For years, immigration lawyers have been complaining of being shut out of IRCC’s online portal access for citizenship applications. Though unrepresented applicants can submit their applications online, lawyers are not permitted to use this particular portal. Instead, lawyers must courier citizenship applications to Sydney, Nova Scotia.  

April 2026

I have a client whom I will call John. Of course, his name is not John, because if his name were John, and not Vineet, Hassan, Abdul or any other name that wasn’t like John, I wouldn’t need to be writing about him.

John came to Canada as an international student when international students thought they could come to Canada, study hard, get their degree, get a post-graduation work permit, get a job, work hard at their job, apply for permanent residence, be approved, and a few years later, get a Canadian passport.

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.

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.