Docket: T-2420-24
Citation: 2025 FC 1974
Vancouver, British Columbia, December 16, 2025
PRESENT: Madam Justice Conroy
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BETWEEN: |
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OSAMA AL EID ALABED ALRAZAK |
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Applicant |
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and |
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
[1] The Applicant, Osama Al Eid Alabed Alrazak, seeks judicial review of a decision of a Citizenship Judge, dated August 23, 2024, refusing his citizenship application. The Citizenship Judge concluded that the Applicant had not established his physical presence in Canada for the requisite time under the Citizenship Act, RSC 1985, c C-29 [Citizenship Act].
[2] The Citizenship Act required the Applicant be physically present in Canada for at least 1095 days during the five years immediately before the date of his application to qualify for Citizenship: Citizenship Act, s. 5(1)(c)(i). Subsection 5(1.001) governs the calculation of the applicant’s length of physical presence. In summary, it provides that each day spent in Canada as a temporary resident within the five years before the applicant becomes a permanent resident will count as one-half day, up to a maximum of 365 days. Each day spent in Canada as a permanent resident are fully credited.
[3] The Citizenship Judge concluded that the Applicant was 7 days short of the 1,095 days required by the Act.
[4] For the reasons that follow, I conclude that the impugned decision was reasonable and the judicial review is dismissed.
I. BACKGROUND
[5] Mr. Alarazak came to Canada as a temporary resident on February 14, 2015, and became permanent resident on October 31, 2015. He applied for citizenship on February 14, 2020.
[6] The Applicant submitted a physical presence worksheet to IRCC which showed he was physically present in Canada for 1,153.5 days for the five years immediately prior to his application. The total consisted of 1,101 days in Canada while he was a permanent resident, and a credit of 52.5 days for when he was present as a temporary resident. The worksheet also reported he was absent from Canada for 466 days while he was a permanent resident, and absent for 154 days while he was a temporary resident.
[7] In February 2024, the Applicant was notified by way of a Procedural Fairness Letter [PFL] that he may fall short of the required 1,095 days because of an undeclared absence from June 28, 2019 to August 26, 2019. This undeclared absence of 58 days would mean that the Applicant would be at 1,078 days of physical presence in Canada, 17 days short of the 1,095 days required by the Act.
[8] The Applicant responded to the PFL in March 2024. He confirmed his absence from June 28, 2019 to August 26, 2019, accepted that his total was now 1,078 days, and stated that he “did not wish to challenge the concerns in your officer’s letter”
regarding the 17 days’ omission in his application. He also asked to “plead his case to a judge to seek discretionary relief for the missing 17 days”
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[9] In June 2024, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada [IRCC] forwarded the Applicant’s file to a Citizenship Judge and attached a completed IRCC Physical Presence Calculator document. It showed a total physical presence of 1,088 days (an additional ten days when compared with the earlier calculation), seven days short of the 1,095 required days.
[10] On August 23, 2024, the Citizenship Judge refused the Applicant’s citizenship application. The Judge determined that the Applicant had been absent for 608.5 days, leaving 1,088 days of physical presence in Canada—seven days short of the required 1,095 days. The Judge added that he had no discretion to depart from the minimum number of days established by the legislation.
II. ANALYSIS
[11] The sole issue raised is whether the decision to refuse the Applicant’s citizenship application is reasonable. Both parties agree, as do I, that the presumptive standard of review of administrative decisions on their merits is reasonableness, as outlined in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 [Vavilov].
[12] To determine whether the decision is reasonable, the reviewing court must ask whether “the decision bears the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and whether it is justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that bear on the decision”
(Vavilov at paras 86 and 99).
[13] An applicant bears the burden of proving that he has met the conditions set out in the Citizenship Act, and in particular the residence requirements: El fihri v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2005 FC 1106; Saqer v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2005 FC 1392. Physical presence in Canada must be established with clear and convincing evidence: Labioui v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 391 at para 16; Pornejad v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 FC 455 [Pornejad] at para 9; Atwani v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2011 FC 1354 at para 12.
[14] The Citizenship Judge’s decision shows that a variety of sources were used to evaluate the Applicant’s physical presence in Canada, including “copies of the applicant’s passports and the Canada Border Service record of the applicant’s entries into Canada, known as the Integrated Customs Enforcement System report, or ICES for short”
. It is also well established that a citizenship applicant must demonstrate when they were actually absent and for how long: Pornejad at para 9.
[15] Here the Applicant acknowledged the worksheet he provided omitted his absence from Canada from June 28, 2019 to August 26, 2019. The Applicant’s response to the PFL confirmed the same and acknowledged that this omission was “bringing his days inside Canada to 1078, as opposed to 1095.”
[16] It is worth noting that the Citizenship Judge decision stated that he was “satisfied that the applicant would otherwise qualify for citizenship and accept that this failure to declare this trip was an unfortunate oversight by the applicant.”
He added that he was “satisfied that there was no intention to mislead and I take no negative inference from this.”
[17] The Applicant focuses on two time periods that he argues the Citizenship Judge omitted from the Physical Presence Calculation.
[18] First, the Applicant takes issue with how the Judge dealt with period between October 15, 2015 to October 31, 2015. The decision states:
I note that the applicant became a PR on 2015-10-31 but there is no evidence or information in the file as to the applicant’s location between 2015-10-15 and 2015-10-31. I have given weight to the ICES entry date of 2015-10-15 and therefore accept, on a balance of probabilities that the applicant was absent from Canada from at least 2015-09-29 to 2015-10-15 for a total of 7.5 days. Note that this trip occurred prior to the applicant becoming a PR so it is calculated at .5 days of every day of absence. Any time between 2015-10-15 and the PR date of 2015-10-31 would only serve to reduce the applicant’s physical presence further and I have considered this time as part of this decision.” (emphasis added)
[19] While I agree the underlined sentence could cause some confusion, my own verification of the calculation done by the Citizenship Judge, as well as of the Physical Presence Calculator document before the Judge, confirms that that time period was indeed counted towards the number of days the Applicant was physically presence in Canada. It was not counted as an absence.
[20] Second, the Applicant submits that the “Respondent omitted the period November 1, 2015, which is the day after the Applicant was landed, and, the day the Applicant departed Canada, which is November 5, 2015.”
His written submissions argue that there is no consideration of these five days in the reasons. Based on my calculation, these five days were not counted as an absence.
[21] At the hearing, the Applicant conceded that the Citizenship Judge did not count these two time periods as absences but argued that the reasons ought to have been clearer. The calculations were not entirely apparent on the face of the reasons and this ambiguity rendered the decision unreasonable. While I agree that the reasons may have benefited from a chart or other visual depiction of the calculation, this omission is not sufficient to render the decision unreasonable. Reasons are not to be assessed against a standard of perfection: Vavilov at para 91.
[22] The application for judicial review is accordingly dismissed.
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