March 14, 2011

Beware of Relying on Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Website!

Before the Senate last week the Honourable Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenny said that immigration applications are not complex. One is basically filling out forms.

It follows given this view the Government discourages the use of representatives and points applicants to their website.

Then there is the story of SALAM AL-SHIKARCHY
http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/irb/doc/2007/2007canlii67499/2007canlii67499.html.

He sponsored his intended adoptive daughter. He filed the application before she was 18. They processed the application after she turned 18. The law required she remain under 18 at both stages. The website was not clear and in fact as an unrepresented sponsor relied on the website as his counsel. The consequences to his family were disastrous. Attempts by our firm to help him at the appeal stage resulted in this ruling which in part read:

[64] The appellant accordingly relies in part on departmental pronunciations in their manuals, etc. Some such pronunciations indicate that in certain categories of family class membership the date of the filing of the sponsorship application is the date for fixing when the “under 18 years of age requirement is applicable or operative. Be that as it may, such pronunciations are neither law nor made applicable to the family class category of “intended adopted children”. These documents and the information on the website as indicated are not law and have no binding effect. There is no indication in those documents that the contents of the same supersede or replace the law. 

[67] . . . Regrettably, the law is complex and those who seek to negotiate the various pitfalls and nuances unaided by professionals may encounter hardship and disappointment. To avoid the same, it was open for the appellant to seek legal advise as to how the information he had was to operate in the legal framework of IRPA. It appears and the panel so finds that the appellant made a conscious choice not to do that and did not seek legal advice until too late.

He filed out a form.

He followed the website.

Not complex?

Well accept the consequences to he and his family!