign pardon or expungement, an Officer must assess whether it is an instrument worthy of recognition. In Saini, the person concerned was convicted in Pakistan of hijacking; he was sentenced, paroled, and released. He then entered Canada on a false identity. When his past criminality came to light, he submitted a pardon from Pakistan. The pardon was essentially disregarded (both parties filed expert... Read more →

Citizenship Delays and Backlog Under COVID

I was interviewed on CBC last week and asked to share my thoughts on citizenship delay and the backlog. My thoughts: Immigration Officers have had to scramble this past year, and the near 20% increase in citizenship backlog was, to be honest, almost welcome news after a year of incredible frustration and delays in all other immigration business lines. That being said, there are a significant number of applicants that have been waiting well over a year or two and COVID is no excuse for such delay. Read more →

RAD -Appeal allowed and Protection Granted -Zimbabwe

One of the challenges for Counsel and Claimant is a Member obsessed with minutiae, hunting for microscopic anomaly in testimony and documents. Our client came to us after her refugee claim (against Zimbabwe) was rejected. She was castigated, among other reasons, for not knowing the street address of the MDC headquarters in Harare. Thankfully the appeal was accepted and protection was conferred. Read more →

Consequences to an Allegation of Misrepresentation

The consequences to a finding of misrepresentation under the IRPA are serious. They include enforcement and potential removal for Permanent Residents and a 5 year ban on entering or applying for status for Foreign Nationals (See s.40(2)(a) of the IRPA). In practical terms, such a finding could end the aspiration to live in Canada or the end of a life built here in Canada. Counsel should also be aware of the possibility of criminal charges laid under the IRPA for misrepresentation. In R v. Singh 2019 ABPC 37 the accused was charged with “knowingly, directly misrepresent or withhold material facts relating to a relevant matter that induced or could have induced an error in the administration” of the IRPA contrary to section 127(a) of the IRPA. The Court found Mr. Singh guilty of knowingly using false university acceptance documents and other false documents that resulted in the issuance of a study permit. Singh said any misrepresentation was innocent on his part, arguing that he did not know the documents were false and attempted to shift the blame to his immigration representative. Ultimately the trial judge found that Mr. Singh’s application was his responsibility and he was “accountable for the lies... Read more →

Ministerial Relief -Things Could Always be Worse!

Practice in this area can be dispiriting at times. Ministerial Relief is required for inadmissibility grounded in the most serious sections of the IRPA -security, violations of international human rights, and organized criminality. The wheels of justice grind exceptionally slowly in these cases. Not only does it take an extraordinary amount of time for the matter to be determined, the outcome of the case may well depend more on the identity and ideology of the particular Minister than the merits of the case. Remember the "good old days" when Vic Toews was the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness? Justice Mosley commented on the “simplistic” analysis of then Minister Vic Toews in deciding to deny Ministerial Relief in Agraira[1]: [27] I agree with the applicant that in this case, there are concerns whether the Minister’s decision “turned on the simplistic view that the presence in Canada of someone who at some time in the past may have belonged to a terrorist organization abroad can never be in the national interest of Canada”: Kanaan v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2008 FC 241, [2008] F.C.J. No. 301, at para. 8. [28] Accordingly, the Minister’s analysis could be said to... Read more →

Making a Refugee Claim as a Member of the MDC -Zimbabwe

I've been dealing with refugee claims from Zimbabwe since I was a Refugee Protection Officer with the RPD (more than 17 years ago). The more things have changed the more they've stayed the same. The situation in Zimbabwe now, post-Mugabe -and to use a Zimbabwean aphorism is essentially: same taxi, different driver. You can still succeed with this claim profile, but the claimant must have both knowledge and activism. This threshold likely varies depending on the RPD Member. An excerpt from a recent, successful claim I assisted on: "numerous questions for 45 minutes. His evidence was repeatedly tested…Questions touched on MDC, his role in MDC, his father's role in MDC, his assistance to his father in the context of an election for a district counsellor for MDC, details on his own participation at the front of a mass protest in … etc." After the Member found the claimant credible (and the explanations for the gaps in his BoC plausible) then moves on to the documentary information -like the Australian Country Information Report indicating that risk to MDC members is likely higher for those involved in direct political activism. Reference is also made to Human Rights Watch and other corroborative country... Read more →

Quoted -CBC article on the new pathway to PR

Raj Sharma, an immigration lawyer at the Calgary law firm Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, said his firm is working with about 40 clients to help them apply for one of the three streams. Sharma said that while a program for graduates and essential workers is welcome, the language requirement is causing unnecessary headaches, particularly for those who graduated in Canada from a post-secondary program taught in English. "The international graduates, for example, entered Canada on language testing," said Sharma. "It's unnecessarily strict to require a language test." Sharma said he expects the 90,000 spots to fill up within a matter of days. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/migrant-rights-temporary-immigration-pathway-1.6013141 Read more →