Federal Skilled Worker Class Action Lawsuit

[kau_shik_patel]

Good Day,

On November 14th after close of business, Justice Barnes set January 14th-16th for the hearing date for those challenging the Minister's treatment of skilled worker applicants. This shorten time-line has forced applicants' counsel to revise how they had intended to proceed.

First, Justice Barnes' manoeuvre obliged the lawyers, who were seeking a class-action, which if granted would have governed all the applicants whose file s s. 87.4 closed, to abort that effort. The motion was to have been heard on November 23rd and 30th. However, twice Justice Barnes, who was to decide the case, stated that he did not want to certify a class. If he ruled that way, an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal could not be heard before January 14th. Moreover, if he had certified a class, there would not be enough time to organize it effectively before January 14th. Therefore, there will be no class-action lawsuit but only managed litigation governing those who retained a lawyer to represent them.

The result is that a decision on these proceedings will only directly affect those who have signed on with one of the groups. Therefore, one needs to decide whether to participate in the litigation.

Second, by setting the hearing date for January 14th, Justice Barnes has given himself the out he needed to justify his refusal to rule on the motion I had filed on June 29th, asking the Court to enforce the February 3rd Agreement. We will now have to wait for the January 14th-16th hearing.

If the Court declares s. 87.4 (the provision closing the files) to be unlawful, all the closed files will, of course, be resurrected. However, because the litigation seeks an order requiring litigants' files to be processed within a specified time-frame, the litigants' cases -- if successful -- will move to the head of the queue. Whichever way the Court rules, the decision is expected to be appealed. So, the matter to be finally settled when that decision is made following the January hearing.

The unfairCIC.com litigation, however, is different because we are also seeking enforcement of the Agreement DoJ and I signed and filed with the Court on February 3rd. If the Court, agrees that the Agreement is enforceable, s. 87.4 will not have to be declared unlawful for the unfairCIC.com litigants to have their files processed. If he does rule in our favour, the judge will also have to decide whether the Agreement covers only those who applied before the June 14th decision was issued or whether it applies to all the litigants in the unfairCIC.com group, as Justice Barnes directed on June 26th.

The judge appointed to preside on January 14th-16th is Mr. Justice Rennie, the same judge who ruled in the unfairCIC.com litigants' favour on June 14th, at which time he stated that the Agreement was to govern disposition of the other litigants' files. However, CIC has refused to do so, using the excuse that, because the Minister closed the files, it would be unlawful to honour the Agreement.

But, on November 29th, the Minister confirmed what I have been saying -- and CIC has been denying -- since June 29th; namely that the statute gives the Minister the authority to override s. 87.4. On November 29th, the Minister issued Operational Bulletin 479-B, wherein he ordered visa posts "for reasons of public policy" to re-issue visas to applicants who had been assessed after March 29th and who had been issued visas unlawfully after June 29th, when 87.4 closed their files.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/bulletins/2012/ob479B.asp

The Minister's doing so confirmed the position which I have been arguing. It should not, therefore, be difficult for Justice Rennie to see his way clear to order CIC to use this same provision in order to honour the Agreement we signed on February 3rd and he held on June 14th meant that the other litigants' files were to be finalized in a manner similar to his order which required CIC to finalize the lead litigant's file within 120 days. (They did so within sixty day.) Assuming he rule in a manner consistent with his June 14th ruling, he will have to decide whether the Agreement applies to all the unfairCIC.com litigants or only to those who applied before June 14th. If he limits his ruling to those who had joined before June 14th, the others' fate will turn on the ruling on s. 87.4.

When Justice Barnes set the hearing date, he said that any counsel who had filed written submissions by November 30th would be able to argue the case on January 14th-16th. Therefore, I served and filed four lead cases for the four unfairCIC.com groups: viz., FSW applications (1) lodged before 27 February 2008 and (a) never assessed, (b) assessed before March 29th or (c) assessed after March 29th and (2) lodged between 27 February 2008 and 25 June 2010. Thus, anyone in each of these four categories who joins the unfairCIC.com group before January 8th will benefit directly from Justice Rennie's ruling.

Sincerely,

Tim Leahy

 

[Cansufferer]

Hi Friends,

I am new to this forum. I also belong to pre 2008 applicant. Recently I got an email from my consultant to file the litigation. They also advise me to take services from a leading immigration lawyer from Canada. But before I can go ahead, I have some questions that I would like to clarify.

1. Can I still legible to file the litigation? I have heard that CIC had allowed only 90 days earlier when the news of terminating the pre 2008 case came out. Please confirm and let me know by which date one can file the litigation?
2. In case we won the litigation, then how soon one can expect the PR?
3. What is difference between Lead case and Class action?
4. My consultant has advise me that I will have to pay one time fee of $400. Can I get some discount in the overall fee? Please advise.

Thanks!
Cansufferer

 

[noon]

Hi kaushik patel,

Your posts on pages 76 and 77 are very interesting. Many thanks .I thinks those question and answers were between DoJ and Tim.
If Tim can ask CIC a question , have you asked him which group your updated application belongs to?

 

[annel]

Warmest & Tuyen,

I think you both should grow up and if you want to attack one antoher please do so by using your own personal emails. Do no abuse this forum.

Myself and other forumers make use of this forum by discussing our immigration issues. We DO NOT want to read about one anothers idiocy.

 

[hopefulever]

If luck favoured on 14th of jan hearing then litigants who were part of pre 14th june ruling may get favourable ruling and their applications may be seen processed by June 2013. This is only possible if Justice rennie finalise the case after screwing cic.

 

[hopeful4]

STOP everyone. Even if you can afford wasting your time in this way , we simply do not accept reading all of these long posts where 2 parties argue for the mere target of proving each other wrong

 

[Johnny31]

So the next major update regarding the lawsuit should be in January?

 

[tuyen]

Since some of you LOVE posting stories about immigration in this thread, I thought I'd make my own contribution today.

Click here to read this...

...and pay special attention to this part:



"Government and business need to step up efforts on training in order to bring the growing number of long-term unemployed Canadians back into the economy, he said.

Tal said a recent push to increase the number of apprenticeships to solve the skilled trade shortage has not yet had much of an impact problem.

According to Tal, Ottawa has focused too heavily on bringing in immigrants and foreign workers to fill job shortages and needs to do a better job of training out-of-work Canadians to get them into new occupations.

“The government is trying to solve the problem not by retraining but by getting new immigrants into the labour market,” he said. “At the same time we have an army of people who don't have the skill set they need.”



Hmmm....where have I heard THAT before...? Oh wait...that's right -- I've been saying that exact same thing over and over again, but of course nobody wants to hear about reality.

Oh, and now that I made a post which injects reality and common sense into this thread, I'm eagerly awaiting for my post to be deleted again by the over-zealous, bleeding-heart moderator who has done such a wonderful job so far of keeping the nonsense but erasing anything even remotely resembling sanity.

 

[Cansufferer]

Hi Friends,

I am new to this forum. I also belong to pre 2008 applicant. Recently I got an email from my consultant to file the litigation. They also advise me to take services from a leading immigration lawyer from Canada. But before I can go ahead, I have some questions that I would like to clarify.

1. Can I still legible to file the litigation? I have heard that CIC had allowed only 90 days earlier when the news of terminating the pre 2008 case came out. Please confirm and let me know by which date one can file the litigation?
2. In case we won the litigation, then how soon one can expect the PR?
3. What is difference between Lead case and Class action?
4. My consultant has advise me that I will have to pay one time fee of $400. Can I get some discount in the overall fee? Please advise.

Thanks!
Cansufferer

 

[farmerofthedell]

1. Can I still legible to file the litigation? I have heard that CIC had allowed only 90 days earlier when the news of terminating the pre 2008 case came out. Please confirm and let me know by which date one can file the litigation?
2. In case we won the litigation, then how soon one can expect the PR?
3. What is difference between Lead case and Class action?
4. My consultant has advise me that I will have to pay one time fee of $400. Can I get some discount in the overall fee? Please advise.

1. You need to check with the lawyer you are planning to file with if he/she will still accept your case. Tim Leahy has stated that he will be accepting cases until January 8. I would also like to remind you that the owner of this website and this forum is David Cohen, one of the litigating lawyers. You can refer to the first post of this thread for more info.

2. The litigation does not ask for PR, but for processing of applications. The second group of lawyers are probably asking that their litigants be processed ahead of the queue, and possibly within a certain time limit.

3. They're two different things. The lead case "anchors" similar cases under one lawyer, so that updates that apply to all similar cases appear only in the lead case. This is different from the representative case (which may or may not be the lead case), which is the one used for purposes of actual trial. In the Leahy cases, the pre-C50 lead case is Emam, while the representative case was Liang. A class action denotes the inclusion of a group of people who are in the same circumstances as one or a number of cases filed by one or more lawyers, wherein this group does not need to file their cases in court to be included in a decision.

4. The known rates range from $400 to $1,500, so $400 is already on the low end. If you still need assistance with this, you can try asking for a different payment scheme, such as a lower retainer fee with the balance upon success or at a future date.

So the next major update regarding the lawsuit should be in January?

The court's Christmas Break is from Dec 20 to Jan 8.

 

[hopeful4]

So the next major update regarding the lawsuit should be in January?

THere should be a little update in the week of the 10th of December since there is a conference scheduled then.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Dear Litigant,

I am receiving multiple emails on the same two issues and simply do not have the time to deal with them on a one-by-one basis -- hence this email.

First however let me tell you what I consider to be the important issues. DoJ's written submissions are due on Friday, after which I may examine the witness but have only one week in which to do so. I have decided to do so by submitting questions, as opposed to questioning in person, because the niggardly time-frame Justice Barnes had imposed makes it impossible for us to put together as strong an offense as I would like. A week later final written arguments are due, incorporating whatever additional evidence the questioning elicited.

In the meantime, one of the DoJ counsel is trying to limit our arguments and our access to the January 14th-16th hearing. I have do deal with that issue immediately.

Therefore, the constant request that I provide the handful of insistent litigants with their CAIPS notes is simply not a priority. CIC has sent them by disc which means that I have to load them into my old computer, label them by litigant's name (they only have an internal CIC file number on them), transfer them to the lap-top I use daily and then forward them. I probably have about 150 to 200 of these. I simply cannot justify taking the time to do so when the major issues I just raised must be addressed -- not to mention my other clients' concerns and deadlines for their cases.

I have prepared four separate written submissions, covering each of the possible situations the CAIPS notes will reveal. So, why the rush to see what they contain? Whatever the situation, your case will be before the Court in January unless DoJ counsel Martin Anderson has his way. I asked my junior to open all of them when I was in Alberta to pull out those which had been assessed. If your file proved to have been one which had been assessed and we had not already know that fact, I would have told you. None were.

The other issue concerns those whom we knew to have had their files assessed before March 29th. Because CIC refused to sign a consent order promising to process them in a timely manner, I filed separate cases for 18 of those whose CAIPS notes we had and wish to file the rest once I have the time to do so. Nevertheless, Beijing has been sending medical forms to some, prompting two queries to come from the Chinese contingent. The first is: "I want to withdraw now because I have my medical forms". My advice is to wait until they issue the visas before withdrawing. The second is: "Why are they issuing me the medical now?" While I do not know the answer, I can surmise three possible reasons: (1) your number just came up; it is entirely coincidental to the litigation; (2) Beijing received the list of our assessed files and, believing that the agreement was finalized, is erroneously processing the files and (3) they are doing so because they want to be able to tell the Court: "This case should be dismissed because we are already processing the file". I really do not know which of the reasons is the actual reason but I do believe that the litigation is what has caused the action to occur.

Please help me by allowing me to address the really important issues and by keeping in mind that, while answering one short email may not take much time, when as many as 1,300 people can ask the same question, it diverts me from what should be my central focus: making the strongest case for the January hearing -- and making sure that Martin Anderson does not bar the door to it.

Regards,

Tim

 

[umerrais79]

Friends I need your help. I am Pakistani Citizen and Applied at Islamabad Visa Office in 2005. Following is my Case History:

Category................................: FSW1
Visa Office..............................: Islamabad -----> London Visa Office
NOC Code...............................: 2173 (Software Developer)
App. Filed...............................: 17-08-2005
AOR Received..........................: 30-08-2008
Doc's Request..........................: Sent with application
IELTS Request.........................: Sent with application
File Transfer to LVO..................: 29-09-2010
Documents Updated Request......: 12-06-2012
Updated Documents Sent..........: 08-07-2012
Updated Documents Confirmation: 22-08-2012
File Case Against Cic in F. Court..: 06-09-2012

Friends I want to know that if I am a Back Logger Pre February 2008. Than why CIC LVO sent me letter to update my documents in June 2012 and said to wait for 4 months, after that they sent me confirmation that my updated documents received in August 2012 and suddenly in September 2012 LVO said that my application is rejected because of Law passed in June 2012 for Back Logger Pre February 2008. I want to know than why CIC request me to sent updated documents in June 2012, because of that I file a late case in September 2012 against CIC in federal court because I got to know in September 2012 that I was rejected and even I am a Software Developer (2173) and I am eligible for Opportunities Ontatrio FSW Pilot Programme but I did not get invitation for this. Now where I am standing I dont understand this, because I think I am standing in middle of sea and there is no diesel in my ship. So could any one of you could help me in telling that what is my status is my application is rejected or still going on.

 

[kau_shik_patel]

CONSTITUTION ACT, 1982 (80)
1982, c. 11 (U.K.), Schedule B
PART I
CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:
...

1. What CIC has done goes against its founding principles ie, Two of the Ten Commandments of GOD. THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOUR. (It means you should not lie (tell an untruth) in such a way that it will hurt someone else).They have repeadly lied to us , we have the documentary evidence.
2. Thou Shalt not steal. They have taken money, interest, IELTS fees, and 9 years of our lives.
Along with the case the lawyers are filing why don't we write to our lawyers and give these two strong cases ?

 

[kau_shik_patel]

Good Day,

On November 14th after close of business, Justice Barnes set January 14th-16th for the hearing date for those challenging the Minister's treatment of skilled worker applicants. This shorten time-line has forced applicants' counsel to revise how they had intended to proceed.

First, Justice Barnes' manoeuvre obliged the lawyers, who were seeking a class-action, which if granted would have governed all the applicants whose file s s. 87.4 closed, to abort that effort. The motion was to have been heard on November 23rd and 30th. However, twice Justice Barnes, who was to decide the case, stated that he did not want to certify a class. If he ruled that way, an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal could not be heard before January 14th. Moreover, if he had certified a class, there would not be enough time to organize it effectively before January 14th. Therefore, there will be no class-action lawsuit but only managed litigation governing those who retained a lawyer to represent them.

The result is that a decision on these proceedings will only directly affect those who have signed on with one of the groups. Therefore, one needs to decide whether to participate in the litigation.

Second, by setting the hearing date for January 14th, Justice Barnes has given himself the out he needed to justify his refusal to rule on the motion I had filed on June 29th, asking the Court to enforce the February 3rd Agreement. We will now have to wait for the January 14th-16th hearing.

If the Court declares s. 87.4 (the provision closing the files) to be unlawful, all the closed files will, of course, be resurrected. However, because the litigation seeks an order requiring litigants' files to be processed within a specified time-frame, the litigants' cases -- if successful -- will move to the head of the queue. Whichever way the Court rules, the decision is expected to be appealed. So, the matter to be finally settled when that decision is made following the January hearing.

The unfairCIC.com litigation, however, is different because we are also seeking enforcement of the Agreement DoJ and I signed and filed with the Court on February 3rd. If the Court, agrees that the Agreement is enforceable, s. 87.4 will not have to be declared unlawful for the unfairCIC.com litigants to have their files processed. If he does rule in our favour, the judge will also have to decide whether the Agreement covers only those who applied before the June 14th decision was issued or whether it applies to all the litigants in the unfairCIC.com group, as Justice Barnes directed on June 26th.

The judge appointed to preside on January 14th-16th is Mr. Justice Rennie, the same judge who ruled in the unfairCIC.com litigants' favour on June 14th, at which time he stated that the Agreement was to govern disposition of the other litigants' files. However, CIC has refused to do so, using the excuse that, because the Minister closed the files, it would be unlawful to honour the Agreement.

But, on November 29th, the Minister confirmed what I have been saying -- and CIC has been denying -- since June 29th; namely that the statute gives the Minister the authority to override s. 87.4. On November 29th, the Minister issued Operational Bulletin 479-B, wherein he ordered visa posts "for reasons of public policy" to re-issue visas to applicants who had been assessed after March 29th and who had been issued visas unlawfully after June 29th, when 87.4 closed their files.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/bulletins/2012/ob479B.asp

The Minister's doing so confirmed the position which I have been arguing. It should not, therefore, be difficult for Justice Rennie to see his way clear to order CIC to use this same provision in order to honour the Agreement we signed on February 3rd and he held on June 14th meant that the other litigants' files were to be finalized in a manner similar to his order which required CIC to finalize the lead litigant's file within 120 days. (They did so within sixty day.) Assuming he rule in a manner consistent with his June 14th ruling, he will have to decide whether the Agreement applies to all the unfairCIC.com litigants or only to those who applied before June 14th. If he limits his ruling to those who had joined before June 14th, the others' fate will turn on the ruling on s. 87.4.

When Justice Barnes set the hearing date, he said that any counsel who had filed written submissions by November 30th would be able to argue the case on January 14th-16th. Therefore, I served and filed four lead cases for the four unfairCIC.com groups: viz., FSW applications (1) lodged before 27 February 2008 and (a) never assessed, (b) assessed before March 29th or (c) assessed after March 29th and (2) lodged between 27 February 2008 and 25 June 2010. Thus, anyone in each of these four categories who joins the unfairCIC.com group before January 8th will benefit directly from Justice Rennie's ruling.

Sincerely,

Tim Leahy