A-75-97
Pedro Benjamin Orellano Mancia (Appellant)
v.
The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (Respondent)
Indexed as: Manciav.Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (C.A.)
Court of Appeal, Stone, Décary and Robertson JJ.A. "Vancouver, February 24; Ottawa, May 1, 1998.
Citizenship and Immigration — Immigration practice — Post-claims determination officer consulting articles published after appellant filing submissions with respect to application for consideration as member of PDRCC class — Motions Judge finding not introducing new information not otherwise readily available; reference thereto not constituting breach of duty of fairness — Answer to certified question: remembering each case decided according to own circumstances, with respect to documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions available, accessible (a) when applicant making submissions, fairness not requiring disclosure in advance of determination of matter; (b) after applicant filing submissions, fairness requiring disclosure where novel, significant, evidencing changes in country conditions possibly affecting decision — Regard had to nature of proceeding, rules under which decision-maker acting; context of proceeding; nature of documents at issue in proceeding — Question of fact for Motions Judge to determine whether failure to disclose document unfair — Motions Judge applying proper test — Within domain to decide evidence not affecting immigration officer's decision.
This was an appeal from the Motions Judge's finding that there had not been a breach of the duty of fairness. The appellant was a citizen of El Salvador. His Convention refugee claim was rejected. He applied for consideration as a member of the post-determination refugee claimants in Canada (PDRCC) class, and filed submissions. Before deciding that the appellant was not a member of the PDRCC class, the post-claims determination officer consulted three articles published after the appellant had filed his written submissions, all of which were in the public domain and available at any public library and/or the Board's Documentation Centre. The Motions Judge found that they did not introduce new information that was not otherwise readily available, and reference thereto did not constitute a breach of the duty of fairness. The Court was asked to answer the following certified question: Does an immigration officer conducting a review pursuant to the Regulations respecting Post-Determination Refugee Claimants in Canada Class (PDRCC Class Regulations) violate the principle of fairness, when he fails to disclose in advance of determining the matter, documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions?
Held, the appeal should be dismissed.
The cases dealing with disclosure of evidence are based on the following propositions: (1) An applicant is deemed to know from his past experience with the refugee process what type of evidence of general country conditions the immigration officer will be relying on and where to find that evidence; consequently, fairness does not dictate that he be informed of what is available to him in documentation centres. (2) Where the immigration officer intends to rely on evidence which is not normally found, or was not available at documentation centres when the applicant filed his submissions, fairness dictates that the applicant be informed of any novel and significant information which evidences a change in the general country conditions that may affect the disposition of the case. Regard has been given to (a) the nature of the proceeding and the rules under which the decision-maker is acting; (b) the context of the proceeding; and (c) the nature of the documents at issue in such proceedings.
(a) The PDRCC class proceeding is not a new hearing of a refugee claim. In a refugee claim hearing, the applicant is entitled under subsection 68(5) of the Act to be notified of those "facts, information or opinion" which the Refugee Board claims to be within its specialized knowledge. No such language is used in the PDRCC Class Regulations, where the sole procedural right afforded is that of making written submissions.
(b) The PDRCC Class Regulations apply to persons whose claim for refugee status has already been denied and who must be deemed to have been aware of a general process of relying on published documentary sources of information on country conditions. The "material already on file" which is referred to in the typical letter sent to applicants must be the material found at documentation centres. The failure of the typical letter to be more specific does not in itself amount to a breach of the duty of fairness. It may also be that the documents available at documentation centres are not all equally easy to trace and to consult, but one would assume that an applicant, who bears the burden of convincing an immigration officer that his life "will be subjected to a personal, objectively identifiable risk" if he were removed to a given country, will have made the necessary efforts, prior to filing his written submissions, to trace and consult all documents that may be relevant to his cause.
(c) The documents are in the public domain. They are general by their nature and neutral in the sense that they do not refer expressly to an applicant and are not prepared or sought by the Department for the purposes of the proceeding. They are not part of a "case" against an applicant. They are available and accessible, absent evidence to the contrary, through the files, indexes and records found at documentation centres. They are generally prepared by reliable sources. They can be repetitive. The fact that a document becomes available after the filing of an applicant's submissions does not signify that it contains new information or that such information is relevant and will affect the decision. It is only when an immigration officer relies on a significant post-submission document which evidences changes in the general country conditions that may affect the decision, that the document must be communicated to that applicant.
The certified question was answered as follows: it being understood that each case must be decided according to its own circumstances, and assuming that the documents are of a nature described above: with respect to documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions which are available and accessible (a) when an applicant files a submission, fairness does not require disclosure in advance of a determination; (b) after an applicant files a submission, fairness requires disclosure where they are novel, significant and evidence changes in the general country conditions that may affect the decision.
Whether the failure to disclose a document passes the fairness test is a question of fact to be determined by the Motions Judge. Provided that the Motions Judge has not proceeded on some wrong principle, his finding will rarely be disturbed by the Federal Court of Appeal. In this case, the Motions Judge applied the proper test. It was within his domain to decide that the evidence at issue was not such as to affect the immigration officer's decision.
statutes and regulations judicially considered
Immigration Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. I-2, ss. 9(1), 68(5) (as am. by R.S.C., 1985 (4th Supp.), c. 28, s. 18), 83(1) (as am. by S.C. 1992, c. 49, s. 73), 114(2).
Immigration Regulations, 1978, SOR/78-172, s. 2(1) "member of the post-determination refugee claimants in Canada class" (as enacted by SOR/93-44, s. 1).
cases judicially considered
applied:
Kane v. Board of Governors (University of British Columbia), [1980] 1 S.C.R. 1105; (1980), 110 D.L.R. (3d) 311; [1980] 3 W.W.R. 125; 18 B.C.L.R. 124; 31 N.R. 214; Board of Education v. Rice, [1911] A.C. 179 (H.L.).
considered:
Shah v. Canada (Minister of Employment & Immigration) (1994), 29 Imm. L.R. (2d) 82; 170 N.R. 238 (F.C.A.); affg (1992), 55 F.T.R. 87 (F.C.T.D.); Nadarajah v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1996), 112 F.T.R. 296; 33 Imm. L.R. (2d) 234 (F.C.T.D.); Muliadi v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1986] 2 F.C. 205; (1986), 18 Admin. L.R. 243; 66 N.R. 8 (C.A.).
referred to:
Dervishi v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship & Immigration) (1996), 36 Imm. L.R. (2d) 63 (F.C.T.D.); Dhillon v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1996] F.C.J. No. 650 (T.D.) (QL); Garcia v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship & Immigration) (1996), 36 Imm. L.R. (2d) 114 (F.C.T.D.); Singh v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1996] F.C.J. No. 781 (T.D.) (QL); Xavier v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1996), 120 F.T.R. 130; 35 Imm. L.R. (2d) 177 (F.C.T.D.); Russell v. Duke of Norfolk, [1949] 1 All E.R. 109 (C.A.); Quintanilla v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1996), 105 F.T.R. 315 (F.C.T.D.).
CERTIFIED QUESTION from Mancia v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1997] F.C.J. No. 120 (T.D.) (QL): Does an immigration officer conducting a review pursuant to the Regulations respecting Post-Determination Refugee Claimants in Canada Class violate the principle of fairness, when he fails to disclose in advance of determining the matter, documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions? Answer: It being understood that each case will have to be decided according to its own circumstances and assuming that the documents at issue are of a nature such as that described in these reasons for judgment, (a) with respect to documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions which were available and accessible when the applicant made his submissions, fairness does not require disclosure in advance of a determination; (b) where the documents became available and accessible after the applicant filed his submissions, fairness requires disclosure where they are novel, significant and evidence changes in the general country conditions that may affect the decision.
counsel:
Peter P. Dimitrov for appellant.
Esta Resnick for respondent.
solicitors:
Peter P. Dimitrov, Delta, British Columbia, for appellant.
Deputy Attorney General of Canada for respondent.
The following are the reasons for judgment rendered in English by
Décary J.A.: This Court is asked to answer the following question certified by MacKay J. [[1997] F.C.J. No. 120 (T.D.) (QL), at paragraph 40] pursuant to subsection 83(1) of the Immigration Act1 (the Act):
Does an immigration officer conducting a review pursuant to the PDRCC regulations violate the principle of fairness, as enunciated by the Federal Court of Appeal in Shah,2 when he or she fails to disclose, in advance of determining the matter, documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions?
Even though a substantially similar question has also been certified in other cases,3 these cases were not argued together with the present one and should not be construed as determined by these reasons.
The relevant facts are not in dispute. The appellant is a citizen of El Salvador. He arrived in Canada on April 24, 1992 and claimed to be a Convention refugee. At his hearing before the Convention Refugee Determination Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the Board), he claimed that he feared persecution in El Salvador, in part from former members of the FMLN, once a revolutionary force to which he had belonged but now a political party supporting efforts to establish democratic government in the country. He also claimed to fear persecution from the Army to which he believed his name as a former FMLN member would have been communicated.
On May 4, 1993, the Board determined that the appellant was not a Convention refugee. The Board found that the appellant's fear of the Army was "based on mere speculation" (A.B., Vol. 1, at page 100) and that his fear of persecution by the FMLN was "not supported by the evidence" (at page 101).
On August 9, 1995, the appellant was advised by letter that he was eligible to be considered as a member of the post-determination refugee claimants in Canada class (the PDRCC class) pursuant to the Regulations respecting Claimants in Canada Class Regulations (the PDRCC regulations) adopted on January 28, 1993,4 and that he could make submissions in regard to his possible inclusion in that class. In order to be found to be a member of that class, he had to come within the definition of "member of the post-determination refugee claimants in Canada class" in subsection 2(1) of the Regulations as amended, which in part reads:5
2. (1) . . .
"member of the post-determination refugee claimants in Canada class" means an immigrant in Canada
(a) who the Refugee Division has determined on or after February 1, 1993 is not a Convention refugee . . .
. . .
(c) who if removed to a country to which the immigrant could be removed would be subjected to an objectively identifiable risk, which risk would apply in every part of that country and would not be faced generally by other individuals in or from that country,
(i) to the immigrant's life . . .
(ii) of extreme sanctions against the immigrant, or
(iii) of inhumane treatment of the immigrant.
The August 9, 1995 letter invited him to make such submissions as he thought relevant to the nature and extent of any risk he would face and to file them before September 15, 1995. A form identified as IMM 5319 was enclosed in the letter (A.B., Vol. 2, at page 119 ss.). It put these following questions to the appellant:
Do you believe your life would be threatened? How? Why? (Please explain)
Do you believe you would be treated inhumanely? How? Why? What do you think would happen to you? (Please explain)
Do you believe the authorities (or someone else) would subject you to severe or extreme penalties? How? Why? (Please explain)
Does this risk exist in every part of the country? If not, could you return to an area of the country where you would not be at risk? Why or why not? (Please explain)
Is there anything else we should know about your case? (Please explain)
Do you have any documents that could help to support your case? For example, medical certificates, police reports, legal documents, please list them and attach copies . . .
The letter concluded as follows:
In the absence of any timely submissions, your case will be reviewed based on material already on file. [A.B., Vol. 2, at p. 107.]
On September 11, 1995, the appellant filed his submissions, which comprised the completed form, a written statement, 11 documents or publications, a copy of his Personal Information Form and the Board's decision. It is not disputed that the documents he referred to were found or available in the Documentation Centre of the Refugee Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board and the submissions described them as "documentary evidence of the current situation of violence and instability in El Salvador post-dating the CRDD decision of May 4, 1993".
It can therefore safely be assumed that the applicant knew what his burden was, what type of information was to be considered by the immigration officer, where to find that evidence and what period of time that evidence was to be concerned with.
On February 8, 1996, the post claims determination officer (PCDO) informed the appellant of his decision that he was not a member of the PDRCC class. The "PCDO Decision Record" set out the basis of the decision and listed in detail the documentary evidence or reports which the officer had "consulted". These sources comprised the usual country reports as well as some twenty other documents, plus articles on El Salvador published in various reviews. Three of these articles had been published after September 11, 1995, i.e. after the date of the appellant's written submissions. It is common ground that all the documents and sources consulted were "in the public domain and available at any public library and/or the IRB Documentation Centre". (A.B., Vol. 1, at page 12.)
Counsel for the appellant contended before MacKay J. that the principle of fairness required the decision-maker to disclose in advance the documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions, and more particularly those documents that did not even exist at the time the appellant had made his submissions.
In regard to documentary evidence available in the public domain at the time the applicant made his submissions, MacKay J. held as follows [at paragraphs 14-16]:
In my opinion, the materials here listed as consulted by the PCDO are publications available to the public, particularly to those knowledgeable about the processing of refugee claims, appeals, applications for leave and for judicial review, and of PDRCC applications. In all these proceedings reference is generally made to reports on country conditions, and those reports are generally from public sources and maintained and accessible through files, indexes and records available from or through the Refugee Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board . . . .
In circumstances where the applicant is aware of a general process of relying on published documentary sources of information on country conditions, as the applicant here must be deemed to have been, and where he supplied some information of that sort with his application, I cannot conclude that the information referred to by the PCDO was beyond the ambit of publicly available information that a reasonable applicant, advised by counsel, as the applicant was, would anticipate that the PCDO would consider in reaching his decision.
It was information available to the public, as in Nadarajah and Quintanilla. In my opinion, there was no obligation on the PCDO to indicate the specific documents he was considering in advance of his decision. There was no breach of a duty of fairness in referring to documents available from public sources without identifying the specific documents before the PCDO's decision was made.
With respect to the documentary evidence that had been published after the date of the appellant's submissions and that had been consulted by the PCDO, MacKay J.'s findings were the following [at paragraphs 17-19]:
The other three documents are admittedly not from sources available to the applicant at the time of his submissions, and thus they were documents on which he could not have commented unless they were brought to his attention after his application and before the PCDO's decision. Yet they are not documents which are significant in themselves for purposes of the PCDO's decision. They introduce no new information that is not readily available from the other documents listed from published sources available to the public before the application was made. In my opinion, reference to those three documents does not constitute a breach of the duty of fairness that would in itself warrant intervention by the Court.
For the applicant it is urged that the principle of disclosure and an opportunity to know and to address the case to be met is as significant in the context of determining a PDRCC claim as it is in criminal law as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada in Stinchcombe v. The Queen, [1991] 3 S.C.R. 326, 68 C.C.C. (3d) 1. I am not persuaded that the principle of disclosure of evidence against an accused prior to trial is applicable in regard to documentary evidence of country conditions drawn from public documents readily available to an applicant in refugee or related claims such as a PDRCC claim.
In Nadarajah Rothstein J. noted that it would be reasonable practice for a PCDO to inform an applicant of documentary evidence of country conditions that is being considered, but failure to do so, unless that evidence is not public and is material to the decision, does not breach the rules of procedural fairness. That reasoning has been accepted by Mr. Justice Heald in Xavier v. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, unreported, Court file IMM-550-96, October 1, 1996 (F.C.T.D.), [1996] F.C.J. No. 1253, and by Mr. Justice Gibson in Garcia v. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, unreported, Court file IMM-149-96, November 1, 1996 (F.C.T.D.), [1996] F.C.J. No. 1449. Fairness dictates that documents or other evidence not readily available to the public ought to be disclosed, but it does not require more. In particular, it does not require that, before a decision of a PCDO, there be disclosure of specific documents that are in the public domain and available to an applicant upon which the PCDO may rely for evidence of current country conditions.
The reasons of MacKay J. are irreproachable. They are in accord with the general principles applicable whenever the duty of fairness is found to apply and with the more specific principles applicable to the content of that duty which relates to disclosure of evidence not within the knowledge of the person.
The general principles are well settled. The objective in any given case is to ensure that at the end of the process an applicant has been treated fairly considering the circumstances of the case, the nature of the proceeding, the rules under which the decision-maker is acting, the subject-matter which is being dealt with, and so forth (see Tucker L.J. in Russell v. Duke of Norfolk, [1949] 1 All E.R. 109 (C.A.), at page 118; Dickson J. [as he then was] in Kane v. Board of Governors (University of British Columbia), [1980] 1 S.C.R. 1105, at page 1113).
The principles applicable with respect to disclosure of evidence not within the knowledge of the person were formulated as follows by Dickson J. in Kane, supra, at pages 1115-1116:
. . . each party to a hearing is entitled to be informed of, and to make representations, with respect to evidence which affected the disposition of the case.
I must confess I prefer this formulation to that often quoted of Lord Loreburn in Board of Education v. Rice, [1911] A.C. 179 (H.L.), at page 182:
They can obtain information in any way they think best, always giving a fair opportunity to those who are parties in the controversy for correcting or contradicting any relevant statement prejudicial to their view. . . .
if only for the reason that it avoids the ambiguity which flows, in my view, from the use of the word "prejudicial". There may well be, as in the present case, "evidence" that in itself might be said to be "prejudicial" but which, when taken in context, cannot be said to be so for it did not affect the disposition of the case. Furthermore, the principle of disclosure cannot be restricted to prejudicial evidence: it should also be applied with respect to evidence favourable to a person which a decision-maker chooses to ignore or to discard, for the mere ignorance or discard of that evidence may in itself have affected the disposition of the case.
That there is no unique way of saying these things is well illustrated by the present case. MacKay J. relied on statements made by Hugessen J.A. in Shah (supra, note 2, at page 83) and by Rothstein J. in Nadarajah (supra, note 3, at page 298) and there is no doubt that all have applied the above principles, albeit each in his own words.
Shah dealt with a decision of an immigration officer charged with making a recommendation to the Governor in Council as to the exercise of the latter's discretion to grant an exemption to an applicant seeking admission in Canada from the requirements of subsection 9(1) of the Immigration Act on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. After noting that the power to grant such exemption resided in subsection 114(2) of the Act and that the decision itself was wholly a matter of judgment and discretion, Hugessen J.A. went on as follows [at pages 83-84]:
In a case such as this one, the applicant does not have a "case to meet" of which he must be given notice; rather it is for him to persuade the decision-maker that he should be given exceptional treatment and exempted from the general requirements of the law. No hearing need be held and no reasons need be given. The officer is not required to put before the applicant any tentative conclusions she may be drawing from the material before her, not even as to apparent contradictions that concern her. Of course, if she is going to rely on extrinsic evidence, not brought forward by the applicant, she must give him a chance to respond to such evidence. (See Muliadi v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) (1986), 18 Admin. L.R. 243 (Fed. C.A.)) [My emphasis.]
Hugessen J.A. did not explain what he meant by "extrinsic evidence", but the fact that his statement relied on the decision of this Court in Muliadi v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) , [1986] 2 F.C. 205 (C.A.) indicates that what he had mind was the kind of evidence found in that case, i.e. a negative assessment by the provincial authorities of which an applicant for permanent residence had not been made aware and which affected the disposition of the case. As noted by Stone J.A. in Muliadi, at page 216:
In the circumstances, though he was not entitled to a full hearing, I think he should have had an opportunity of meeting the negative assessment by the provincial authorities before it was acted upon by the visa officer, for upon that assessment his application turned.
In Nadarajah, Rothstein J. defined [at page 298] "extrinsic evidence" as "[g]enerally . . . evidence of which the applicants are unaware because it comes from an outside source" and went on to decide that in the context of information on country conditions [at pages 298-299],
. . . if the information relied upon by the Post-claim Determination Officer is information to which the applicants could not have had access, and it is material to the decision made, I think the information might well constitute extrinsic evidence. Here, however, the country conditions information was within the ambit of the subject matter the applicants knew would be considered, and there is no indication in the record that it was not available to the applicants had they taken steps to obtain it. I do not think it is extrinsic evidence as that term is used in Shah . . . .
And MacKay J. as I have already noted, chose the following words [at paragraph 17]:
Yet they are not documents which are significant in themselves for purposes of the PCDO's decision. They introduce no new information that is not readily available from the other documents listed from published sources available to the public before the application was made.
These decisions are based, it seems to me, on the two following propositions. First, an applicant is deemed to know from his past experience with the refugee process what type of evidence of general country conditions the immigration officer will be relying on and where to find that evidence; consequently, fairness does not dictate that he be informed of what is available to him in documentation centres. Secondly, where the immigration officer intends to rely on evidence which is not normally found, or was not available at the time the applicant filed his submissions, in documentation centres, fairness dictates that the applicant be informed of any novel and significant information which evidences a change in the general country conditions that may affect the disposition of the case.
To reach that conclusion, which in my view is the correct one, regard has been given, as mandated by the case law, to (a) the nature of the proceeding and the rules under which the decision-maker is acting; (b) the context of the proceeding; and (c) the nature of the documents at issue in such proceedings.
(a) The nature of the proceeding and the rules under which the decision-maker is acting
The PDRCC class proceeding is not a new hearing of a refugee claim (see Quintanilla v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1996), 105 F.T.R. 315 (F.C.T.D.), at pages 319-320, Rouleau J.). In a refugee claim hearing, the applicant is entitled under subsection 68(5) [as am. by R.S.C., 1985 (4th Supp.), c. 28, s. 18] of the Act to be notified of those "facts, information or opinion" which the Refugee Board claims to be within its specialized knowledge. No such language is used in the PDRCC class regulations, where the sole procedural right afforded is that of making written submissions.
(b) The context of the proceeding
The PDRCC class regulations apply to persons whose claim for refugee status has already been denied and who must be deemed, to use the very words of MacKay J., to have been "aware of a general process of relying on published documentary sources of information on country conditions". The "material already on file" which is referred to in the typical letter sent to applicants cannot but be the material found in the Documentation Centres; it is true that the text of the typical letter could be more explicit, but the failure to be more specific does not amount in itself to a breach of the duty of fairness. It may also be that the documents available in Documentation Centres are not all equally easy to trace and to consult, but one would assume that an applicant who has the burden of convincing an immigration officer that his life "will be subjected to a personal, objectively identifiable risk" if he were removed to a given country, will have made the necessary efforts, prior to filing his written submissions, to trace and consult all documents that may be relevant to his cause.
(c) The nature of the documents at issue in such proceedings
The documents are in the public domain. They are general by their very nature and are neutral in the sense that they do not refer expressly to an applicant and that they are not prepared or sought by the Department for the purposes of the proceeding at issue. They are not part of a "case" against an applicant. They are available and accessible, absent evidence to the contrary, through the files, indexes and records found in Documentation Centres. They are generally prepared by reliable sources. They can be repetitive, in the sense that they will often merely repeat or confirm or express in different words general country conditions evidenced in previously available documents. The fact that a document becomes available after the filing of an applicant's submissions by no means signifies that it contains new information or that such information is relevant information that will affect the decision. It is only, in my view, where an immigration officer relies on a significant post-submission document which evidences changes in the general country conditions that may affect the decision, that the document must be communicated to that applicant.
I would therefore answer the certified question as follows, it being understood that each case will have to be decided according to its own circumstances and it being assumed that the documents at issue in a given case are of a nature such as that described above:
(a) with respect to documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions which were available and accessible at Documentation Centres at the time submissions were made by an applicant, fairness does not require the post claims determination officer to disclose them in advance of determining the matter;
(b) with respect to documents relied upon from public sources in relation to general country conditions which became available and accessible after the filing of an applicant's submissions, fairness requires disclosure by the post claims determination officer where they are novel and significant and where they evidence changes in the general country conditions that may affect the decision.
Whether or not the failure by an immigration officer to disclose a document passes the fairness test set out above is essentially a question of fact to be determined by the Motions Judge. Provided that the Motions Judge has not proceeded on some wrong or improper principle, his finding will rarely be disturbed by this Court.
In the case at bar, the Motions Judge has applied the proper test. It was within his domain to decide that the evidence at issue was not such as to affect the immigration officer's decision. The appellant has failed to demonstrate that the Motions Judge has committed a reviewable error.
The appeal must therefore be dismissed.
Stone J.A.: I agree.
Robertson J.A.: I agree.
1 R.S.C., 1985, c. I-2, as am. by S.C. 1992, c. 49, s. 73.
2 Shah v. Canada (Minister of Employment & Immigration) (1994), 29 Imm. L.R. (2d) 82 (F.C.A.); affg (1992), 55 F.T.R. 87 (F.C.T.D.).
3 See: Dervishi v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship & Immigration) (1996), 36 Imm. L.R. (2d) 63 (F.C.T.D.), Gibson J.; Dhillon v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1996] F.C.J. No. 650 (T.D.) (QL), Rothstein J.; Garcia v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship & Immigration) (1996), 36 Imm. L.R. (2d) 114 (F.C.T.D.), Gibson J.; Nadarajah v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1996), 112 F.T.R. 296 (F.C.T.D.), Rothstein J.; Singh v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1996] F.C.J. No. 781 (T.D.) (QL), Rothstein J.; Xavier v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1996), 120 F.T.R. 130 (F.C.T.D.), Heald D.J.
4 Immigration Regulations, 1978, SOR/78-172, s. 2(1), as enacted by SOR/93-44, s. 1.
5 Id., at s. 1(5).