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Date: 20260902
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Docket: IMM-7499-25
Citation: 2026 FC 1034
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Montréal, Québec, September 2, 2026
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PRESENT: Mr. Justice Joyal
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BETWEEN:
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YATHRAMULLA MUHANDIRAMGE PRASANNA
SUMUDU UDAYAKANTHA ABEYSUNDARA,
MARY KANCHANA DEMEL VIDANALAGE,
UDAYAKANTHA ABEYSUNDARA YATHRAMULLA
MUHANDIRAMGE NATHAN DION ABEYSUNDARA
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Applicants
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and
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
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Respondent
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REASONS AND JUDGMENT
I. Overview
[1] The Applicants seek judicial review of a decision of the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) of the Immigration and Refugee Board, which upheld the decision of the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) rejecting their claim for refugee protection.
[2] The Applicants have not demonstrated that the RAD committed a reviewable error in upholding the refusal of their claim on credibility grounds. The RAD also reasonably rejected their allegation that former counsel provided ineffective assistance as well as their proposed new evidence. Accordingly, this application for judicial review is dismissed.
II. Background
[3] On December 15, 2022, the Applicants (the principal Applicant, his wife, and their minor son) arrived in Canada on visitor visas and claimed refugee protection.
[4] The Applicants’ refugee claim was based on an alleged fear of harm in Sri Lanka at the hands of an influential government Minister and complicit Sri Lankan police authorities.
[5] In his Basis of Claim (BOC) narrative, the principal Applicant alleged that he had been performing charitable work assisting Tamil and Muslim families since 2012, leading police to accuse him of supporting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
[6] In February 2022, the Minister allegedly attempted to forcibly acquire the Applicants’ house. After the principal Applicant sold it to a third party on March 14, 2022, he was summoned to a police station the following day, where the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) berated and slapped him. The principal Applicant subsequently received a demand for a bribe in the amount of 20 million rupees on May 1, 2022. He was abducted on June 5, 2022, securing his release the next day upon paying a 5-million-rupee ransom.
[7] The RPD held the first sitting of the hearing on May 13, 2024. At the conclusion of that sitting, the Member asked that counsel provide any corroborating documentation regarding the sale of the house and the Minister’s identity and background. The Applicants’ former counsel submitted the requested documents, including a deed of transfer and background information on the Minister. The RPD hearing was completed following a second sitting on July 23, 2024.
[8] On September 24, 2024, the RPD rejected the claims, holding that the Applicants were neither Convention refugees nor persons in need of protection, as they were not credible witnesses. Specifically, the RPD concluded that:
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a)The principal Applicant failed to establish that he performed charitable work for Tamil and Muslim families. His testimony was vague regarding how beneficiaries contacted him and lacked plausible details given the alleged 10-year duration of his involvement;
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b)The principal Applicant failed to connect his property or its sale to the Minister’s threats. His testimony regarding his decision to sell his house and his interactions with the buyer was deemed implausible andirregular;
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c)The principal Applicant gave contradictory evidence regarding a police demand for a bribe in an amount of 20 million rupees. At the hearing, he spontaneously testified that this demand was made on March 15, 2022. When confronted with his written narrative, which placed the event on May 1, 2022, he recharacterized the March 15, 2022, incident as merely involving a “casual comment”
;
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d)While the last significant event related by the principal Applicant in his BOC narrative occurred on June 5, 2022, the principal Applicant disclosed at the hearing that he received threatening phone calls up to November 2022 and that his sister received similar threats in January 2023, despite affirming at the outset of both sittings that his narrative was complete and up to date;
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e)In the absence of credible testimony, the RPD found that the documents submitted by the Applicants were insufficient to establish either a serious possibility of persecution or a personalized risk.
[9] On December 2, 2024, represented by new counsel, the Applicants appealed the RPD’s decision before the RAD, submitting a request to admit new evidence and alleging the incompetence of their former counsel.
[10] On March 6, 2025, the RAD dismissed the appeal and confirmed the RPD’s decision, holding that the Applicants were not credible witnesses and that the events did not occur as alleged. Specifically, the RAD concluded that:
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a)The Applicants failed to show that their former counsel was incompetent. Counsel filed documents both before and after the first sitting and, by signing their BOC forms, the Applicants acknowledged their responsibility to provide supporting evidence;
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b)The RAD admitted nine new documents, including affidavits and a medical record, as they addressed two issues on which the RPD erroneously impugned the principal Applicant’s credibility, namely the principal Applicant’s charitable work, and the sale of the home and the buyer’s reaction. However, the RAD excluded fourteen other documents, mostly because they did not satisfy the requirements for new evidence on appeal;
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c)The RPD erred in finding that the principal Applicant did not do charitable work for Tamil and Muslim families or that the Minister was not interested in their home. However, these errors did not change the outcome of the decision;
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d)Conducting its own review, the RAD concluded the June 5, 2022, abduction did not occur as alleged, as the principal Applicant provided three materially different and evolving accounts of this central incident;
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e)Unresolved inconsistencies persisted regarding whether police demanded a bribe from the principal Applicant on March 15 or May 1, 2022. The principal Applicant omitted from his BOC narrative that he was physically assaulted by the OIC on May 1, 2022. In the end, the RAD did not believe those events happened as alleged;
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f)The principal Applicant failed to provide a reasonable explanation for omitting from his BOC narrative the ongoing death threats allegedly received by his sister following his departure from Sri Lanka; and
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g)In sum, the RAD determined that while the Minister may have wanted the home, the Applicants faced no repercussions for selling it and were not sought after as alleged.
III. Issues
[11] The application for judicial review raises the following issues:
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a)Was it unreasonable for the Refugee Appeal Division to dismiss the Applicants’ allegation of incompetence directed at their former counsel?
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b)Was it unreasonable for the Refugee Appeal Division to refuse to admit the Applicants’ proposed new evidence?
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c)Was it unreasonable for the Refugee Appeal Division to dismiss the Applicants’ appeal and confirm the RPD’s rejection of the Applicants’ refugee claims based on credibility grounds?
IV. Analysis
A. Standard of review
[12] This Court applies the reasonableness standard of review when reviewing the merits of a RAD decision. This includes the RAD’s conclusions related to a claimant’s credibility (Bamidele v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 999 at para 15), the admission of new evidence on appeal (Bhuiyan v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 616 at para 50), or allegations of counsel incompetence before the RPD (Turgut v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 1951 at para 16).
[13] In applying the reasonableness standard of review, the role of a reviewing court is to examine the reasons given by the administrative decision maker and to determine whether the decision is based on “an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis”
and is “justified in relation to the facts and law that constrain the decision maker”
(Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at para 85 [Vavilov]).
[14] When assessing a decision on judicial review, the Court must determine whether the decision at issue bears the hallmarks of reasonableness, namely justification, transparency and intelligibility (Vavilov at para 99). Any flaws relied upon by the party challenging the decision must be “sufficiently central or significant to render the decision unreasonable”
(Vavilov at para 100).
B. The RAD’s conclusion on the alleged incompetence of former counsel before the RPD
[15] For the following reasons, the RAD did not commit any reviewable error in rejecting the Applicants’ allegation that the counsel who represented them before the RPD was incompetent.
[16] Three elements must be established to show that there has been a breach of natural justice due to ineffective assistance of counsel:
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a)The representative’s alleged acts or omissions constituted incompetence;
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b)There was a miscarriage of justice in the sense that, but for the alleged conduct, there is a reasonable probability that the result of the original hearing would have been different; and
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c)The representative was given notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond (Hwangbo v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 771 at para 14; Guadron v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 FC 1092 at para 11).
[17] On appeal before the RAD, the onus is on the appellant to establish the acts or omissions of counsel that are alleged not to have been the result of reasonable professional judgment. Further, the appellant must refute the strong presumption that the counsel’s conduct fell within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. The wisdom of hindsight has no place in this assessment (R v GDB, 2000 SCC 22 at para 27 [GDB]).
[18] Before the RAD, the Applicants’ central argument was that former counsel failed to advise them to submit corroborating documents. Had counsel done so, they could have provided such evidence, as shown by their request to admit new evidence before the RAD. Further, this failure caused them prejudice because the RPD’s negative credibility conclusion rested on insufficient evidence that they would otherwise have been able to submit.
[19] In the present case, it was reasonably open to the RAD to find that the Applicants had not shown that the counsel who represented them before the RPD acted in an incompetent manner. The Applicants did not meet the high threshold required to show counsel incompetence (GDB at para 27).
[20] The RAD highlighted two main reasons for finding that the Applicants have not shown that their former counsel acted incompetently. First, the Applicants ought to have known about their responsibility to provide any documents that may support their claim (RAD reasons at paras 8-9). Second, their former counsel would not have known that they “would be found to lack credibility because of vague and implausible testimony”
(RAD reasons at para 13).
[21] Indeed, the BOC form, on its cover page, clearly states that claimants are “[…] responsible for obtaining and providing to the IRB any documents that may support [their] claim”
. On page 2, claimants are specifically invited to “[a]ttach two copies of any documents [they] have to support [their] claim, such as travel documents (including your passport) and identity, medical, psychological or police documents”
.
[22] As the RAD pointed out, the Applicants did avail themselves of the opportunity to submit documents to support their claim, namely a certificate of residence and a registration for their business. These documents were supplied to the RPD before the hearing by their former counsel along with her written submissions.
[23] Importantly, at the close of the first sitting before the RPD, the Applicants were specifically invited by the RPD to submit any additional documentation related to the sale of their property and to the Minister from whom the Applicants claimed to have a well-founded fear of persecution. In response to the Member’s request, the Applicants submitted the property transfer deed and background materials describing the alleged agent of persecution.
[24] As this Court has consistently held, the onus of establishing a refugee claim rests with the claimant (Islam v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 320 at para 24). Here, the Applicants knew they had a responsibility to put their best foot forward. Not only that, but they were also given an opportunity by the RPD to submit additional documents on certain points. In this context, they cannot now lay at the feet of their former counsel any failure on their part to fulfil that responsibility.
[25] That said, it is important to underline that the Applicants’ claim was rejected, not because of the absence of corroborating evidence, but because of the principal applicant’s vague, inconsistent, and implausible testimony on central aspects of the claim.
[26] This distinction is critical to the assessment of counsel competence. As the RAD pointed out, a claimant’s testimony is presumed truthful unless there is a valid reason to doubt its truthfulness (Maldonado v Minister of Employment and Immigration, [1980] 2 FC 302 at page 305). As a corollary, claimants are generally not required to provide corroborating evidence (Senadheerage v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 968 at para 27).
[27] Applying this principle to the case at hand, the Applicants’ former counsel was under no duty to pre-emptively shore up every detail of the Applicants’ narrative with corroborating documentation in anticipation of credibility findings that had not yet been made. To hold otherwise would impose an impossible burden on claimants and their representatives.
[28] The Applicants counter that the RAD could not, on the one hand, hold them to a responsibility to provide supporting documents and, on the other, excuse former counsel on the basis that corroboration was not required given the presumption of truthfulness.
[29] In my view, the dichotomy pressed by the Applicants is a false one, as the two propositions operate on different planes. The first is directed at the Applicants themselves. As claimants, they bore the onus of establishing their claim and, as the BOC form makes plain, the responsibility to obtain and provide any documents that may support it (Abdullahi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 260 at para 14). That responsibility exists independently of any advice from counsel.
[30] The second proposition is directed at former counsel’s professional judgment. Because a claimant’s testimony is presumed truthful and corroboration is not generally required, counsel could reasonably conduct the case on the footing that the principal Applicant’s narrative and sworn testimony would carry the claim, absent any advance indication that his credibility would falter.
[31] Lastly, the Applicants argue, in essence, that, if the RAD admitted certain documents on appeal to remedy the RPD’s erroneous credibility findings on certain issues, their former counsel must necessarily have been incompetent for failing to submit those documents at the outset. I find this argument unpersuasive.
[32] As stated already, the legal test for assessing counsel incompetence prohibits evaluating counsel’s performance through the lens of hindsight. As such, the fact that the RPD made an erroneous credibility finding on certain issues does not mean that their former counsel’s approach was unreasonable having regard to all the circumstances.
[33] While the foregoing suffices to dispose of the question, I add that the Applicants’ argument fails on the question of prejudice. Before the RPD, the Applicants were offered a fair opportunity to submit supporting documents prior to and after the first sitting of the hearing. While the RAD subsequently admitted nine documents on appeal, it conducted an independent assessment and concluded that the claim still failed due to important credibility flaws in the principal Applicant’s testimony. As such, the absence of those documents before the RPD did not affect the ultimate outcome, and no miscarriage of justice resulted.
C. The RAD’s conclusions on the Applicants’ proposed new evidence
[34] As a corollary to their argument of counsel incompetence, the Applicants attack the RAD’s treatment of their new evidence. Their reasoning runs as follow: the RAD’s “sole reason”
for refusing these documents was that they failed to demonstrate their former counsel was incompetent; since that holding was unreasonable, the refusal to admit the new evidence must fall too.
[35] There are two main problems with the Applicants’ proposition. First, its premise is erroneous. The documents were not refused solely because the Applicants failed to demonstrate the incompetence of their former counsel. They were refused because they did not meet the test for new evidence under subsection 110(4) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 (“IRPA”
), which requires an appellant to show that (i) the evidence arose after the RPD decision; or (ii) the evidence was not reasonably available at the time of the decision; or (iii) the appellant could not reasonably have been expected in the circumstances to have presented it to the RPD at the time of the decision.
[36] Applying that test, the RAD reasonably found that the documents in reality all predated the RPD’s decision, given that the events described in these documents happened before the RPD decision (Zeinaly v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 21 at para 43). In addition, the RAD noted the Applicants did not show that these items were not reasonably available because of the incompetence of their former counsel (RAD reasons at para 20).
[37] Second, and in any event, the Applicants’ argument fails simply because the Applicants have failed to convince me that the RAD erred in dealing with their allegation of counsel incompetence.
[38] The Applicants press a related objection: since all the documents predated the RPD’s decision, there is no principled basis on which the RAD could admit nine of them, while refusing the other fourteen. I disagree.
[39] One document, a letter confirming the minor Applicant’s initial consultation with a psychotherapist, was admitted because it postdated the RPD’s decision (RAD reasons at para 18). As for the remaining eight, the RAD identified two findings on which the RPD erred and it accepted that the Applicants “could not have been expected to give documents”
on those subjects before the RPD’s decision, because they could not have anticipated that the RPD would err and disbelieve their testimony in those areas (RAD reasons at para 19). The reasons, in substance, are based on the third branch of subsection 110(4) of the IRPA.
[40] The fourteen refused documents, by contrast, sought to address findings that the RAD upheld, where no error was committed by the RPD. Because the Applicants failed to demonstrate why these documents could not reasonably have been presented at the initial hearing, the RAD reasonably concluded they did not meet the criteria set out by subsection 110(4) of the IRPA.
[41] As was stated by the Federal Court of Appeal, evidence that simply “corroborates facts, contradicts the RPD’s findings, or clarifies the evidence before the RPD”
, does not qualify as “new evidence”
under subsection 110(4) of the IRPA. A contrary interpretation would permit a party to split its case by presenting on appeal evidence that could have been submitted at the outset before the RPD, the very result subsection 110(4) seeks to prevent (Singh v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FCA 96 at para 50 [Singh]). Put simply, it is not the role of the RAD “to provide the opportunity to complete a deficient record submitted before the RPD”
(Singh at para 54).
[42] For these reasons, I cannot find any fault in the RAD’s treatment of the Applicants’ proposed new evidence.
D. The RAD’s conclusion on the Applicants’ credibility
[43] For the following reasons, the RAD reasonably found the Applicants’ claim not to be credible and, on that basis, dismissed the appeal and confirmed the RPD’s determination that they are neither Convention refugees nor persons in need of protection (RAD reasons, paras 23, 46–47).
[44] In case at bar, the RAD highlighted several problems, including various inconsistencies and omissions, arising from the principal Applicant’s own testimony. Importantly, these inconsistencies and omissions pertained to the central events alleged by Applicants in support of their claim. As such, they went to its very core, providing a sound and reasonable basis for the RAD’s decision (Lawani v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 924 at para 22 [Lawani]).
[45] I turn now to an examination of these alleged events in chronological order.
1. The principal Applicant’s interactions with the police on March 15 and May 1, 2022
[46] For the following reasons, I am of the view that it was reasonable for the RAD to find the principal Applicant’s testimony not credible regarding his alleged interactions with the police on March 15 and May 1, 2022.
[47] The BOC narrative indicated that, on May 1, 2022, the principal Applicant went to the police station to make a complaint that certain individuals had thrown stones at his house. This is when a police officer asked for a bribe of 20 million rupees. However, at the RPD hearing, the principal Applicant testified that the police officer first asked for a bribe on March 15, 2022. When confronted with this inconsistency, the principal Applicant explained that the March 15, 2022, incident involved more of a “casual comment”
rather than a “demand”
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[48] There were further inconsistencies with respect to the May 1, 2022, incident. The principal Applicant testified that when he went to the police station on May 1, 2022, the OIC slapped him. However, the BOC narrative does not mention any physical violence on that date. Given that May 1, 2022, was his final interaction with the officer, it was entirely reasonable for the RAD to expect that such physical abuse would have been recorded in his narrative and reported consistently.
[49] Given these inconsistencies and omissions concerning the crucial question of when a police officer demanded a bribe from the principal Applicant, I am of the view that it was reasonable for the RAD to find that this pivotal event has not been established.
2. The June 5, 2022, incident
[50] For the following reasons, I am also of the view that the RAD reasonably concluded that the principal Applicant was not abducted on June 5, 2022, as alleged. Each time the principal Applicant described the June 5, 2022, incident, his testimony evolved significantly.
[51] In his BOC narrative, the principal Applicant stated that he was assaulted with a stick and then a baton and that he agreed to pay after speaking to the Minister on the phone and becoming fearful.
[52] However, at the hearing before the RPD, in describing the June 5, 2022, incident, the principal Applicant stated that a gun was put to his head and in his mouth, and that the abductors fired shots near his head. This, he said, is what caused him to fear for his life and agree to pay the Minister money.
[53] When questioned by his counsel, however, the principal Applicant testified that he had been dragged along the ground and prodded with a gun, without saying that it had been placed against his head or in his mouth. He also stated that he heard someone crying and pleading for their life, followed by gunshots and silence. Believing that person had been killed, he became afraid and agreed to pay the Minister.
[54] The instructions to question 2(a) of the BOC form explicitly direct claimants to “include everything that is important for [their] claim”
and to “include dates, names and places wherever possible.”
The principal Applicant’s omission from the BOC narrative that he was threatened with a lethal weapon and witnessed an apparent murder was significant and directly undermined the credibility of the alleged incident.
[55] In light of this omission and the shifting nature of the principal Applicant’s testimony, it was entirely open to the RAD to conclude that the incident of June 5, 2022, did not occur as alleged.
[56] The Applicants sought to explain the discrepancies surrounding the abduction of June 5, 2022, by invoking the impact of trauma on the principal Applicant’s memory. However. the RAD reasonably rejected this explanation, concluding that trauma could not account for such materially evolving accounts or the failure to report events of such severity (RAD reasons at para 37).
[57] Before leaving the June 5, 2022, incident, I must address the Applicants’ submission that the RAD ignored the testimony of the principal Applicant’s wife.
[58] An administrative decision maker is presumed to have considered and reviewed the entire evidentiary record (Musani v Canada (Attorney General), 2026 FCA 94 at para 31; Simpson v Canada (Attorney General), 2012 FCA 82 at para 10). That presumption may be rebutted by silence concerning a piece of evidence directly contradicting a decision maker’s findings (Yilmaz v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 625 at para 25).
[59] That is not the case here. The wife’s testimony could corroborate only what she personally witnessed. It did not address what occurred during the alleged abduction, the very event for which the principal Applicant gave three irreconcilable accounts. Her evidence therefore could not resolve those contradictions.
[60] Moreover, having reasonably found that the central narrative was not credible, the RAD was entitled to give little weight to derivative evidence that presupposed the truth of that same narrative (Jayaraman v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2022 FC 458 at para 64; Lawani at para 24). In these circumstances, the fact that the RAD does not expressly discuss the wife’s testimony does not render its decision unreasonable.
3. Post-June 5, 2022, threats
[61] The RAD also reasonably concluded that the principal Applicant and his family were not subjected to ongoing harassment following the alleged abduction on June 5, 2022.
[62] Specifically, the principal Applicant failed to disclose in his BOC narrative that he received repeated threatening phone calls from the Minister’s supporters, nor did he mention that his sister received calls threatening his life upon his return to Sri Lanka.
[63] Before the RAD, the Applicants did not challenge the RPD’s finding regarding the threats allegedly received by the principal Applicant. Nor did they attempt to do so before the Court. That finding therefore stands.
[64] Regarding the RPD’s second finding regarding the threats allegedly received by the principal Applicant’s sister, I find no faut with how the RAD dealt with this issue. The RAD refused to admit a letter purportedly from the sister, given that it contradicted the principal Applicant’s testimony as to the number and timing of the calls.
[65] At any rate, the alleged threats received after the family’s departure were the most recent events alleged and constituted direct evidence of the Minister’s ongoing motivation to locate the principal Applicant. The omission of such significant events from the narrative substantially undermines the credibility of these allegations. As the Applicants do not challenge this adverse credibility finding before this Court, the RAD’s determination on this point remains uncontested and must stand.
V. Conclusion
[66] For these reasons, I dismiss the application for judicial review.
[67] Neither party proposed a serious question of general importance for certification. I am satisfied that none arises.
JUDGMENT IN IMM-7499-25
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.
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"François Joyal"
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Judge
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FEDERAL COURT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD
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