Has anyone been issued cessation order just for passport renewal ( no travel on the passport )
I suppose that travel puts you directly into the radar of CBSA vs a renewal which could be a mistake or no proper guidance from your council.
Please advise .
Is it worth contacting a lawyer for just passport renewal and no travel.
In my case a valid passport was required to compete legal formalities related to property and ongoing litigation in my country and passport was obtained from a agency and not by visiting the embassy directly.
I had also written to ircc to release my passport after getting PR ,however they delayed the release and got it a day before the passport expired hence had to renew it .
The legal documentation was important since my family would be under a dark cloud otherwise in absence of my statement .this statement has to be notarized by the embassy without which it is considered inadmissible in my country.
I have not seen any reports of cessation against a
PR-refugee (I have not looked for reports of cessation against non-PR refugees or claimants) based solely on the individual acquiring or renewing a home country passport, which includes not seeing this in the official accounts of cases reflected in published judicial opinions.
Moreover, a necessary element in grounds for cessation is that the action by the refugee must be "voluntary" and the explanation you describe for renewing the passport tends to show the renewal was not voluntary but compelled by circumstances.
The problem is that renewing a home country passport creates a PRESUMPTION of reavailment. So once you have done that, the burden shifts to you to prove it was not voluntary. Not using the passport for any purpose other than what you describe as the reason for renewing it seems like a pretty strong case in your favour. But I am no lawyer. I am NO expert. And I know enough to fear presumptions.
The calculus is complicated. It does not appear the current government is aggressively pursuing cessation UNLESS there is a more or less obvious case, perhaps only in relatively egregious cases (involving repeated or lengthy stays in the home country). But we do not really know. Reports are too few to draw firm conclusions.
In the meantime, there are reports the Conservatives are leading in the polls. Cessation against PRs is their baby. So the policies and practices of the current government might be irrelevant. Difficult enough to forecast the election outcome. Another layer of difficulty forecasting what changes a Conservative government might implement, except there is little doubt about the general trend to be more strict and make things more difficult for refugee-immigrants.
Generally I encourage consultation with a lawyer. In regards to an issue like this, however, particularly at this stage of an election, I am not sure a lawyer has access to a less cloudy crystal ball. Not sure a lawyer can adequately assure you it will be OK.
Overall, my guess, but it is largely a
GUESS, is that you will be OK. Even if by October there is a Conservative government in Ottawa. FWIW. FWGIW (For What Guessing Is Worth).
Canada offers many in need a refuge but that does not mean it makes it all that easy. Sorry I could not help more.
The Liberal government hasn't stopped pursuing cessation cases and there are more cases open today as well as the past three years than there were during the harpers time.
Would be helpful to provide a link or at least a citation to the source for statistics.
Note too that there is a big difference between the number of open cases, which will accumulate (increase) unless CBSA is processing the open cases and resolving more than they intake.
But of course the most important statistic is the number of cases resolved by actual cessation. Moreover, this information is not of much use unless it is further broken down so we could see how many of cessation cases and actual cessation outcomes there are for Permanent Residents, separate and apart from the numbers for refugees and protected persons without PR status, and separate and apart from the numbers for claimants.
This particular topic is focused on cessation that affects PRs (thus those who otherwise are or who may become eligible for citizenship).
The chart you posted does not illuminate much at all.
In regards to the number of open cases, it appears a large percentage of the open cases were initiated many years ago, a substantial number opened during the Harper government and for a larger number the commencement of the investigation leading to opening a case. Which of course, again, accumulates and is added to, as the years go by, by newly opened investigations and cases. That is, the legacy of opened cases is a big contributing factor, if not the primary cause, for the increased number of open cases now compared to previous years.
But this highlights one of the more problematic and tending to be unfair aspects of the cessation provisions and their application, in that both investigations and the process itself can be very lengthy, hanging over a refugee's head for many years without resolution, leaving the refugee in limbo as to status in Canada, with no reliable view of the future.
OBSERVATON:
The cessation process itself is NOT inherently either unfair or unjust. At least it is no more unfair or unjust that the PR Residency Obligation. Moreover, it has been part of the rules governing refugees all over the world for decades.
But as it is applied, oh it can be brutally unjust.
And the manner in which the law was changed (2012 under Harper-Conservative government), applying it retroactively, was especially unfair and unjust: refugees who had become Permanent Residents who relied on the difference it made to be a PR, and the rules governing PRs (cessation did not apply once a refugee became a PR . . . not until 2012), who had traveled to their home country . . . be that to settle affairs, visit ill or dying family, among other compelling reasons why some may risk temporarily visiting a country they have fled . . . traveled to their home country when there was nothing in the law or rules to so much as suggest they could lose their PR status for doing that. Then years later the Conservatives changed the law, applying it retroactively, and started bringing cessation actions against PRs who could NOT have known that a trip home could cost them PR.
The situation has been changing since then in large part because the rules have been in place long enough (nearly nine years now) refugees should be aware of the consequences for obtaining a home country passport or traveling to the home country, and especially both. Newly opened cessation cases are far less likely to be targeting individuals for whom it was OK to go home, at the time they did, like the Conservative government did.
I generally steer wide of taking sides on issues, trying to stay focused on the way it is, but I feel that if Canada grants someone Permanent Resident status that should be permanent, subject to termination only for the same reasons, under the same rules that any other PR could lose PR status, like inadmissibility for breach of the RO, criminality, security, or renunciation.
And apart from that, another big problem is the absence of clear messaging. This includes warnings or cautions to individuals who are going through the process, and more so for those granted status. IRCC publicizes rather scant and not easily accessed information about cessation. Which too often amounts to creating a trap for the unsuspecting.
In any event, a link to the source of the statistics would be appreciated.
