Docket: IMM-676-25
Citation: 2026 FC 437
Ottawa, Ontario, April 2, 2026
PRESENT: The Honourable Madam Justice Ngo
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BETWEEN: |
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JAGJEET SINGH |
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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, Jagjeet Singh [Applicant], seeks judicial review of a decision from Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada [IRCC] denying his post-graduate work permit application [PGWP]. In a letter dated December 13, 2024, an IRCC officer [Officer] denied the PGWP application because they found that the Applicant failed to maintain full-time student status in Canada during each academic session of his program [Decision].
[2] My conclusion that the Decision is not unreasonable is not intended to minimize the Applicant’s difficult circumstances or his ability to overcome his mental health challenges to complete his degree. However, from a legal perspective, the PGWP requirements are clear and mandatory, and an officer cannot waive or modify them. The application for judicial review must therefore be dismissed, for the following reasons.
II. Issues and Standard of Review
[3] The issue on judicial review is whether the Decision is reasonable, applying the reasonableness standard of review (Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paras 10, 25 [Vavilov]).
[4] A review starts with a “reasons first”
approach, examining the reasons provided with respectful attention, in which the Court seeks to understand the reasoning process followed by the decision maker for drawing its conclusion (Vavilov at para 84). A reasonable decision is one that is based on an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis and that is justified in relation to the facts and law that constrain the decision maker (Vavilov at para 85). On judicial review, the Court must assess whether the decision bears the hallmarks of reasonableness: justification, transparency and intelligibility (Vavilov at para 99).
[5] The IRCC’s refusal letter and the Officer’s Global Case Management System [GCMS] notes form part of the Decision subject to this judicial review. In the GCMS notes, the Officer considered the evidence submitted. They noted that the definition of “full time”
according to the Applicant’s designated learning institution [DLI] is “at least 60% of a full course load per term”
, meaning 10.5 credits per term.
[6] In the GCMS notes, the Officer observed that the Applicant enrolled in 1 course that was 3 credits in the Fall 2020 term; 2 courses, withdrew from 1 leaving 1 course that was 3 credits in the Winter 2023 term; and 2 courses that were together 9 credits in the Fall 2023 term. The Applicant repeated and passed one of the Fall 2023 courses in the Winter 2024 term, leading to his graduation. The Officer noted that the Applicant obtained authorization from his DLI for leave from his studies for the Fall 2022 term (September 2022 to December 2022).
[7] The Officer also noted that applicants are permitted to be part-time during their final semester. However, the Officer wrote that the Applicant repeated classes in Fall 2023 and Winter 2024 (his final semester) but that the courses were different. As such, the Officer concluded that the Fall 2023 term could not have counted as his “last”
semester exception, had he passed all of his courses. The Officer stated that under the program delivery instructions [PDI], students must maintain their full-time status during each academic session of the program with the exception of part-time during their final academic session. Having concluded that the Applicant did not meet these requirements, his PGWP application was refused.
III. Analysis
[8] The legal constraints that bear upon an officer considering a PGWP application are found in section 205(c)(ii) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (SOR/2002-227) [IRPR], the IRCC’s applicable program delivery instructions including the “Post-graduation work permit (PGWP) [R205(c) - C43] – International Mobility Program”
program delivery instructions [PGWP-PDI], as well as this Court’s jurisprudence on the requirements for a PGWP and the scope of an officer’s discretion in this context.
[9] Foreign students are eligible for a PGWP only if they 1) completed a study program at a DLI in a program of at least eight months; 2) maintained full-time student status during each semester of their study program (except for the final semester where part-time study is permitted); 3) applied for a PGWP within 180 days of confirmation of the completion of their program; and, 4) held a valid study permit at some point after completion of their program, and prior to submitting their PGWP application (IRPR at subparagraph 205(c)(ii); PGWP-PDI; Kaur v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 1478 at para 8).
[10] The definition of full-time or part-time also varies depending on the DLI. Indeed, under “Application assessment”
and “Full-time studies”
, the PGWP-PDI states that “officers can review the transcripts to confirm that the applicant was enrolled in full-time studies in their program. The term “full-time” is defined by the individual DLI. There are specific situations where an applicant may not be attending full-time classes but will still be eligible for a PGWP.”
[11] Under the PGWP-PDI “Application assessment”
section, there is also an exception for part-time status allowing an applicant to be engaged in part-time studies if it could be their final term. This passage then states that “students should be able to demonstrate that throughout their studies they have made reasonable progress towards the completion of their courses to remain compliant with their study permit conditions”
, with a link to another PDI, entitled, “Study permits: Assessing study permit conditions”
[Study Permit PDI], providing more information.
[12] The Applicant submits that the Decision is unreasonable for two reasons.
[13] First, the Applicant refers to the Study Permit PDI introduction, after the title “Assessment of study permit conditions”
that provides that “Officers should exercise their best judgment and take into account all relevant factors when assessing a student’s compliance with their study permit conditions”
.
[14] The Applicant states he was upfront with the fact that he was engaged in part-time studies during several terms while he was enrolled at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. However, he submits that the Officer was required to “exercise their best judgment and take into account all relevant factors when assessing a student’s compliance with their study permit conditions”
in considering his non-compliance for the purpose of the PGWP (citing Munyanyi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 802 [Munyanyi]; Tcerkovnaia v Canada (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship), 2022 FC 861 [Tcerkovnaia]; Sugagata v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1436 [Sugagata]).
[15] The Applicant argues that the Officer failed to exercise their best judgment and consider all relevant factors in assessing compliance, specifically the medical evidence explaining the significant mental health challenges that required him to reduce his course load to part-time status. The Decision only acknowledged that medical documentation had been submitted but did not engage with this evidence. The Applicant acknowledged in his PGWP application that he was part-time in 2020 but asserts that the Officer unreasonably “cherry picked”
this fact to refuse his PGWP.
[16] Second, the Applicant asserts that the Officer erred in their assessment of the “final semester”
exception to full-time status, where study-permit holders are allowed to not have full-time status during their final semester. The IRCC’s PGWP-PDI explains that “[i]n cases where a student has part-time status in their final semester but fails a course and needs to retake it to graduate, both semesters may be considered as a final academic session.”
By extension, they are allowed to be part-time during those semesters as well.
[17] According to the Applicant, the Officer failed to consider that the two classes he took in Winter 2023 and Fall 2023, that he did not pass and had to retake in order to graduate, were equivalent. This meant that either semester could have been his final semester, even if the classes were different. Therefore, the Officer erred in assessing the number of periods the Applicant did not maintain full-time status.
[18] The Respondent underlines that the Applicant admitted to not maintaining full-time status for multiple periods during his studies. Although one of his periods of leave was authorized by his DLI, the other three periods when he was not full-time were not. His failure to maintain his full-time status during these other non-authorized periods disqualify him for applying for a PGWP.
[19] In addition, the Respondent challenges the Applicant’s interpretation of, and reliance on, Munyanyi, Tcerkovnaia, and Sugagata. The Court in those cases considered the statement that appears in the Study Permit PDI: “an officer should exercise their best judgment and take into account all relevant factors when assessing a student’s compliance with their study permit conditions”
. The Respondent submits that these cases cannot be read so broadly so as to permit an applicant to deviate from non-compliance with the strict requirements for a PGWP, or to allow an officer to grant an exception to non-compliance. The Respondent submits that the Applicant is essentially arguing that the Officer should have made an exception in his case, which the Officer had no discretion to do.
[20] The Respondent reiterates this Court’s clear jurisprudence that IRCC officers have no discretion to modify or waive any of the eligibility requirements for a PGWP (citing Verma v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 1167 at para 20 [Verma]; Nookala v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 1019 at para 12 [Nookala]; Abubacker v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 1112 at para 16 [Abubacker]). Given this, the Respondent submits that the Decision is reasonable.
[21] I agree with the Respondent’s submissions.
[22] The Applicant has asserted in his application that the reductions to his full-time course load were at the suggestion of school counsellors to manage his stress and mental health, and that he submitted information and documentation to explain this.
[23] However, it remains that the Officer must assess whether the Applicant met the mandatory requirement of maintaining a full-time course load throughout this period of studies as required by the PGWP-PDI. It is uncontested that the Applicant had periods of part-time status during his studies in terms other than his final term. As such, I am persuaded by the Respondent’s submissions that in these circumstances, it was not unreasonable for the Officer not to accept the medical evidence explaining the unauthorized absences from his studies.
[24] Finally, the Applicant acknowledged that he did not explicitly explain in his PGWP application that the courses which he failed in Winter 2023 and Fall 2023 were equivalent, and that therefore both part-time terms could have been considered a final term if he had successfully completed the failed courses. He asserted that because he graduated in Winter 2024 despite never passing one of the courses in question, the Officer should have inferred this conclusion. The Applicant also acknowledged that this second argument is not fatal but narrows down the periods of unauthorized leave from three to one.
[25] Although I understand the Applicant’s reasoning, this argument was only first raised before the Court. I cannot fault the Officer now, on judicial review, when no explanation about the course equivalencies was identified at the relevant time.
[26] The two requirements for a PGWP, that an applicant for a PGWP must have studied full-time in Canada and must have completed a program of study that lasted at least eight months, are mandatory (Kaura v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 51 at para 34, citing Rehman v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 FC 1021 at para 19 [Rehman]).
[27] As Justice Gascon stated in Rehman, if full-time study was not otherwise required, the requirements of the PGWP-PDI would be meaningless and there would be no need for IRCC to specify that part-time status is acceptable in a student’s final term (at para 15).
[28] It was therefore reasonable for the Officer to conclude that the Applicant failed to maintain full-time status throughout his period of studies. I also cannot conclude that the Officer failed to exercise “best judgment”
in coming to this conclusion or that they “cherry picked”
one period of non-compliance, as asserted by the Applicant.
[29] The Applicant did not meet one of the mandatory requirements for the issuance of a PGWP. It was therefore not unreasonable for the Officer to strictly apply the criteria set out in the PGWP-PDI and IRPR, which is consistent with the jurisprudence (see for example, Verma at para 20, citing Nookala at para 12, Abubacker at para 16).
[30] As such, the Decision that the Applicant could not qualify for a PGWP, was not unreasonable.
[31] For completeness, I next turn to the cases the Applicant cited. The Court in Sugagata, Munyanyi, and Tcerkovnaia referred to the text in the Study Permit PDI that “an officer should exercise their best judgment and take into account all relevant factors when assessing a student’s compliance with their study permit conditions”
when it concluded the PGWP refusals were unreasonable.
[32] The Court in those cases also confirmed the established jurisprudence that eligibility conditions for a PGWP are set by ministerial policy and that officers do not have the discretion to change or waive these conditions (Sugagata at para 4; Munyanyi at para 25; Tcerkovnaia at para 24).
[33] In Munyanyi, the issue related to gaps in an applicant’s studies. The applicant’s DLI website stated that students did not need to request the university’s permission to take a term off from their studies. This was not considered by the decision-maker, who also erroneously misapprehended that the student’s leave was in fact less than 150 days, among other factors. In Tcerkovnaia, the applicant had provided reasons for why she had to drop two courses during one semester as well as evidence that those reasons had been accepted by her DLI who, nonetheless, considered her to be a full-time student. The officer in that case did not acknowledge the DLI’s letter explaining this fact.
[34] The Court in Munyanyi (at paras 26 and 27) and Tcerkovnaia (at para 26) found the decisions were unreasonable because the decision-makers failed to engage with evidence submitted by each DLI to demonstrate compliance. These cases are distinguishable to the Applicant’s.
[35] The Applicant states that Sugagata is factually similar to his situation. However, in Sugagata, the applicant developed tonsilitis that caused a delay in her last exam which in turn delayed the transmission of her final grades. This prevented her from registering for subsequent courses at her DLI, which needed final academic transcripts for course registration purposes. This was corroborated by a letter from the DLI. The decision at issue was also silent on another school term. With respect, these facts are quite unique and distinguishable.
[36] Given the above, the Decision is not unreasonable, and the application for judicial review must therefore be dismissed.
[37] The parties do not propose any question for certification, and I agree that in these circumstances, none arise.
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