Humanitarian & Copassionate Applications

This application is for persons who are applying for permanent resident status from inside Canada based on unusual and undeserved or disproportionate hardship that they would be experiencing if and when they are removed from Canada.  In essence, the Canadian immigration laws require all applications for permanent residency to be submitted from outside Canada. However, the law also recognizes the fact that in certain circumstances, the removal of a person who has been sufficiently established in Canada through years of de facto residency without status, may cause such harm and inconvenience that the person’s removal will be really unfair so to speak. In such circumstances, the law allows the person to ask for an exemption, from the normal requirement of applying from outside Canada, from the Canadian immigration authorities.

In order to qualify for such an exemption, you would have to show that your removal from Canada will cause you (1) unusual and undeserved or (2) disproportionate hardship. To this end, you would have to submit a formal application package and support the application with compelling evidence of the hardship that you claim you will be suffering upon removal. The evidence may include, but is not limited to:

• Evidence of risk to your life in the country to which you will be removed (normally, your country of nationality);
• Evidence of significant ties and connection to Canada;
• Evidence of successful integration within the Canadian society and the immediate community;
• Evidence of strong family ties in Canada and lack of such ties in your country of nationality or the country to which you will be removed.

As you can imagine, the evidence listed above may take various forms and quite often overlap with one another. In general, there are no formal/legal limitations on the type of evidence that you may wish to have considered; so long as the evidence can show the hardship that you would experience upon removal.

WHO IS A SUITABLE CANDIDATE?

As you may have already guessed from reading the above, a suitable candidate would be one who is, both economically and socially speaking, well established in Canada by reason of prolonged presence and does not qualify under other categories such as skilled worker. Prolonged presence normally means living in Canada for at least a few years during which the person has developed extensive roots and connections such that severing those roots will amount to unusual and undeserved suffering.

The foregoing does not, however, mean that a newcomer to Canada would not be able to successfully apply since there may be circumstances under which a person may face such unusual and undeserved hardship in her/his home country of such compelling nature so that it would overcome and outweigh the short period of residence in Canada. 

Be that as it may, it is imperative that the application package be accompanied by a strong written submissions addressing not only the legal factors but also the factual circumstances by way of applying the law to the facts in presenting a well-rounded application highlighting important aspects so as to convince the reviewing officer of the compelling nature of the case. This is because the H&C applications are discretionary decisions and it is up to the reviewing officer to decide whether s/he wants to exercise his/her discretion positively or negatively. The submissions must therefore address the background of the applicant, family circumstances, the effect of removal on the family and especially any children directly or indirectly impacted by the removal in a convincing manner. In short the social, economic and personal hardship facing the applicant and his family must be explored in detail and extensively.

The H&C applications are processed in two steps: step one involves approval in principle and it is this basic approval which stops all deportation proceedings, if any is under way. Upon receiving first-sate approval, the applicant is then asked to under medical and security background checks before being granted PR status. Therefore, the processing time for H&C applications are somewhat long and generally range from 18 to 26 months depending on the circumstances and sometimes even longer. It is noteworthy to mention that H&C applicants should remain in Canada during the processing time as a premature departure defeats the whole purpose (applying from inside Canada).

Just as many other administrative decisions, negative H&C decisions too are subject to appeal. The appeal from a negative H&C decision goes directly to the Federal Court and must be initiated within 15 days of receiving or otherwise becoming aware of the negative decision. For further information in this regard, please visit the Appeals to the Federal Court section of our site.

Otherwise, if you wish to obtain case-specific information or to take advantage of our free half hour initial consultation, please contact our office at (416) 365-9473.