Docket: IMM-6235-20
Citation: 2022 FC 985
Ottawa, Ontario, July 4, 2022
PRESENT: The Honourable Justice Fuhrer
| BETWEEN:
|
| ARMAAN MEHTA
|
| Applicant
|
| and
|
| THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
|
| Respondent
|
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
I.
Overview
[1] The Applicant, Armaan Mehta, is a citizen of India. His application for permanent residency based on humanitarian and compassionate [H&C] grounds was refused.
[2] The Applicant brings this judicial review application challenging the H&C decision on two bases. First, the Senior Immigration Officer ignored evidence regarding the Applicant’s establishment in Canada. Second, the Officer conflated the H&C hardship test with the section 97 test for protection by requiring the Applicant to demonstrate personalized risk. See Annex “A”
for relevant legislative provisions.
[3] In my view, the Applicant has not met his onus of demonstrating that H&C decision is unreasonable: Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 [Vavilov] at para 10, 25, 100. For the reasons that follow, I therefore dismiss this judicial review application.
II.
Analysis
A.
Officer Did Not Ignore Evidence of Establishment
[4] The Applicant argues that the Officer ignored certain evidence of establishment and advocates that the Officer should have given it more weight, and that it demonstrates the Applicant has achieved more than “minimal”
establishment in Canada. I disagree for two reasons.
[5] First, there is a presumption that the Officer considered all the evidence: Mashal v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 900 at para 29. Section 4 of the H&C decision, under the heading “Factors for Consideration,”
summarizes the facts and evidence the Officer considered and includes the very evidence the Applicant says the Officer ignored, such as his volunteerism and donations to charities, his employment with Pride Logistics, as well as the support he and his mother provide to his sister who is a permanent resident in Canada.
[6] Second, the Applicant’s submissions express disagreement with the way the Officer weighed the evidence, rather than describe the manner in which the H&C decision is unreasonable. For example, the Applicant points to various evidence, such as his employment and volunteer activities, in support of the argument that the Applicant demonstrated more than minimal establishment in Canada. The Officer concludes that “these are not uncharacteristic activities undertaken by newcomers to a country[; r]ather, the applicant has demonstrated a typical level of establishment for persons in similar circumstances.”
[Emphasis added.]
[7] I find that it was reasonably open to the Officer to come to this conclusion based on the Applicant’s evidence and the applicable jurisprudence regarding the issue of establishment in the context of H&C relief: Ikeji v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 1422 at paras 61-64. It is not the reviewing Court’s role to reweigh the evidence that was before the administrative decision maker: Vavilov, above at para 125.
B.
Officer Did Not Conflate H&C Test with Section 97 Test
[8] I also disagree with the Applicant’s argument that the Officer improperly imported the concept of “personalized risk”
into the H&C assessment of hardship.
[9] The Applicant states that the Officer erroneously required the Applicant to demonstrate a well-founded fear based on a person in need of protection, instead of the hardship of applying from India given the applicable country conditions: Miyir v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 73 at para 30.
[10] I find, however, that the Officer responded to the H&C submissions of the Applicant and his mother to the effect that, because of his mother’s political activities, “on a balance of probabilities their lives would be in danger and they are at a very real risk of being subjected to torture and death”
and that they “escaped imminent danger.”
[11] Further, the jurisprudence of this Court underscores the burden on an H&C applicant to link their personalized situation, including any asserted risk, to the country conditions: Lalane v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2009 FC 6 at paras 38, 42-43; Ibabu v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 FC 1068 at para 44.
[12] I thus find it was reasonably open to the Officer to conclude that “the applicant has not established an adequate link between the country condition information and his personal circumstances”
and that “insufficient evidence has been submitted in regards to the applicant’s stated risk in returning to India.”
The Applicant has failed to convince me that that the Officer’s reasoning and conclusions regarding the Applicant’s asserted danger in India were unreasonable in light of the evidence and submissions that were before the Officer for consideration.
III.
Conclusion
[13] For the above reasons, I conclude the H&C decision does not disclose any reviewable error warranting the Court’s intervention in this matter.
[14] Neither party proposed a question for certification and I find that none arises in the circumstances.
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