Date: 20260911
Docket: IMM-6714-25
Citation: 2026 FC 1149
Calgary, Alberta, September 11, 2026
PRESENT: The Honourable Madam Justice Aylen
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BETWEEN:
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WAHZIT MARU ANENYA
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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
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REASONS AND JUDGMENT
[1] The Applicant, a citizen of Eritrea, fled Eritrea in 2019 and sought asylum in Ethiopia to evade mandatory military conscription. As a result, the Applicant claims she can no longer return to Eritrea without facing imprisonment. She currently resides in Ethiopia as a UNHCR refugee with her husband, who is an Ethiopian national. The Applicant has not made any attempt to gain Ethiopian citizenship.
[2] The Applicant applied for permanent residency in Canada through a Group of Five sponsorship, with her husband as an accompanying dependent, as a member of the Convention refugee abroad class or as a member of the Humanitarian-Protected Persons Abroad designated class. The Applicant was interviewed by an Officer of the Canadian High Commission regarding her application. During the interview, the Officer gave the Applicant an opportunity to address the Officer’s concern that she had a durable solution in Ethiopia. The following exchange occurred:
Officer: AFTER CAREFULLY ASSESSING YOUR APPLICATION, IT APPEARS THAT YOU DO NOT MEET THESE REQUIREMENTS. YOU ARE MARRIED TO AN ETHIOPIAN NATIONAL AND ARE CURRENTLY LIVING IN ETHIOPIA. THEREFORE, IT APPEARS THAT YOU HAVE A DURABLE SOLUTION IN ETHIOPIA. BEFORE A DECISION IS MADE IN YOUR CASE, I AM PROVIDNG YOU WITH THE OPPORTUNITY TO RESPOND.
Applicant: its [sic] not allowed I have never seen anyone get citizenship.
Officer: BUT HAVE YOU TRIED
Applicant: I have never seen anyone get the citizenship.
Officer: MY QUESTION IS, HAVE YOU TRIED
Applicant: I don’t want to lose my Eritrean citizenship; they do not allow dual citizenship
Officer: DUAL CITIZENSHIP IS A SEPARATE MATTER: HAVE YOU TRIED TO APPLY FOR CITIZENSHIP?
Applicant: No
Officer: YOU SEEM VERY SETTLED HERE IN ETHIOPIA WITH YOUR HUSBAND BEING A NATIONAL AND A HOTEL MANAGER; LIFE SEEMS GOOD?
Applicant: Yes but Canada will be better.
[3] Following the interview, no procedural fairness letter was sent to the Applicant in relation to the Officer’s durable solution concern.
[4] Five days after the interview, by letter dated March 19, 2025, the Officer rejected the Applicant’s application for permanent residency on the basis that she had a durable solution in Ethiopia and therefore did not qualify for visa approval in Canada, as per section 139(1)(d) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, SOR/2002-227. The Officer provided the following reasons for their decision:
[…] I am not satisfied that you are a member of any of the classes prescribed:
• You are a citizen of Eritrea who has claimed refugee status in Ethiopia and are registered as a refugee with UNHCR;
• After you arrived in Ethiopia you married to an Ethiopian citizen and the Law of Citizenship of Ethiopia give’s [sic] you the opportunity to acquire your spouse’s citizenship by marriage; you admitted to not having tried to lodge an application;
• Your spouse and you mentioned that he is a manager at a hotel and that affords you the opportunity to live as a housewife;
• The host country respects the right of non-refoulementand [sic] the refugee’s physical security is not at risk.
You had the opportunity to respond to concerns of the visa officer and those concerns were not alleviated. […]
[5] On this application, the Applicant asserts that the decision is unreasonable and was rendered in a manner that breached her right to procedural fairness. Having considered the submissions of the parties, I am satisfied that the determinative issue is whether the Officer breached the Applicant’s procedural fairness rights by failing to provide her with a meaningful opportunity to explain her circumstances and respond to their concern regarding whether she has a durable solution in Ethiopia.
[6] Breaches of procedural fairness in administrative contexts have been considered reviewable on a correctness standard or subject to a “reviewing exercise […] ‘best reflected in the correctness standard’ even though, strictly speaking, no standard of review is being applied”
[Canadian Pacific Railway Company v Canada (Attorney General), 2018 FCA 69 at para 54]. The duty of procedural fairness is “eminently variable,”
inherently flexible and context-specific. It must be determined with reference to all the circumstances, including the Baker factors [Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at para 77]. A court assessing a procedural fairness question is required to ask whether the procedure was fair, having regard to all of the circumstances [Canadian Pacific Railway Company at para 54].
[7] By way of context, section 139(1)(d) of the Regulations, provides that a foreign national in need of refugee protection, and their accompanying family members, will receive a permanent resident visa if the foreign national does not have a reasonable prospect of a durable solution, within a reasonable period, in a country other than Canada.
[8] A durable solution is a forward-looking assessment of whether an applicant has a viable long-term solution in their country of refuge. This assessment considers the applicant’s legal status, personal circumstances and the relevant country conditions. A durable solution need not be a perfect solution [Desalgn v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 704 at para 20; Gebreselasse v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 865 at para 31].
[9] In light of the statutory framework of subsection 139(1) of the Regulations, the burden of proof rests solely on an applicant to establish that their status in their country of refuge does not constitute a durable solution [Issa v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1365 at para 19; Salimi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2007 FC 872 at para 7].
[10] The Minister’s Operational Manual 5: Overseas Selection and Processing of Convention Refugees Abroad Class and Members of the Humanitarian-protected Persons Abroad Class [OP-5] provides additional guidance on whether a durable solution exists [Haile v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 1424 at para 25]. Section 6.19 of the OP-5 establishes three durable solutions for refugees and persons in “refugee-like”
situations:
• Voluntary repatriation or resettlement in their country of nationality or habitual residence: voluntary repatriation should occur only when the situation in the country of habitual or permanent residence of the refugees has changed in a lasting and meaningful way and to where they can return in conditions of safety and dignity. If the country is made up of many ethnic groups, it should be remembered that some individuals could be safely repatriated while others could not. There are a variety of reasons why some individuals may not be able to return safely when others can, including political opinion, religion and personal experience (e.g., survivors of torture or rape for whom it would be re-traumatizing to return, or individuals who would be social outcasts like the forced slaves of combatants.) The UNHCR is an excellent source of information on such conditions.
• Integration in their country of asylum: refugees are considered to be locally integrated in the country of refuge if they have rights similar to those of citizens such as: they can move around the country freely; they are allowed to earn a living; their children are allowed to attend school; there is no threat of refoulement, etc.
• Resettlement to a third country: resettlement is intended for those refugees without local integration prospects. Resettlement may also be used as an instrument of protection geared primarily to the special needs of refugees whose life, liberty, safety, health or fundamental human rights are at risk in the country where they sought refuge. It is used for refugees unable to benefit from the other two solutions.
[11] The Applicant argues that the Officer violated her procedural fairness rights when assessing her claim for protection. While the Officer’s refusal letter indicates that the Applicant was afforded an opportunity to respond to their concerns, and did not alleviate those concerns, the Applicant disagrees. The Applicant argues that notifying an unrepresented claimant during an interview that the Officer is considering whether or not the claimant has a durable solution and asking one question about whether or not the claimant applied for citizenship in the country of refuge is not affording a claimant a full and fair opportunity to respond.
[12] She asserts that the Officer failed to: (a) explain to the Applicant what a durable solution was; (b) notify the Applicant of the factual and legal considerations required when determining whether or not an individual has a durable solution; and (c) clarify what the implications were if it was determined that she had a durable solution in Ethiopia. She asserts that these failures cumulatively rendered it impossible for the Applicant to know the case to meet, such that she could not respond to the Officer’s concerns. Further, the Applicant asserts that by only asking the one question about applying for citizenship, the Applicant was not given the opportunity to explain the legal constraints for Eritreans applying for Ethiopian citizenship. The Applicant asserts that she should have been provided a post-interview procedural fairness letter to permit her to meaningfully respond to the Officer’s concerns.
[13] The Respondent disputes the assertion that there was a denial of procedural fairness, stressing that the onus was on the Applicant to show that she could not resettle in Ethiopia and to provide the Officer with whatever evidence she intended to rely on to establish the absence of a durable solution. The Respondent notes that there was no obligation on the Officer to seek out such information from the Applicant. Moreover, the Respondent argues that the Applicant was provided with procedural fairness because she was called in for an interview and provided with an interpreter, the Officer ensured she understood the interpreter, the Officer put their concern regarding a durable solution to her and invited her to provide her responses to that concern. The Respondent asserts that nothing further was required of the Officer.
[14] I disagree. While I do not necessarily accept that the Officer was obligated to provide the explanations and clarifications asserted by the Applicant during the interview itself, I find that the Applicant should have been sent a procedural fairness letter after the interview to permit her a chance to meaningfully address the durable solution issue. I make this finding given the unique circumstances of this case — namely, the Applicant had been privately sponsored by a group of Canadians and was applying for refugee status abroad, she had already been recognized as a refugee living in another country by the UNHCR, and neither the Applicant nor the Canadian sponsorship group were represented by counsel. These combined factors support that the Applicant was in a vulnerable place [Abasher v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1591 at para 23]. As such, she was not well-positioned to provide a meaningful response to the concerns raised by the Officer during the interview itself, which were determinative of her application. I find that the nature of the decision at issue required more stringent procedural protections. As such, a further opportunity should have been provided to the Applicant to address the issue by way of a response to a procedural fairness letter [Baker v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1999] 2 S.C.R. 817 at para 25. As no such opportunity was provided, I find that the Applicant was denied procedural fairness.
[15] Accordingly, the application for judicial review shall be granted, the decision of the Officer set aside and the matter remitted for redetermination. Such redetermination shall include an opportunity for the Applicant to provide a response to the durable solution issue by way of further evidence and written submissions.
[16] Neither party proposed a question for certification and I agree that none arises.
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