Date: 20251020
Docket: IMM-8197-24
Citation: 2025 FC 1697
Toronto, Ontario, October 20, 2025
PRESENT: Justice Andrew D. Little
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BETWEEN: |
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DEVICA PERSAUD |
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Applicant |
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and |
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION and
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
[1] In September 2023, the applicant filed an application for a pre-removal risk assessment (“PRRA”
) under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 (the “IRPA”
). By decision dated February 23, 2024, an officer rendered a negative decision (the “PRRA Decision”
).
[2] The same officer also made a decision dated April 17, 2024, on the applicant’s second application for permanent residence with an exemption on humanitarian and compassionate (“H&C”
) grounds under section 25 of the IRPA.
[3] The applicant applied to this Court to set aside both decisions. The applications were scheduled to be heard at the same time. Shortly before the hearing, the applicant discontinued her application with respect to the H&C decision. I understand the H&C decision will be redetermined.
[4] The question in the present application is whether the PRRA Decision should be set aside, either because the applicant was deprived of procedural fairness, or because the decision was unreasonable under the principles in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, [2019] 4 S.C.R. 653.
[5] The applicant raised concerns about the process used by the officer to reach the two decisions. She raised many arguments to support her position that the PRRA Decision was unreasonable. While I am sympathetic to the applicant’s circumstances, I must conclude that the PRRA Decision was reasonable. The application for judicial review must therefore be dismissed.
I. Background and Events Leading to the Decision under Review
[6] The applicant is a citizen of Guyana. She was employed in Guyana as a domestic worker for many years. In 2018 she met a Canadian man online. After many messages and conversations, he invited her to visit him in Canada. She arrived in Canada as a visitor in May 2018. They were married in September 2018. Unfortunately, in December 2018, they separated.
[7] In February 2019, the applicant initiated a claim for protection as a refugee under the IRPA. She withdrew this claim in 2021.
[8] The applicant had a work permit valid from May 2019 to June 2021, and a temporary resident permit (“TRP”
) in Canada as a result of family violence, which was valid from June 2021 to June 2022. She worked without authorization from June 2022 to April 2024. In March 2023, her application for a work permit and TRP was refused.
[9] In December 2021, the applicant filed an H&C application, which was dismissed in June 2023.
[10] In September 2023, the applicant filed an application for a PRRA. In her application form, she advised that submissions would be filed at a later date. Her legal counsel subsequently requested three extensions of time to file additional materials: by letters dated October 2, 2023 (for a 60-day extension), December 3 (45 more days) and January 24, 2024 (60 more days).
[11] Meanwhile, in November 2023, the applicant filed another H&C application with some supporting materials. An officer was assigned to decide both the PRRA application and the second H&C application.
[12] Prior to the date of the PRRA Decision (February 23, 2024), the applicant did not file any additional substantive materials to support that application.
[13] On March 13, 2024, the applicant received a call-in notice and was notified that a decision had been made on her application for a PRRA. She did not receive a copy of the PRRA Decision at that time.
[14] By April 2024, another lawyer in the same law firm had taken over the applicant’s files.
[15] By emails sent on April 6 and 9, 2024, the applicant filed extensive additional materials to support her second H&C application, including a 142-paragraph affidavit dated April 6, 2024. The applicant also provided additional country condition evidence. The emails attaching the applicant’s new evidence and counsel’s covering letter dated April 9, 2024, referred to the pending H&C application but did not refer to the PRRA application.
[16] On April 17, 2024, the officer prepared the decision in the second H&C application.
[17] On April 25, 2024, the applicant was provided with both the PRRA Decision and the second H&C decision.
[18] On May 7, 2024, the applicant filed applications for judicial review of both decisions.
[19] By order dated May 22, 2024, made in both proceedings, this Court stayed the applicant’s removal from Canada pending the outcome of her judicial review applications.
[20] As already noted, shortly before the hearing of the two applications for judicial review, the parties resolved the application in respect of the second H&C. The present application concerns the negative PRRA Decision.
II. Analysis
A. Was the applicant deprived of procedural fairness?
[21] The applicant submitted that she was deprived of procedural fairness, because the officer relied on information not disclosed to her and to which she did not have an opportunity to respond.
[22] When a procedural fairness question arises on an application for judicial review, the Court must determine whether the procedure used by the decision maker was fair, having regard to all the circumstances including the nature of the substantive rights involved and the consequences for the individual(s) affected. While technically no standard of review applies, the Court’s review exercise is akin to a standard of correctness. See e.g., Shull v. Canada, 2025 FCA 25, at para 6; Jagadeesh v. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, 2024 FCA 172, at para 53; Canadian Pacific Railway Company v. Canada (Attorney General), 2018 FCA 69, [2019] 1 FCR 121, at paras 54-55.
[23] First, the applicant noted that the officer made the PRRA Decision in February 2024, before the end of the third requested extension period for filing supporting materials. When deciding to make the decision at that time, the officer conducted a search of her then-lawyer’s website without notice to the applicant and concluded that the law firm had capacity to assist her even if her lawyer could not do so due to a family situation.
[24] The circumstances of this case have not persuaded me that the officer deprived the applicant of procedural fairness by not asking her to comment (i.e., failing to provide her with an opportunity to be heard) before conducting the website search in February 2024. At the time, the applicant had already requested three extensions of time, all of which referred to the applicant seeking additional documents. (The third request for an extension of time dated January 24, 2024, also referred to a family situation for her counsel that arose during the holiday season.) I have been unable to find any information in the certified tribunal record to suggest that, as of the date of the PRRA Decision in February 2024, the officer was aware that a new lawyer would be taking over the applicant’s applications.
[25] As of late February, the applicant had not filed any new materials to support her PRRA application in nearly five months. She did not attempt to submit any additional evidence or submissions before the expiry of the requested third extension, or when she submitted new evidence on April 6 and 9 to support her second H&C application, or at any time before she received a copy of the negative decision on April 25, 2024. She also did not request that her second H&C application be re-opened so that the H&C information provided in early April could be considered on her PRRA application.
[26] I recognize and am sympathetic to the personal situations of both the applicant and her former lawyer. However, in the circumstances, I am unable to conclude that the non-disclosure of an internet search to verify the law firm’s capacity was procedurally unfair.
[27] Second, the applicant submitted that it was procedurally unfair for the officer to consider information about mental health support in Guyana, which the officer found on a Facebook page that aggregated resources related to mental health support. The applicant argued that she was denied an opportunity to comment on whether that information would, in fact, assist her specific mental health challenges. Without commenting on the reasonableness of the officer’s implicit finding that the two hotlines were adequate, I am not persuaded that the applicant was deprived of procedural fairness. In addition, while the location of the information was a secondary source rather than one or more primary sources, I cannot find that the information was necessarily unreliable as the applicant argued.
B. Did the officer make a negative credibility finding?
[28] The applicant submitted that the PRRA Decision was a rejection of the applicant’s evidence about the domestic abuse she suffered in Guyana. She argued that the information she provided about abuse in Guyana must have been disbelieved, implying that the officer made a veiled credibility finding without giving her the opportunity to respond. The respondent submitted that the PRRA Decision was concerned with the sufficiency of the evidence to show a risk of persecution under IRPA section 96, or of harm under section 97 of the IRPA. Put differently, the respondent argued that the officer took the applicant’s evidence to be credible and nonetheless found that evidence to be insufficient to demonstrate the required risk under the IRPA.
[29] The information before the officer included the TRP granted from June 2021 to June 2022, and information provided by the applicant in her Basis of Claim (“BOC”
) form. The applicant’s BOC contained information that the applicant was “mistreated and often abused”
while working for well-off families as “domestic help”
. She referred to her employers believing they had the right to make sexual advances and that sometimes male members of the families “took what they wanted without consent”
, which placed the applicant in very difficult situations without recourse. I agree that the officer should not have characterized the applicant as someone who “reported”
domestic abuse in the past. However, I am not persuaded that the officer’s use of that phrase necessarily implies that the officer must have disbelieved the applicant that such abuse occurred. Looking at the reasons, I am unable to conclude that the officer made a negative credibility finding against the applicant.
[30] I will address the substantive reasonableness of the officer’s decision in section D, below.
C. The PRRA Decision’s reference to the “H&C decision”
[31] The applicant raised significant concerns about the inclusion in the PRRA Decision of the statement: “[t]he Applicant’s history in Canada is recounted in the H&C decision as follows: …”
, which was followed by a quotation from that “decision”
. The applicant’s concern was that the PRRA Decision preceded the H&C Decision by almost two months. The applicant contended that the PRRA Decision (dated February 23, 2024) must have been amended or revised after April 17, 2024 (the date of the H&C Decision), before both were provided to her on April 25, 2025. On that basis, the applicant argued that the officer should have considered the additional evidence she submitted earlier in April 2024 including her affidavit dated April 6, 2024, and additional country condition evidence, in order to render a lawful decision on her PRRA.
[32] The respondent noted that the applicant was notified of the PRRA Decision on March 13, 2024, consistent with its date of February 23, 2024. The respondent argued that by March 13, 2024, the PRRA was written, signed and notified and therefore was, in law, made at that time (citing Chudal v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2005 FC 1073, at para 19). The respondent also argued that the quotation attributed to the “H&C decision”
referred to uncontroversial information contained in an earlier H&C decision predating both the PRRA Decision and the second H&C decision, and that it was not unreasonable for the officer to know about the contents of the second H&C decision before it was rendered.
[33] The respondent did not seek to file an affidavit from the officer to explain the circumstances.
[34] However, an explanation for the February 2024 PRRA Decision referring to the “subsequent”
H&C decision in April appears to be found in the materials produced during the applicant’s application for judicial review of the second H&C decision (settled just prior to the joint hearing of that application and this application). In the certified tribunal record in the judicial review for the second H&C decision, one finds a decision letter dated February 23, 2024, apparently in draft and not sent, that attaches an H&C decision dated February 23, 2024. Both the February draft H&C decision and the April final version contained the quoted passage that appeared in the PRRA Decision. It seems that, having prepared both the PRRA Decision and a draft H&C decision in February, the officer became aware of the applicant’s additional H&C filings on April 6 and 9, 2024, and revised the earlier version of the H&C decision to account for the new evidence. Again, both April emails attaching the applicant’s new evidence and the covering letter dated April 9, 2024, referred to the pending H&C application and did not refer to the PRRA application. The officer did not revise the PRRA Decision in light of the newly filed H&C evidence.
[35] In the circumstances, I am not prepared to infer that the PRRA Decision dated February 23, 2024, was amended or revised after April 17, 2024, as the applicant submitted.
D. Was the PRRA Decision unreasonable?
[36] The standard of review for this issue is reasonableness as described in Vavilov.
[37] On this application, the Court has a limited, supervisory role: to determine whether the PRRA Decision was reasonable. Reasonableness review is a deferential and disciplined evaluation of whether an administrative decision is transparent, intelligible and justified: Vavilov, at paras 12-13 and 15. The starting point is the reasons provided by the decision maker, which are read holistically and contextually, and in conjunction with the record that was before the decision maker. A reasonable decision is based on an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis and is justified in relation to the facts and law that constrained the decision maker: Vavilov, esp. at paras 85, 91-97, 103, 105-106 and 194.
[38] The Court’s role is not to determine whether the PRRA Decision was correct. Vavilov instructs the Court not to do its own analysis of the circumstances or come to its own conclusion on the merits of the PRRA: Vavilov, at para 83. In this analysis, the Court will not reweigh or reassess the information that was before the decision maker: Vavilov, at paras 125-126.
[39] The central issues in this case are whether the PRRA Decision respected the legal and factual constraints bearing on it.
[40] The applicant’s position was that the officer was obliged to conduct a cumulative and intersectional risk assessment and did not do so. According to the applicant, the officer failed to consider her full risk profile as a female, domestic worker, returnee to Guyana, diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder, who is a victim of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
[41] The officer assessed the risk to the applicant of “returning to Guyana as a woman with a profile of someone who has reported [d]omestic abuse in the past; been found to suffer from mental health issues and who has concerns about her financial support”
. The officer considered and quoted from a letter dated October 10, 2023, from Dr Ghebrehariat concerning the applicant’s mental health. The officer also considered and quoted from a 2022 Human Rights Report from the United States Department of State with respect to country conditions.
[42] The officer found there was nothing in the record to “tie the diagnosis of the doctor into a risk in the event of the Applicant’s return to Guyana”
. The officer found that the applicant had not demonstrated that the situation in Guyana posed a risk to her under sections 96 and 97: the officer’s review of the country conditions and the applicant’s “personal profile”
did not lead the officer to find that he was “more at risk on a personal basis than other people in her country”
. She would not be “at personal risk”
as a result of a return to Guyana.
[43] The applicant submitted that the officer erred in law by failing to consider that an applicant need not show personalized risk by showing that the applicant herself has been individually targeted. She submitted that an applicant may, in law, show that the risk of persecution is personalized or individualized through a serious possibility of a well-founded fear of persecution as a member of a group that is persecuted in her home nation. The applicant referred to Salibian v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1990] 3 FC 250 (CA); Abusamra v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 917, at paras 27-33; Bozik v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2017 FC 920, at paras 7-9; and Vilvaratnam v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2013 FC 154, at paras 26-34. In support of her position, the applicant referred to her evidence of the abuses she suffered and submitted that the PRRA decision misapprehended the contents of Dr Ghebrehariat’s report. The applicant’s submissions also relied on reports, submitted in April 2024 to support her H&C application, about the treatment and living conditions of women who are domestic workers in Guyana.
[44] The respondent maintained that the officer’s decision was reasonable because the applicant only provided evidence of general country conditions and did not show that she was personally at risk (citing Sallai v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 446, at paras 71-73). At the hearing, the respondent argued that the conclusion was reasonable on the evidence before the officer.
[45] In my view, the PRRA Decision was reasonable in that it respected the legal and factual constraints bearing on it. At the time the PRRA Decision was prepared in February 2024, the record before the officer was thin and did not include submissions. The PRRA Decision dated February 23, 2024, was rendered on March 13, 2024. The applicant advised, quite properly, that she did not take the position that the officer was required in law to consider the additional evidence filed in early April to make the PRRA Decision.
[46] As the officer recognized, the applicant’s filings on the PRRA application did not expressly identify any grounds for a risk of persecution under IRPA section 96. Nor did the filings expressly identify an agent of persecution who would inflict harm on the applicant if she returns to Guyana. At the hearing in this Court, the applicant advised that her former employers were the agents of persecution and that for section 96 risks, she relied on her membership in a social group (abused domestic workers in Guyana).
[47] Based on the record, the PRRA Decision reasonably characterized the applicant’s profile: she had reported domestic abuse in the past, had been found to suffer from mental health issues and had concerns about her financial support. The PRRA Decision confirmed that a review of the country conditions and the applicant’s personal profile did not lead the officer to find that she was more at risk on a personal basis than other people in her country and that she was not at personal risk if she returns to Guyana. In my view, the description of the applicant’s profile and the related findings on it were adequate to meet the legal requirements for a risk assessment of the applicant’s circumstances in the case law and were open to the officer on the evidence in the record. In addition, the officer’s treatment of the mental health evidence for PRRA purposes was not unreasonable. The applicant has not shown that the officer made a reviewable error in the consideration of country conditions relevant to the applicant’s profile.
[48] For these reasons, I conclude that the PRRA Decision contained no reviewable legal error. In addition, the overall conclusion on the PRRA was open to the officer on the evidence in the record. Accordingly, applying the reasonableness standard in Vavilov, there are no grounds for the Court to intervene on judicial review.
III. Conclusion
[49] The application for judicial review must therefore be dismissed. Neither party proposed a question to certify for appeal and none will be stated.
JUDGMENT in IMM-8197-24
THIS COURT’S JUDGMENT is that:
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The application for judicial review is dismissed.
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No question is certified for appeal under paragraph 74(d) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
"Andrew D. Little"
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