Speaker 1 0:05
This episode of the Canadian immigration podcast is sponsored by the Canadian immigration Institute, one of the best sources of video content on Canadian immigration to help you navigate your way through the Canadian immigration process. Head on over to the YouTube channel, where there's tons of video content, and you can join mark yes myself
Speaker 1 0:28
in a number of live video streams, Q and A's all designed to help you navigate your way through this crazy Canadian immigration process. When you're done there, like and subscribe and then head on over to the Canadian Immigration institute.com where you can find all those awesome DIY courses that I've been talking about. Thank you, Canadian immigration Institute.
Mark Holthe 0:50
You are the sponsor of this amazing little podcast. You
Unknown Speaker 0:59
music.
Speaker 2 1:05
The Canadian immigration process can be complex and frustrating with the Canadian Immigration Department making it virtually impossible to speak to an officer. There are few places to turn to for trusted information. The Canadian immigration podcast was created to fill this void by offering the latest on immigration law, policy and practice. Please welcome ex immigration officer and Canadian immigration lawyer Mark Holthe as he is joined by industry leaders across Canada sharing insight to help you along your way.
Mark Holthe 1:52
Welcome back to another episode of the Canadian immigration podcast. I'm your host, Mark Holthe, and I'm here with my guest, Igor Karelia, how you doing? Igor?
Igor Kyryliuk 2:00
I'm doing well. Mark, thank you for inviting me to appear for this episode.
Mark Holthe 2:04
Well, we're you're back by popular demand, once again, after drafting a pretty awesome blog post, and this is going to form the basis of our episode today within our time's up series. And this is all about humanitarian and compassionate applications. And if you are just watching this video or listening to it on our podcast, waves, do not absolutely do not stop at this. Make sure you head over to the Holthe Law website. Go to our Blog Post section, and Igor has a phenomenal blog that I want to share with you here. It is entitled HNC, or humanitarian and compassion applications, a lifeline for those without options. And this is a super comprehensive everything that you would ever want to know about preparing and submitting a humanitarian compassion application, there's tips, there's strategies, there's insight into what officers are looking for, and that is what we are going to be discussing today. So to this stage, we have covered the realities of this change and the shift in immigration policy that the Liberal government has put in place, all designed to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada and many, many people, in fact, they're projecting up to as many as a million temporary residents. They are hoping will simply go home and when your work permit expires, we've covered that topic as to your options. And within that first episode that we did of our time's up series, we mentioned that there are pathways that people are looking at, and one of the pathways, when all else fails is the humanitarian and compassion application. In future episodes, we will cover the refugee process, but we're seeing a lot of people right now Igor, who are thinking, hey, I'm going to file a humanitarian and compassion application because I'm just not eligible, or I don't have a pathway through one of the economic PR streams. And these really are directed to the time's up. Series is directed to all of you post grad work permit holders or individuals on work permits right now who were hoping that there would be a pathway to permanent residence through the Canadian Experience Class or through a whole host of other, you know, PNP programs. And the reality is, right now, there just are not options. So people are we've seen a lot of reports in the news. The prime minister just came out over the weekend talking about bad actors that have contributed to the problems that we're seeing within the immigration program, and sometimes I wish the Liberal government would do a little bit of a better job acknowledging their role in this process, but ultimately, they're doing what they need to do, at least in their mind, to try to reach the. Um, yeah, to to reach this level of reducing the permanent residents that, well, they've reduced the permanent resin numbers, but to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada. And so we'll see how it all plays out. But many of you are thinking, Well, what the heck is a humanitarian and compassionate application? What is this H and C that everybody's talking about? And in our episode today, this is exactly what we are going to share. So Igor, if you were to kind of summarize, you know, in terms of introducing the topic, what would be, really a short little elevator pitch for for what an agency application is, yeah,
Igor Kyryliuk 5:42
agency is an exceptional application that is approved only in exceptional situations. And it doesn't have to be exceptional to a point where you have to pass a certain threshold. But it's some like, I would advise that you think about agency applications as a last resort measure that you utilize only if you have circumstances that would compel a reasonable, fair minded person to somehow relieve Your misfortunes. And we will be coming back to the tests, where we will quote the exact test from few federal court cases as to what, what is the what is the threshold? Again, and we'll keep coming back to this word, threshold. But how? How, how complicated your circumstances might be when before the application can get approved. So it like one problem that I see right now and again, being Ukrainian. I cannot stop talking about Ukrainians, many people, especially from Ukrainian background, they talk about agency as humanitarian program. Well, this is not a program that's that's first agency is not another pathway to permanent residence. It's not a loophole. It's not a back door to get your permanent residence. It's an application that allows the Minister to make an exception and grant you permanent residence, but only in in some events, in some circumstances where this would be absolutely necessary, and it would be not humane not to give you permanent residence.
Mark Holthe 7:40
And you know, just to take this a little bit further, you know, Section 25 of the immigration refugee protection act is the foundation for this. But you know, to kind of put it into lay layman's terms, this application is really, you know, you want to your situation has to be of such a nature that, you know, the average person, the average Canadian, if they looked at your situation, they would feel compassion for you, and they would feel, wow, you know, this is really tough and and really this individual shouldn't, shouldn't have to go home and then suffer whatever they're going to suffer, or face, whatever hardship they may face, or, you know, it just pulls on the heartstrings to the to the extent that a reasonable person would would want to relieve that suffering, that misfortune that you faced. And so please, whatever you guys do, do not buy into this concept that you can use this H and C is that, you know, is a back door to stay in Canada when you really don't have anything involved in your life that would would be of such a nature to create a hardship. And that's really what we're going to drive, you know, forward as we cover various sections within the agency process. So when an officer is processing these applications, Igor, what are they actually looking at? What are the factors that are considered in the context of an agency?
Igor Kyryliuk 9:16
Yeah, so when the officer looks at the application they want to see that the person endured or will endure some hardship. And this hardship, we have three words that describe hardship, right? And those words come from the case of Catholic Sanni, so the words unusual and underserved or disproportionate hardship. So that was the test. This test was a little bit modified, and since 2015 the court clarified that you don't want to use those three descriptors, unusual and deserved and disproportionate hardship as a. A rigid test, right? So it's not like a checklist. Is a hardship, unusual, is a hardship, undeserved, and so on. Instead, the officers must look at all of the circumstances holistically. All circumstances must be considered together. There is not a single factor that would push the case over the threshold, or it's essentially the officer looks at everything altogether in determining whether you actually have undergone hardship or will endure hardship. And so when assessing hardship, the court again refers the officers to the to the achiever framework, which is another case from the federal court, where the officer are instructed to assess whether, having regards, and this is a quote, having regard to all of The circumstances, including the exceptional nature of the agency relief the applicant has demonstrated, and this is very important, right? So that decent, fair minded Canadians would find it simply unacceptable to deny the relief sod, so essentially, the gravity of your situation, the hardship that you endured or will endure must be such that just reasonable person would think this is not fair for this person to go through this. And in assessing this whole situation, the officer essentially looks at different factors. And RCC website provides us with a list of factors, but this list is not exhaustive, right? And so it includes establishment in Canada, ties to Canada, best interests of the child, factors in the country of origin, health considerations, family violence, consequences of family separation. Establishment in Canada, due to the inability to leave and ability to establish in Canada, if the client is applying from the overseas. And then the last factor that IRCC lists on their website is any unique circumstances that might merit relief. So this opens the list to other factors, and essentially it brings me back to the main point, the officer looks at everything. They consider every single evidence that you submit, and by assessing your whole life, the officer will decide whether it's gonna be not fine if they would send you back home, like if, if, if you read the story of a person and you have this lump in your throat, that's a good signal that maybe there is, there is a case to to make. Yeah,
Mark Holthe 12:48
okay, well, let's we've got a number of factors there. And you can go to the blog post you guys. You can read your Gore's blog post that was just released November 19, just yesterday, and we're recording this on November the 20th, 2024 go take a take a look at that blog post, because it goes into depth each of the factors. But I want to just talk about some of the key ones today, Igor, and just flush out a little bit of detail and provide some examples to people. Because sometimes it helps to understand if you can see how it was utilized in previous situations. And you know, if you're listening to this, this episode and you your situation starts to resonate with one of the stories or examples that we're sharing, well, in those circumstances, then an agency application may be right for you. But one of the things I'll lay out there right from the beginning is that these are not a simple application that you just fill out a form and submit it, it requires an enormous amount of effort to do it right and to really put together an application that will give you the best chance of success. We always start with an immigration consultation with clients who want us to assist in filing an agency application, because in that consult, we can get an idea as to your unique circumstances and whether or not they could meet some of these, you know, have enough evidence to meet and and demonstrate some of the factors that an officer is looking at before they decide to approve. So let's start right off the bat, Igor with probably the single most important factor, and that's the best interest of the child or a child within the application. And this requirement is actually baked right into the legislative provision itself, isn't it? Yeah,
Igor Kyryliuk 14:34
so best interest of the child is one of the factors that is specifically mentioned in the legislation, unlike any other factors. And the reason why is that, if you think about it, not a single child deserves to go through hardship. Children have to enjoy their childhood without any worry for their security, for their. For well being, for whether they will have food on the table for tonight or not. So So children are always this Paramount point of attention, right? So, so the court always looks at will the decision impact any child, and by by referring to any child. It's important to know that. And many, many people get this wrong. So they think if I don't have a child, then best interest of the child does not apply to my situation. So the court will just ignore whatever child out there. In fact, the court looks at the interest of the children, not only your children, your own children, but children in your family, or children that you directly help or assist. For example, you may be babysitting someone and or maybe you assist financially a family who has a child, and you are the only provider for the child, and that child does not necessarily have to be in Canada. So there is a ton of different cases talking about different situations involving children, but they all come come to the to the main point, the child must be either in Canada or outside Canada, it can be your own child or it can be someone else's child. And the decision, if the decision applies to you, and let's say you are forced to leave Canada, and that relocation out of Canada will impact the ability to provide for the child or the ability to care for that child that affects the child as well. So, so it's really alive to to all of the children who might be affected, even indirectly. Yeah, okay,
Mark Holthe 16:54
I'll share an example for the listeners. So many of you will remember back in I guess it was 2021 they created the TR to PR pathway, and there was over 90,000 I think 96 97,000 people that actually applied through that program to be able to transition from work status or student status to PR in Canada, it was a one time program, one time shot based on humanitarian and compassionate. It was issued as a humanitarian program, and in that case, it actually was a program. So there were requirements that you had to meet, and it was a race to file. It was a crazy time in our firm, we had created a course. We had a whole bunch of things to help people, and it took them quite a while to process these applications. And the more difficult ones got pushed later and later. And so it wasn't until probably the second year that individuals started to get refusals. And one individual who booked a consult with us from she's from the Philippines, her application was refused because she studied in a school that did not issue deal eyes or sorry, did not issue post grad work permits. And so she'd studied at the school, then she got an LMIA based job offer with with a company, and when she submitted her application, she didn't realize that, because she had not graduated from a deal i that issued like a post secondary institution that issued post grad work permit, she was ineligible to apply through a program. And so she got a fairness letter from from IRCC, and she happened to reach out to me, and we we chatted about it. And as I dug more into her story, I started to realize that she had two sisters with their extended family in the Philippines who lived in fairly humble circumstances, and they had a number of children, school age children, and she was sending money home to them. And because of the money that she was sending home to them, they were able to go to school and attend a good school. They were able to have health coverage, and, you know, things that they would not have otherwise been been able to obtain, because essentially, the families lived on a farm, and they, you know, they raised crops and they sold them, but it was a small, little farm, and without that money, those children would have suffered. They would have, you know, not had the opportunities that they had, because their aunt was in Canada, working and sending money home. So that was a real important factor in our agency application that we decided to make. So and this is kind of a lesson too, at times, even within some economic applications, depending upon the circumstances and the program, sometimes you can make humanitarian, compassionate arguments within that application. And that's what we did in response to this procedural fairness letter. We sent back all of these factors. And really, for all intents and purposes, Igor it was like a an agency submission in the context of a response to a procedural fairness letter, because we couldn't say, Well, no, actually, the school was. Uh, you know, issuing postgrad work permits because it wasn't right. Factually, she did not meet the requirements for the program. And so we sent the submission in, and then the application was moved and triaged over to an agency application, and they triggered the issuance of agency forms. And we went through the process, but we provided a ton of evidence to support it. We provided, yeah, like, evidence that she was submitting money, sending money back to them. We even had the whole family take a picture with all the kids in their school uniforms and everything and and included that within the application, as well as a bunch of other other things that we included. But that was just an example of, you know, where the best interest of the child was accepted by the officer. And obviously there were other factors as well, but in the end, that agency application was approved and was very, very happy. And the client obviously was ecstatic, because without that, she would have had to go home. So that's the example. Now, let's shift gears, Igor, let's talk about hardship, because there's that's thrown out there a lot like, what the heck does hardship even mean?
Igor Kyryliuk 21:10
Yeah, so as as we we've discussed briefly, hardship is, is not this rigid test, right? Again, we will come back to the three descriptors and usual, undeserved and disproportionate hardship. So that is not a strict test anymore. And essentially, hardship is assessed through your individual circumstances that just are not acceptable to fair minded Canadians, and again, by by looking at different factors, the officer makes their own discretionary decision whether they believe you deserve to remain in Canada, and it will be not Fair, not humane to send you back home. So in in assessing all of this, the the officer looks at a myriad of circumstances that surrounds your situation, like your emotional, psychological impact of the relocation, of the removal from Canada, physical or financial difficulties. Everything is considered in this assessment of hardship.
Mark Holthe 22:31
And I know in the past, one of the factors in that, one example that I've given you, which we use in many other agency applications, is country conditions, right? What are the circumstances in the country that the person is going to be have to go back to? And how does that play into hardship? So, country conditions, you know, sometimes health is an issue. We had another client, didn't we ignore that was that was transitioning, in the middle of transitioning, and from, yeah, like, gender wise, and they just would not be able to. It would have been a horrible situation to be part way through that, that transition, and then have to go home where there just wasn't that same level of of care. And and then, of course, you know, in addition to health is one of the pillars is family separation. So I had another example of an agency where the father was a foreign national, the children were Canadian, and there was a really challenging breakup between the husband and wife, and the wife just really fell off the deep end. She had substance abuse, you know, problems. You know, depression, mental problems, and she just literally could not take care of the kids. Well, the husband tried to stay his work permit ran out. Chance transitioned to a visitor record. Then in the end, they they refused the visitor record. And so there's, you know, we also have talked briefly about temporary resident permits and work permits. And so in that case, that we were able to get a temporary resident permit and an open work permit as a result of the hardship and all of the problems that he had, because he had to provide for his children, and he was their sole caregiver. You know, the mother was literally off, you know, she she was unable, and they were separated in the process of getting divorced and and so it would have caused tremendous harm. So it was a melding of best interest of the child, hardship, a bunch of things. And he was, you know, we're also going to get into establishment here in a second. But there's a number of factors we're able to and but family separation was a huge one. So if you had to go back to Mexico, then those children would not have had someone to care for them. They probably would have had to go into some form of, you know, foster programs and so hardship that's, you know. Yeah,
Igor Kyryliuk 25:00
and Mark, maybe, maybe. What we can also mention here is that people don't have to look at those factors again as a checklist, right? Like, do I have the factor of best interest of the child? Check, do I have the factor of adverse country conditions? Check, the reason, why is that? Because sometimes your circumstances don't fall straight like square into a specific factor. Sometimes they can be split in between couple of factors. So a couple of factors may be in play when you discuss, when you describe your circumstances, a good example, for example, a good example would be if, let's say, you have a child who's a Canadian citizen, and you have to relegate to a country where medical treatment is not available. So all three factors play in this in this scenario, right? So best interest of the child is not to get relocated to a country where the child is unable to access healthcare. Healthcare now becomes standalone factor here, like perhaps that would be not humane for you to to live in a country where you cannot continue your treatment, or where you will not be able to access healthcare, should this treatment be necessary, and then adverse country condition is, for example, corruption That prevents the development of healthcare, or maybe there is a war, right? So for example, in my home country, in Ukraine, we we have an act of warfare, and because of that adverse country condition, healthcare is not available to to many people. And because of the war, children are in danger. So all factors kind of play in tandem altogether. And the point of us working with the client, like how we assess the situation again, if this lump in the throat kind of test and and when you, when you start talking with the client, and they start sharing their story. You kind of pull this thread, you know, and you you start asking them the right questions to to collect the information that would be necessary for you to make a pitch for as many factors as as possible. Again, you don't want to over exaggerate. You want to, you want to present the information as it is accurately. But if there is indeed some some danger, some some threat that the client or children would not have the benefit of the security and stability of life as they have in Canada back in their home country. Then we want to explain everything that is in play. Yeah,
Mark Holthe 28:11
absolutely, so best interest of the child hardship. Now, let's talk about establishment in Canada. So what, what do they look at? What do they mean by establishment? Is it? Is it a temporal, purely a temporal? Well, I've been living here long enough, you know what. What factors do they look at? So,
Igor Kyryliuk 28:31
so there's no specific time that you have to spend in Canada. Essentially, you nothing stops you from submitting an application the very next day after your arrival, theoretically, but on practice, the longer you remain in Canada, the more you grow roots, right? The more you become established in Canada. And if, if you assess someone's situation, you have to put yourself in the officer's shoes. So you look at two people, one of them came a year ago and just found a job, maybe started making some friends, you know. And yes, all factors imply every child would benefit from living in Canada compared to many, many other countries right out there. So it's no, not a question that Canada is among the top countries for life by the quality of life, but it doesn't mean that that would be okay to allow every child, essentially, to remain in Canada, or to allow every applicant to remain in Canada, because some children might be affected. So, so, so here's the officer also looks at not only the factors that exist outside Canada, but as to how long did this person actually remain in Canada, and how, how tired he become, became to Canada and so. For example, if you have a person who spent a year in Canada, and you have a person who spent like three, five years, the person who spent more time in Canada, obviously would have more roots. So they might have mortgage, they might have some loans, they might have a stable employment. They might have friends, they have volunteered, they have just they they build their life in Canada essentially from scratch, and this life is in full blossom right now, and if they are forced to move out of Canada, then they will have to start their life from scratch. One they will lose everything that they've built in Canada too, and then there's no guarantee that they will actually succeed in building the same quality of life they've built in Canada. So everything, again, comes to play, and the officer doesn't look at specific time that you spent in here, but looks at the quality of life that you've built, looks at your involvement into Canadian society, looks at your contribution to the society and so on. And so when we speak with our clients, we one of the things that we always take into consideration is, how long did they spent in Canada, how much time, and then what they've been doing during this time? Were they just going to work and back home and watching Netflix, where they were going to work, trying to make friends, volunteered, contributed to society, played any meaningful role that would make them a valuable member of Canadian society, and it's so much easier to pitch to the officer that look, it's okay. We understand you may not be concerned by some of the factors that exist outside Canada, but think about this person and how much they contributed to our country, and if you would let them go, first they will lose everything that they've built, and then Canada will lose because they are just so so good for our country that it's in our best interest to keep them,
Mark Holthe 32:02
yeah, you know, and when we talk about, and we've mentioned before, unique and exceptional circumstances that just cry out for relief, I can't help but think of our current, you know, one of our current clients that we just received the passport request to finalize, and and the agency application, we're so excited for her, but, you know, she was in just a horrific situation with an abusive spouse in Canada. And when we talk about abuse, we're not talking just about, not that any abuse is acceptable, but we're not just talking about, you know, verbal abuse or emotional abuse, like it was all forms, everything you could imagine, just horrific, and to the point where she was in a shelter, ultimately, when, when she was, when she contacted us, and as we slowly worked out the details and the circumstances and really learned Her story, there was no doubt in my mind that her application was going to be approved. You know, Canadian children, you know, establishment in Canada, hardship, all of those factors all came into play. But in her situation, her unique situation, was just so, you know, so compelling, so in need of relief that there was no way an officer, any officer out there, was going to be refusing that application. And so every person is different, and that's why it is so important. When you're choosing to hire someone to help you, or you're choosing to file yourself, you're not going to go online and search and see what, you know, the arguments are for agencies, you're not going to, you know, go to a representative that just treats you like a number and just has a standard canned, you know, template that they use for filing these, you Know, these applications are unique to you, and there should be an extensive discussion, many visits, many you know, individual consultations, talking about your history, and then it's all compiled into a submission that you know brings it all together and highlights the points that you know that are going To be key for an officer when they're making these decisions. And that's probably a good lead in to the next section. I want to talk about Igor, which is the process. So what if you know, if you can, kind of, in a short period of time, here talk about the process of preparing an agency application and some of the things that you, you know, you factor in, you know, when you're trying to do this, how do you approach it?
Igor Kyryliuk 34:49
Yeah, so, oh, there are so many things to talk about, but I'll try. I'll try. So first, everything starts with a consult. So we don't want. To accept someone as a client for the agency application, not knowing about their situation. So to learn about the situation of the person, we need to actually talk. We need to see what's going on. Why do you even consider applying for the agency, or why maybe you did not consider apply for the agency, but you should, so consult is step number one second. If we decide to work with our clients, we work in a collaborator review model. So typically, this would mean that the client prepares the draft of the applications and then we review them, correct mistakes, make sure that everything is perfect and only then the client submits the application with the agency. It doesn't work this way because of the level of lawyers involvement and the importance of the submission that we must prepare. So it is, it is still a collaborative process. So we cannot do our job without client their job. And so the process looks something like this, we we tell the client to write us a little book, right? So it has to be a little autobiography, starting with all of the circumstances in your life that you had from your childhood up until today, where you explain everything from how you became a person who you are right now, what factors and what life events shaped you and what exactly happened to You that would be unacceptable by a fair minded Canadian, essentially. So when I work with my clients, I typically ask them to write me 2030, pages their own story in their own words, so that I have everything in writing. And then we review the story and we are really cool in reviewing the story. So essentially, we we ask follow up questions to every point that we think you know, there might be something else that could be included in here. For example, a client may say I was raised in the family where my dad just left, and my mom raised me since I was five, and that would be the end of of it, right? So we want to inquire, why did your dad let leave? Was there any history of conflicts between your parents? Did you witness shouting? Did you witness family violence, domestic violence, right? What preceded your dad leaving? What happened after your dad left? Did you remain contact with your dad? Did you have a stepfather? Did you how did your mom afford to bring food for the table for both of you without another provider? So all of these factors are important. Even in in like this one sentence, there are so many follow up questions that we can ask and we want to know everything, because you may not think about the impact that of your dad leaving the family when you were a child, but there was an impact. You may not realize it, but there, might be an impact that, for example, now you look at the family, the concept of family a little bit different. Maybe you had some some trauma, psychological trauma, that played out years later. And so we ask all of these follow up questions, and clients provide us with additional responses, and then we analyze this story, and we start working on our own submission. So we explain the story in the language that would be easy for the officer to understand, and that focuses and presents arguments in a way that would make the submission more compelling. Then, as we work on preparing the letters, the submission letter, we ask our clients to collect evidence. So they want to collect reference letters. They want to collect any documentary evidence. For example, if that's a Ukrainian family and they have a house that was destroyed in Russian shelling, we want to see photos of that house. If that's possible, or we want to. We want to know, like if there was a surgery. We want to see medical documents. Sometimes those this evidence is not available, and that's okay, not everything can be documented in evidence, but we we want to see whatever you have. Next step would be to register for the visit to a psychologist. And sometimes it like it doesn't. It doesn't play out this way every time. Sometimes we don't go to psychologists. And for example, with our last client who just got approved in her agency application, you. Uh, she, she was in real financial scrutiny. So we didn't, we didn't have her go through a psychologist. And her situation was so, so harsh that that would be an overkill if she, if she would provide a psychological assessment. Even without the psychological assessment, you can understand that not a single person would endure what she did, what she enjoyed.
Speaker 1 40:23
And we had the criminal record reports like we had the Yeah, the filings that went to with respect to the criminal matter, which laid out a lot of those details as well. Yeah,
Igor Kyryliuk 40:37
but like in many cases, we do refer our clients to do a psychological assessment. And those psychological assessments are really helpful, because essentially, they look at your past, they look at your present, and they look at how your removal from Canada will impact your psychological well being. So, for example, you may have endured some hardship in your home country because of the war, for example, if you are forced to leave Canada and go back to Ukraine, for example, would that be a positive factor, or it would even produce more harm to your psychological well being? Maybe you just started recovering here in Canada, and that would be so an unhuman, inhumane to send you back. So psychological assessment is another step that goes parallel to hard drafting submissions, and then one thing that we also do is we provide affidavit we draft the affidavits with our clients, and we commission affidavits so that whatever the client says can be used as evidence and in the file, once we have support.
Speaker 1 41:50
I'll also point out as well that it's not just the applicant necessarily that you're going to send to have an assessment in the case of the family, that the family that was was struggling because the mother was just unable to care for the children. We actually had assessments done for the children, so there was reports on the impact of them, on them, if their father would have to leave. And so always consider, you know, consider all, all parties involved in the application, whether they're a principal applicant or not. Yeah.
Igor Kyryliuk 42:28
And for the two cases that I've been working with Ukrainian nationals in the last half year, one family was just a mother and a son, so both of them had their psychological assessment. And the other family had four family members, so all four of them had to go through the psychological assessment. Sometimes you would also have the psychological assessment of the person who is located outside Canada, if that is the family who you support, and that family, for example, has a child, and we keep coming back to the best interest of the child, maybe someone from that family can can complete the psychological assessment and show that it would be just unbearable for them to survive, and that would cause a lot of psychological and emotional harm to them if you are forced to leave Canada. So once we have all of this, so once we have the evidence, the submission, the psychological assessment, the affidavits, it's a long process. Sometimes it may take anywhere from couple of months to at least half a year, or sometimes even longer. Really depends on the situation, then we get to filling out the forms. So unlike every other immigration programs where immigration forms are the center bone of of the whole application in agency, applications forms are as well important like no doubt, you cannot submit an application without sending any forms, but those are the least complicated part of the process, and it usually forms can be completed within a couple of days only, so we always keep the forms to the very end. And another reason why is that forms also get updated from time to time, and we want to send the latest version of the form. So if it takes us six or seven or eight months to prepare the application, there is a good likelihood that the form might be outdated by the time when we send it. So we always keep that to the very end, and then when we submit an application,
Mark Holthe 44:41
we should also point out that our goal is to finish it in two weeks. You know, the goal is to finish it in one week. It's just sometimes things take more time, like booking an appointment with psychologists, like collecting evidence from from the home country. You know. All of these factors that we put in, we just leave no stone unturned, and the burden is on the applicant to demonstrate the hardship the establishment, you know, the best interest of a child. And so as counsel, as lawyers, immigration lawyers, when we're helping our clients with these applications, our job is to take this massive amount of information. And Igor also alluded to the vacu likes 2025 page essays from clients. Well, it's the details that's where the application really has its strengths. It's in the details. And so the more information we can get from our clients, the better able we are to compile it, to, you know, to craft a cohesive narrative that ties all of these factors together. And, you know, we do all we can to, you know, to present the case in a way that that meets the Chura test and from that case that Igor talked about, so we structure it in a way that highlights the factors that the officer, you know that the officer, it makes it easy as possible for them to say, okay, yep, that factors there. Yet that factors there. Okay, there's enough, versus just this one steady stream of an essay with no headings, no no breaks, no organizational structure. So the form of how you structure, it can be just as important as the content itself. So you know, when you think about risks, Igor, you know the risks of an incomplete or poorly prepared application can literally mean the difference between an approval and a rejection. And officers, these officers have time to look at the applications, but still, if we can organize the the material and explain it in as clear and concise a manner, and as as well, I say concise because, you know, you don't necessarily want a submission that's 40 or 50 pages if you can, if you can make it concise and to the point and make it 15, You know, the reality is it's different by by individuals. But let's just shift Igor, as the time is quickly passing, let's just shift to some of the challenges and common pitfalls. So where do you see problems arise the most for people? You know, whether they're trying to do it themselves or you know, after people have gotten refusals even, what are some of the challenges and pitfalls they face.
Igor Kyryliuk 47:23
So one of the challenge is people just underestimate the complexity of the agency application. They think I'm just gonna tell them my autobiography and say that I have met three facts, like the I like I have three factors in my application, check, check, check, and then the officer will look, think, okay, yes, best interest of the child is affected. Yes, there is a war in the country, so I'm adverse country conditions, and there's no explanation needed. So that's their biggest misconception. And the reason why we ask for 2530 pages submission from the client sometimes is, is because we want to know the details, and we want to present those details and arguments to the officer in efficient way. And it it takes practice, and every every agency submission essentially gets better and better, but not a single case is the same as the one before it, and so it just, it's just this art of presenting the information to the officer in the right way. And unless you have practice and and skill and writing skill and experience doing it, it's really hard to present this information to the officer in the right way. So one of the experience that I recently had, I had a consultation with the family, and they they informed me that they want to apply for the agency, and I asked them if they can share their screen and show their submission just briefly, and they have like, three pages submission, probably no need to say that that wasn't would not be sufficient to succeed, regardless of how well they filled out their immigration forms. And so underestimating the complexity is the biggest challenge next is people try to apply for the agency as soon as they come to Canada. And again, we've talked about establishment. You want to be established. You want to spend sufficient time and build sufficient ties with the country so that your removal would disrupt your whole life. And you want to explain that to the officer, look it just like I'll have to start my whole life from from scratch. I don't have any ties with my home country. Essentially, you just depriving me from from everything that I've built in here. Yeah. And then another thing that I see sometimes is that people apply for the agency just and treat agency as a loophole, as a back door to permanent residence. So some, sometimes they, they would say, you know, I just don't know English very well, and I don't think I can qualify for the Provincial Nominee Program. In this scenario they consider agency, because there is no minimum language requirements for the agency. Our response typically is not something that our clients like to hear, and we say that the agency is not something that they should be seriously considering, at least right now, unless, like very pressing circumstances exist, because for the agency and one thing of the establishment is your ability to provide yourself financially. And how can you do that without language? How can you establish yourself in Canada without language. You want to demonstrate that you you actually try to learn English or French, you, you, you try to integrate into the labor force, into the society, and without language, that's impossible to do. So it's it's not, it's not another second option for you, just in case the PMP doesn't work, or you don't want to invest your time in learning the language inverse, inverse the time try to meet the requirements of the programs that available out there, and only if you are ineligible, and there is no way that you can qualify for any of the programs, then consider it the agency. And in fact, this ineligibility for the regular immigration programs is another thing that the officer seriously look at. They always want to make sure that the agency is not used as a back door. So you have to demonstrate why you are not eligible for any of the standard programs, whether that PNP or federal immigration programs, because unless you do it, the officer will have the assumption that, oh, this person just doesn't want to, I don't know, improve their language or find stable employment, or this person didn't do whatever it takes to qualify for the for the immigration programs that exist, and that's why they use agency, just because there are no minimum requirements,
Mark Holthe 52:24
right? And it's important to point out that filing an agency does not confer any status on you, so you still have to have the ability to stay in Canada and to extend your temporary stay while the agency application is being processed. So it doesn't it doesn't prevent, even if you fall out of status in the cannabis service agency, from removing you if you have an agency application in the queue. So keep that in mind. And as we, you know, as we move forward and we think a little bit more about the actual decision making process of an officer, you know, they're, they're looking at this term a test, right? Would a reasonable, fair minded Canadian find it acceptable to deny relief. So the importance of fairness, compassion and a holistic approach is is really what they're looking at. So our job as immigration lawyers is to frame the submission in a way that makes it as easy as possible for the officer to see that that there is this need for relief and and so, yeah, the it's, it's, it's not an easy job. It's probably some of the most difficult applications for an officer to to adjudicate, because you can't use artificial intelligence to streamline applications. You can't, you can't use it to or any, any level of, you know, triaging or otherwise, to reduce the load that officers go through, you can't use automation. This is something where an officer has to just put their head down. They have to read the material, they have to assess it. And so the job is to make the officers adjudication process as streamlined and easy as possible, and to point them to the natural response, which is approval. So keep that in mind as you're as you're going forward with your agency applications. And then finally, Gore. Do you have any last closing kind of remarks or Takeaways as we wrap up this section on humanitarian and compassion applications?
Igor Kyryliuk 54:19
Yeah, I would my my probably the big, biggest comment will be, don't try it on yourself without any professional help, because the consequences of a failed agency application might be extreme. So by the time when you receive the decision, you may already be out of status with all of the complications that stem from there. Another comment would be, don't underestimate the complexity of this process, and don't treat agency as as just another program that make. Get you permanent residence that doesn't have the strict requirements that you normally see in PMP and federal immigration programs from all of the immigration applications that we make, I would place agency in the top, top maybe two or one in terms of how, how complicated they are and they are not profitable for sure. Like I yeah, I can imagine that some, some, maybe law firms or immigration consultants can make a good profit out of it. I would imagine that some people would charge $40,000 easily for the agency application. We don't do it. So our fees, at least at this time right now, start from 7000 and the price can fluctuate. Sometimes we do pro bono agency applications where we just cannot help but just take on the file and do everything in our power to help person stay and we've done it over the last five years, you know, we got a lot of a lot of applications.
Mark Holthe 56:09
It seemed like it's kind of, you know, it's kind of a one to two ratio, doing IT pro bono otherwise. And you think of that, that poor woman who was in that horribly abusive situation, like it was our pleasure to help her, you know, for free and and it's really becomes more a labor of love than it has a money making venture. But we just see so many people out there right now that are are just being exploited and taken advantage of. And some of the best advice that we can ever give our clients is, no, you do not qualify for agency. You do not have a case for agency. And you know that isn't always what people want to hear, but we pride ourselves in being honest and encouraging people to to explore all pathways that they are legitimately qualified for and not, you know, abuse the process by filing applications that really have no merit. So
Igor Kyryliuk 57:06
I can, I can easily see how you can make a good living preparing agency applications. Every client who comes to you right now, in this desperate time, in this very dark time in immigration to Canada in 2024 and they say, I don't have any option. Like maybe agency is my last resort. Can you take, take? Can you take my file, and if you would say yes to every single person and charge them $7,000 Oh, my God, you can be rich very quick. Yeah, but in reality, from 10 people who consider agency and football consults, I would confidently say we may take one or two, because it's not every person who has the circumstances that would merit relief, right? And so we have to be critical, and sometimes we have to say yes, not something that the clients want to hear but at least we can sleep easy at night knowing that we didn't charge people money that they would otherwise spend on something more important and something more workable than the agency,
Mark Holthe 58:10
such as preparing to go home and using that money to help get re established in home. All right, thank you everybody. So much for tuning in to this episode. I think this is one that many, many people really need to to listen to and understand. We encourage you to share it with others. If you're watching it here on on YouTube, if you're listening to the podcast episode, please share it and and leave a comment. Leave a review. We'd love to engage with you. And if you ever need assistance, you can just slide over to Holthe law.com and there's a consultation booking, and that's how the process starts. And I just want to wrap up once again with head over. Once you've heard this, go to the agency and humanitarian compassion applications. A lifeline for those without options is blog post that Igor put together, and it's on our website. You do not want to leave without paying reading that blog post, because there's a whole bunch more detail in there. All right, Igor, thanks so much, and thank you. Everyone.
Igor Kyryliuk 59:09
Take care.
Sponsor 59:12
Thank you for listening to the Canadian immigration podcast, your trusted source for information on Canadian immigration law, policy and practice. If you would like to book a legal consultation, please visit www dot Holthe law.com, you can also find lots more helpful information on our Canadian immigration Institute YouTube channel, where you can join mark on one of his many Canadian immigration live Q and A's See you soon and all the best as you navigate this crazy world we call Canadian immigration. You.
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