March 2026

In the summer of 2025, my firm did intake for two couples, both of whom had tried several times to submit a spousal sponsorship application on their own. Each time, their application was rejected by the Immigration Department for missing information or documents. At their wits’ end, they reached out to us for assistance. We resubmitted the applications, and both are now well on their way to finalization.

Both couples were native English speakers, well-educated and tech-savvy. Why, then, did they have so much trouble submitting their applications?

The IRCC website states that applicants do not need a representative to apply, as all forms and information are available free of charge on the website. And yet, we were unsurprised when we recently came across statistics that showed that IRCC returned approximately 27% of Spouse or Common-Law Partner in Canada Class applications due to incompleteness during the first 10 months of 2025:

While we have not found comparable statistics for Family Class sponsorships, I suspect the data is comparable, as the same online portal and the same Document Checklist are used for both types of applications. Further, the couples who contacted us were both attempting to submit Family Class applications.

 

IRCC’s Permanent Resident Portal features several design elements that assist unrepresented clients throughout the sponsorship process. The portal itself links directly to the instruction guide and the main PDF forms for ease of access. The instructions are also available at the top of each page, including providing guidance on when to mark boxes as “not applicable”.

 

However, a sponsorship application has many moving parts. Even something as simple as marking the wrong box on the Document Checklist, so that the class of application doesn’t match the class you opened in the portal, can result in a returned application.

 

Other items that have IRCC sending back applications as incomplete are not items that unrepresented clients would ever know about or think to include. Not including a letter of explanation when the police certificate instruction page states that IRCC will provide a request letter at a later date is one example. Why would an unrepresented client think to remind the agent doing the completeness check of IRCC’s own internal policies?

 

Character limitations in the portal’s data boxes necessitate short forms, but a single missing mandatory data point can trigger a full return. Representatives often know when to submit an extra page, include an explanation in a letter of submission, or when nothing further is necessary. For example, a single family member’s missing postal code causes a full return, but writing “not applicable” for an email address is accepted.

 

For applicants, even knowing why their application was rejected is frustrating. On the permanent resident card side of the portal, you may not know the application has been returned unless you log in and check, as no email or other notification is sent. Luckily, the permanent resident application side of the portal at least provides a letter of return and greets you with a bright red box when you log back in to the main page:

 

The return letter will include a generic explanation of why the application was returned. It will state something like:

 

And you can then look at the form and play the fun game of “what from this list is missing”. A thorough review of one client’s IMM 5406 revealed a single missing postal code for one non-accompanying family member.

 

Consequence of Returned Applications

Applicants who must resubmit their application go back to the “end of the line,” and the processing time is the same as if they had never previously applied. Spouse or Common-Law Partner Inside Canada Class applications have a 21-month processing time, and Family Class applications are approximately 15 months for non-complex applications. Our firm is still awaiting a decision on a complex Family Class application submitted in September 2023, in which the clients received multiple “returned as incomplete” letters before contacting our firm. The couple married in November 2020 and are still separated by an international border while carrying the costs of two households. I can’t imagine the stress they are under, and how their marriage is handling the strain.  For those living in Canada, extended processing times mean not being able to visit family back home for long periods.

 

A return of a sponsorship application may cause the principal applicant to lose their ability to work in Canada during processing if they had also submitted a work permit extension application. If the principal applicant is without status in Canada, having to resubmit an application will mean a longer wait time to apply for a work permit. Worse still, the return of an application can cause permanent family separation. Adult children who are close to 22 years old might not be able to be included in the subsequent application if they have a birthday in the intervening period.

 

IRCC’s promised new portal is intended to address some of the concerns, particularly regarding character limits. It’s an eagerly awaited project that will consolidate the various portals for different types of applications into one place. However, it remains to be seen whether implementing the new portal will result in fewer applications being returned as incomplete.

 

February 2026

Having an application refused by IRCC is disappointing or even heartbreaking. The disappointment is often accompanied by confusion over the boilerplate language in refusal letters. This language provides the applicant with no information about why their application was refused, beyond very general terms.

 

 

On July 29, 2025, IRCC started to provide ‘officer decision notes’ attached to the refusal letters for some applications. IRCC stated that this change was intended to make it easier for applicants to access their personal information in their applications and to improve IRCC’s commitment to greater transparency.

 

 

The ‘officer decision notes’ are notes recorded by the immigration officers as they process an application. These notes should, in theory, include the officer’s reasoning for their decision, the officer’s consideration of the supporting evidence, or the lack thereof, and other concerns raised against the positive determination of the application.

 

 

Prior to this policy change, refused applicants would need to file an Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) request to obtain the notes or apply for judicial review with the Federal Court, after which the notes would have been provided as part of the litigation process. The inclusion of the ‘officer decision notes’ should alleviate the applicants' burden of extra steps and additional costs of accessing these notes.

 

 

The reality, however, is that the notes are not all that helpful. We recently received a refusal letter for a visitor visa application. The decision letter states:

 

Thank you for your interest in coming to Canada. I have reviewed your temporary resident visa (visitor visa) application and supporting documentation to assess whether you meet the requirements for a visitor visa (https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/ services/visit-canada/eligibility.html). This includes assessing whether you are coming to Canada temporarily for the reason(s) you describe in your application. I have determined that your application does not meet the requirements of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/I-2.5/index.html) and Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/sor-2002-227/ index.html). I am refusing your application.

• I am not satisfied that you will leave Canada at the end of your stay as required by paragraph 179(b) of the IRPR (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2002-227/ section-179.html). I am refusing your application because you have not established that you will leave Canada, based on the following factors:
• The purpose of your visit to Canada is not consistent with a temporary stay given the details you have provided in your application.
• Your immigration status outside your country of nationality or habitual residence.

 

The ‘reasons’ given for the denial of the application, provided in a separate document, were as follows:

Reasons for the refusal of your application: To help you understand why your application was refused, below are the Officer Decision Notes (ODN) specific to your application as they are displayed in IRCC’s system. These notes were entered by the officer who assessed and made the final decision on your application.

I have reviewed the application. I have considered the following factors in my decision. The purpose of the applicant's visit to Canada is not consistent with a temporary stay given the details provided in the application. Based on the applicant's immigration status outside their country of nationality or habitual residence, I am not satisfied that they will leave Canada at the end of their stay as a temporary resident. Weighing the factors in this application, I am not satisfied that the applicant will depart Canada at the end of the period authorized for their stay. For the reasons above, I have refused this application.

 

 

The ‘reasons’ still do not explain how the officer’s decision was made with consideration of the supporting evidence. There is no connection between the evidence we supplied and the officer’s reasoning. We can not even be sure that the officer reviewed what was provided.

 

As stated in the policy announcement, it is one of IRCC’s commitments to deliver its services with greater transparency. However, it is unclear how much the disclosure of these ‘officer decision notes’, as they are now, improves the transparency of IRCC decisions.

January 2026

We added a new member to our family early this year. Her name is Roberta. She has quickly become a cherished member of our little tribe. We love watching her to see what she will do next. The pets still don’t quite know what to make of her, but for the most part, will move aside for her as she makes her way from room to room.

Roberta is a robot vacuum. And she not only vacuums, but she also mops. She has the cutest little mop pads that she spins around. When she’s done her work, she empties her accumulated dirt and dirty mop water into a container in her home base.  She sends us a notification when these need to be emptied.

Robot vacuums are amazing things, and a testament to human ingenuity and engineering. However, Roberta has not completely replaced me. Roberta’s sensors keep her a certain distance from objects like furniture, and she can’t move things like potted floor plants to vacuum behind them. So, a few times a month, I still lug out the traditional vacuum and mop and clean where Roberta can’t.

Artificial intelligence is very much like Roberta. It has its uses and its limitations. As I wrote in a previous newsletter, ‘Why I’m not Worried my Job Will be Taken Over by a Robot’, chatbots and other forms of artificial intelligence cannot provide emotional support through a stressful immigration journey. Though AI has come a long way since I wrote that newsletter in 2018, it still needs human oversight. At our firm, we use an AI writing assistance tool called Grammarly. It’s great for spotting spelling and grammatical mistakes and can suggest improved sentence flow. I use these tools all the time; Grammarly works much better than traditional word processing tools. However, Grammarly wanted me to put a comma between ‘vacuum’ and ‘mop’ in the preceding paragraph. Putting a comma there would have changed the meaning of the sentence in a way that wouldn’t have reflected what I wanted to say. So, I clicked ‘dismiss’ to get rid of the accusatory blue line Grammarly put under those words.

Grammarly is the only AI tool our law firm currently uses. As technology companies continue to push and advertise AI, we have considered other tools. Each time, we’ve found a number of concerns to the technology that makes us choose not to proceed.

 

Security Issues

AI programs consistently scan and store the information they encounter. What does the program have access to? Does the program store client information and if yes, where and how long? Where are the storage servers located (what country) and what laws apply to the government of that country accessing that stored information? Can we manually delete that information (and do we as a firm have time to do so)?

One question that often gets overlooked when considering security is: Does the company offering the program have its own servers for data storage, or does it contract this out?

Fireflies.ai, a note-taker program, came highly recommended to us. Its security compliance levels are high, but its list of sub-processors is long. We would need to continuously monitor data breaches across US companies, as well as US laws governing government access to AI databases. This would certainly be of major concern to any of our LGBTQIA+ clients coming from the USA in the current political climate.

Further, other staff at Ronalee Carey Law were able to review a meeting transcript via a forwarded link, without having to log in.

A call to The Law Society of Ontario’s Practice Management Helpline confirmed that any transcript the AI notetaker made would need to be reviewed for mistakes and that clients would need to be notified of the use of the AI and would need to give permission.

We decided it wasn’t worth the headache!

 

Environmental and Humanitarian Concerns

We also had concerns about the energy and water AI consumes. Being considerate of the environment is not a new concern for our firm. In 2021, I wrote an article about Climate Migrants. It's no surprise then, that we would want to limit the use of something contributing to the cause. The United Nations and MIT Technology Review have both discussed the rapid need for AI programs to become more energy and water-efficient before expansion. META AI data centre is currently running water taps dry and filling what does run with dark sediment for those who live nearby. The major companies are giving no thought to local water systems or environment.

We’d rather leave the energy and water for life-saving AI programs like early cancer detection.

 

Hallucinations – AI programs make things up

AI programs are designed to make users happy. It doesn’t weed through sources to check for source quality. It simply finds things randomly tossed into the internet’s abyss that match what you ask for and spits it out at you or mashes things together from different sources like a game of MadLibs. You may have heard the sentiment “Don’t trust Wikipedia”, but you can follow Wikipedia to the source material, which may or may not be of good use to you. The same can be said for the information AI provides, but we don’t hear “Don’t trust ChatGPT” from those around us (yet).

Sometimes the hallucinations can be funny, like when Google AI told users to glue pizza, or eat rocks. X users also report that Google’s search engines are having issues with basic calculations that have functioned for a decade.

It’s harder to differentiate the hallucinations when they give real-sounding names and references. However, Stanford University reports that AI hallucinations happen in 1 out of every 6 inquiries or more.

Of course, with AI usage rampant, legal hallucinations have already hit Ontario courts. In May 2025, Ontario Court Justice Joseph Kenkel had to reject a lawyer’s legal arguments for citing an fictious case.  Justice Myers considered holding a different lawyer in contempt of court for the same issue. The BBC also warns that reliance on the use of AI damages your thinking skills and lowers your ability to think critically and problem-solve.

As the technology advances, we will likely adopt more AI tools within our firm. We would be happy to spend more time providing a high level for care for our clients by allowing technology to handle more repetitive tasks (with human review, of course). Until then, we will watch what human ingenuity continues to produce.

 

December 2025

 

Bill C-3: An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (2025) came into effect this month. This amendment to Canada’s Citizenship Act means that citizenship can be obtained through descent without a limit to the number of generations between individuals born before December 15, 2025, and their Canadian ancestor. Children born after December 15, 2025, will only be able to obtain citizenship if they are born outside of Canada to a Canadian parent who spent at least three years in Canada before the child’s birth.

During Parliament’s debate on the bill, one opposition party expressed concern about the potential scope of the bill, noting that 150,000 to 300,000 individuals could potentially be eligible for citizenship.