The Immigration Appeal Division or IAD an Important Safety Net

The Immigration Appeal Division or IAD handles a number of immigration appeals, including refusals of family class sponsorships (overseas) like shortfalls to minimum necessary income, residency appeals, and some removal order appeals by PRs (most often arising from misrepresentation or criminality). It is an important backstop and safety net for the loss of PR status or the denial of a PR visa to a spouse or eligible family member.

In Mahmood, Justice Sadrehashemi finds the IAD denied the appellant (applicant at the JR) a fair hearing. The applicant lost his residency appeal; the IAD denied his counsel’s request for a change of date and the applicant had to proceed without counsel. Appeal denied due to issue arising as to shortfall of days and credibility. The Court provided some important context for this type of proceeding before this type of tribunal at paragraph 20: 

[20] The IAD is a “court of record” that has “all the powers, rights and privileges vested in a superior court of record” (section 174 of IRPA). An appeal hearing at the IAD is an adversarial process where there are two parties: the person concerned and the Minister (Canada Border Services Agency): Chieu v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2002 SCC 3 at para 82. The interests at stake are significant – the outcome can mean the loss of permanent residence. There is no appeal from a decision of the IAD, only judicial review to this Court. Accordingly, considering these factors – the nature of the tribunal process, the type of decision at issue and the interest at stake – the duty of procedural fairness owed at an IAD residency obligation appeal hearing is on the high end of the spectrum (Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 1999 CanLII 699 (SCC), [1999] 2 S.C.R. 817 at paras 22-28).

Mahmood v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 1808 (CanLII), <https://canlii.ca/t/kgdpp>