Docket: IMM-4424-23
Citation: 2025 FC 462
Ottawa, Ontario, March 12, 2025
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Régimbald
BETWEEN: |
HOSSEIN REZAEI |
Applicant |
and |
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
I. Overview
[1] The Applicant is a citizen of Iran. An Officer denied his study permit application because they were not satisfied that the Applicant would leave Canada at the end of his stay, as required by paragraph 216(1)(b) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, SOR/2002-227. On judicial review, the Applicant alleges that the Officer’s decision was not justified in light of the factual and legal constraints in this case. I agree. For the following reasons, this application is granted.
II. Context
[2] The Applicant is a doctoral student in International Finance at Azad University in Tehran, where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Banking Management in 2019 and a Master’s degree in Financial Management in 2022. During his studies, he also worked full-time as a financial assistant.
[3] On March 18, 2023, the Applicant applied for a study permit to undertake a Master of Science in Management, with a concentration in Finance at the University of Ottawa.
[4] The Officer refused the Applicant’s study permit application because they were not satisfied that the Applicant would leave Canada at the end of his stay. In the decision letter and Global Case Management System notes, the Officer underscored the Applicant’s lack of significant ties outside of Canada and concluded that the purpose of the Applicant’s visit to Canada was not consistent with a temporary stay. The Applicant now challenges the Officer’s decision on judicial review.
III. Issues and Standard of Review
[5] The sole issue is whether the Officer’s decision was reasonable.
[6] The standard of review is reasonableness (Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paras 10, 25 [Vavilov]; Mason v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 SCC 21 at paras 7, 39–44 [Mason]). To avoid judicial intervention, the decision must bear the hallmarks of reasonableness—justification, transparency, and intelligibility (Vavilov at para 99; Mason at para 59). A decision may be unreasonable if the decision maker misapprehended the evidence before it (Vavilov at paras 125–126; Mason at para 73). Reasonableness review is not a “rubber-stamping”
exercise, it is a robust form of review (Vavilov at para 13; Mason at para 63). The party challenging the decision bears the onus of demonstrating that the decision is unreasonable (Vavilov at para 100).
IV. Analysis
[7] The Officer found that the Applicant did not have significant family ties outside of Canada. This finding was based on the fact that the Applicant is unmarried, has no dependents, is currently unemployed, and does not appear established in his home country. In response, the Applicant submits that these various factors merely align with the life circumstances of the average student in their twenties. It was therefore unreasonable for the Officer to rely on these facts in justifying their findings.
[8] I agree with the Applicant. The weighing exercise incumbent upon the Officer involves “[assessing] the strength of the ties that bind or pull the applicant to their home country against the incentives, economic and otherwise, that might induce the foreign national to overstay”
(Chhetri v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2011 FC 872 at para 14). Factors like marriage, employment status, or the presence of dependents can form part of that weighing exercise, and the Officer is certainly entitled to rely on these factors in reaching their conclusions. However, this Court has repeatedly noted that an applicant’s lack of a dependent spouse or children, without any further analysis, should not be considered a negative factor on a study permit application, because this would preclude many students from being eligible (Barril v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 400 at para 20, citing Onyeka v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2009 FC 336 at para 48; Obot v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FC 208 at para 20; Iyiola v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 324 at para 20; see also Hassani v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 734 at para 25). The same kind of reasoning applies for a lack of economic ties to the applicant’s home country, which is “necessarily the case for the vast majority of people in their early twenties”
(Gauthier v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1211 at para 22). The Officer has failed to provide any explanation as to why these factors satisfy them that the Applicant would not leave Canada; nor is any explanation readily apparent from the record. Accordingly, the conclusion is unreasonable (Vavilov at paras 85, 103–104; see also Tehrani v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 159 at paras 18–19).
[9] To be clear, the requirement to give reasons in a study permit case is minimal given the administrative setting (Iriekpen v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1276 at para 7; Khan v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 52 at paras 13–14). Brief reasons will suffice. However, even brief reasons should be transparent, intelligible and justified (Aghaalikhani v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1080 at para 16; Afuah v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 596 at para 10). In this case, the Officer’s reasons fail to disclose any further analysis as to why the Applicant’s lack of significant ties (being childless and unmarried) or his lack of establishment in Iran should reasonably preclude the obtainment of a study permit (see Rahmati v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 778 at para 18; Seyedsalehi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 1250 at paras 9–11).
[10] The Officer also found that the purpose of the Applicant’s visit to Canada was not consistent with a temporary stay. This finding was based on the fact that the Applicant had similar studies at the same academic level as the proposed studies in Canada, and that there was little indication from his previous studies that the intended program was a “necessary progression”
in his studies (Certified Tribunal Record [CTR] at 9). In response, the Applicant submits that the Officer unreasonably applied a standard of “necessary progression”
to the assessment of his studies, instead of assessing whether it was a “logical progression”
(see e.g., Sahi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 1735 at paras 17, 22; Rajasekharan v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 68 at paras 18, 23–24 [Rajasekharan]; Mahida v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 423 at paras 13, 26). In any event, the Respondent maintains that the Applicant did not explain with any level of specificity why the proposed program would be beneficial to him or provide him with a different skill set beyond his current educational and work experience.
[11] I agree with the Applicant once more. The Officer’s reference to “necessary progression”
is concerning, given this Court’s jurisprudence. As noted by Justice Nicholas McHaffie, “[many] academic choices, whether made for personal or professional reasons, are not strictly necessary”
(Kajbaf v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 1552 at para 11). This is why officers are typically more concerned with whether the choice of program is a “logical progression,”
necessity notwithstanding (see e.g., Amiri v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 1532 at para 14; Caianda v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 218 at para 1; Rajasekharan at para 14). Of course, the onus lies on the Applicant to convince the Officer of the merits of his study plan, and the Officer is certainly entitled to consider whether an applicant has already achieved the benefits of the intended program (Charara v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 1176 at para 36; Borji v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 339 at para 17). However, the standard here is not “necessity.”
What the Applicant is required to do is “provide specific reasons why or how the proposed program would benefit him and how it differs from the knowledge he acquired in his previous master’s degree or in his years of experience”
(Mehrjoo v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 886 at para 13).
[12] In this case, the Applicant did in fact provide such specific reasons. Among other things, he noted in his letter of intent that his program of study would “[provide] the opportunity to complement [his] knowledge from [his] previous higher education, take on business or managerial challenges in finance, and gain relevant work experience during [his] graduate studies through practical research finance projects, which in [his] country is impossible”
(CTR at 11). In this vein, he further explained that the University of Ottawa offers preparation for the Charter Financial Analyst exam, which would enable him to bolster his career prospects. By contrast, the Officer’s reasons only note that the Applicant “has similar studies at the same academic level as the proposed studies in Canada,”
and that there “is little indication from [his] previous studies/employment that this intended program is a necessary progression in [his] study/career path”
(CTR at 9). In omitting any mention of the Applicant’s reasons for choosing to study in Canada, the Officer leaves the reviewing Court with an accordingly incomplete sense of whether the Officer genuinely considered the arguments and evidence submitted to them in relation to the Applicant’s claims. This is the kind of error that warrants the intervention of this Court (see Banovic v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1990 at paras 66–67).
[13] As an additional consideration, the Officer noted that the Applicant’s “[bank] statements show some funds but no history of transactions so source of funds not clear [
sic]. Bank statements provided do not include banking transactions to track the provenance of available funds”
(CTR at 9). In response, the Applicant contends that he had in fact provided a bank statement with transaction history, including his father’s financial support as the source of his funds, which the Officer unreasonably ignored.
[14] The Applicant’s contention is inaccurate on this last point. He did not provide any banking information for himself, relying in his study permit application on the financial support of his retired father (CTR at 56–70). The only bank documents that were filed in support of the study permit application were an account balance certificate in the Applicant’s father’s bank account, and a customer billing statement from the same bank for the period from 10-09-2022 to 10-03-2023 (CTR at 57–58). This Court has held that when assessing a study permit application, an officer must not only look at an applicant’s bank account, but also conduct a more detailed and fulsome analysis about the source, origin, nature, and stability of these funds to determine if the applicant is able to defray the cost of their stay in Canada for the duration of their studies (Aghvamiamoli v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 1613 at para 29 [Aghvamiamoli]).
[15] While it may have been open to the Officer to conclude based on the evidence before them that the source of the funds was not clear, and the decision could have been upheld on that basis alone (Aghvamiamoli at para 36), a different officer could have also come to a different conclusion on the additional evidence of the Applicant’s father’s support in this case, and the reasons are not sufficiently intelligible to allow the Court to conclude that the Officer properly grappled with the entire evidence (Vavilov at para 128). Nevertheless, the shortcomings noted above are also sufficient for the Court to lose confidence in the outcome reached (Vavilov at paras 122, 194).
V. Conclusion
[16] For the reasons set out above, this application for judicial review is granted. There is no question to certify.
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