Stewart Sharma Harsanyi Immigration Law Firm Blog

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 →

Mandamus to Compel Action on Your Citizenship File

My client was facing enforcement action by CBSA. It was a years long, seemingly interminable investigation as to her first marriage. After securing a response to an Access to Information Request (which yielded interesting details, including the fact that her citizenship application had been "put on hold") I filed an Application for Judicial Review and sought the prerogative writ of mandamus, which, in essence, compels the Respondent to do something that they're supposed to do (in this case, make a decision on that investigation). My thinking was that if a decision is made to close that file, then processing on the citizenship will follow; if a decision was made to write and refer a report alleging inadmissibility, then my client would be able to challenge that at a hearing before the Immigration Division and, if necessary, appeal any removal order to the Immigration Appeal Division. Leave was granted; at the hearing in July of this year it was clear that the presiding Justice was reluctant to grant mandamus in this sphere; he urged me to challenge the decision to suspend processing on the citizenship application instead (based on just one line that survived redacting in hundreds of pages). The client... Read more →

Canadians of Convenience or Canada is not a hotel

There are individuals that come to Canada just to obtain Canadian citizenship and all of its commensurate benefits, including a passport that can be used to travel visa free to over 150 countries. Some spend the requisite period of time in Canada and then leave (so called "Canadians of convenience" that refer to their sojourn in Canada, "immigration jail"), sometimes leaving family members here: "The United Nations Global Commission on International Migration has caught the scope of this staggering shift. It details how the migration story today is generally not the traditional one of arrival, settlement and integration. Instead, migration, especially for the affluent, has turned into a globalized trend of unprecedented mobility, porous national borders, weak loyalties, opportunism and fragmented families." Others commit residency fraud, exaggerating their time in Canada while living elsewhere. Justice Ann Mactavish recently found a family had committed residency fraud and awarded costs to the government over $63,000.00 (MCI v. Houchaine 2014 FC 342). At this time, over 10,000 individuals are being investigated for possible residency fraud. Good. The solution? There are some individuals that will always seek to maximize their personal benefits. That's fine, but not when it comes at the cost of undermining... Read more →

Citizenship Residency Requirements

Citizenship is generally granted to an individual who has accumulated three years of residency in a four year period. What is not that generally known is that there are varying interpretations as to what the residency requirement actually means. Does it mean 'two feet on the ground' or a broader interpretation? In Cardin v. MCI 2011 FC 29, Justice Mactavish sets out the three different schools of thought: [8] There are three different schools of thought as to how the residency requirement of paragraph 5(1)(c) is to be applied. The first is the Re Pourghasemi test used in this case, which only asks whether the applicant has been physically present in this country for a total of three years out of four, or a minimum of 1095 days. [9] The second test is that articulated in Re Papadogiorgakis, [1978] 2 F.C. 208; [1978] F.C.J. No. 31. This is a less stringent test in that it looks at whether an applicant has an established residence and strong attachment to Canada, even if he or she has been temporarily absent away from Canada. [10] The third test is the one most commonly used in citizenship cases. This is the so-called “Koo” test,... Read more →