If you are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident and your application to sponsor the immigration of a close family member to Canada has been refused, you may appeal to the IAD. Some of the most common reasons for rejecting sponsorship applications are:

• If you are sponsoring your spouse and immigration believes that your spouse entered into the marriage with you for the purposes of immigrating to Canada or that your marriage is not genuine

• If you are sponsoring your parents, you do not meet the minimum income requirement to be a sponsor

• If you are sponsoring your spouse or your parents, immigration believes that your family members will not be able to support themselves and will be relying on social assistance once they come to Canada

• Your family member has a certain medical condition which immigration believes will cause an excessive demand on Canadian society

In the following circumstances, you may not appeal if your family member has been found to be inadmissible due to:

• A serious criminal offence that was punished in Canada by a term of imprisonment of 6 months or more
• conviction of a crime outside of Canada which the foreign conviction or criminal act carries a maximum sentence of 10 years or more under Canadian law
• Involvement in organized crime
• Security grounds
• Violations of human or international rights, or
• Misrepresentation (unless the person is your spouse, common-law partner or child)

In situations where you may file the appeal, you have 30 days after you receive a copy of the decision to appeal to the IAD.

Sometimes it may be unclear as to whether the IAD could hear your appeal.  One example is when you sponsor a family member, such as a child, but you had never declared you had this child in your own application for permanent resident to Canada.  The child is therefore “excluded” from the family class definition.  In that case, there are different legal opinions about whether the sponsor has the right to appeal the decision to IAD.  It is best to seek legal advice if you are in this situation.

ADR – Alternative Dispute Resolution

Some applications are guaranteed to appeal to go first ADR program. ADR is an informal court hearing, if the two sides failed to reach an agreement among the ADR, the case will then embark on the process of the appeal court hearing.

Judicial Review

Either take the form of an appeal, if the applicant got lost at the results from IAD, the guarantor still have the right to apply the law under the Federal Court for judicial review (JUDICIAL REVIEW). Federal Court may cancel the application or request a re-examination and IAD to hold court hearings.

Please contact us directly for more information.