Sulce v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 FC 1132

• Judge: LeBlanc, J.
• Court: Federal Court (Canada)
• Case Date: May 12, 2015
• Jurisdiction: Canada (Federal)
• Citations: 2015 FC 1132;[2015] F.T.R. TBEd. OC.012

Sulce v. Can. (M.C.I.), [2015] F.T.R. TBEd. OC.012

MLB being edited

Currently being edited for F.T.R. - judgment temporarily in rough form.

Temp. Cite: [2015] F.T.R. TBEd. OC.012

Tonet Sulce (applicant) v. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (respondent)

(IMM-3848-14; 2015 FC 1132)

Indexed As: Sulce v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)

Federal Court

LeBlanc, J.

October 2, 2015.

Summary:

The applicant, a citizen of Albania, was offered employment as a stucco technician by a construction company located in Saskatchewan. As required by s. 30(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the applicant applied for a temporary work permit. The temporary work permit application was denied by a visa officer on the ground that the applicant's proficiency in the English language was insufficient to perform the employment duties. The officer considered the results of an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) where the applicant was found to have the language skills of an "extremely limited user". The applicant applied for judicial review. The applicant claimed that the officer breached the duty of procedural fairness by failing to provide him with the opportunity to clarify whether his language skills were sufficient to meet the actual requirements of employment. The applicant also submitted that the officer's decision should be set aside on the grounds that: the officer concluded that he was an "extremely limited user" of English whereas the IELTS scores revealed that his English language skills were higher than that; considered his ability to communicate with first responders whereas this ability was not a job requirement; focussed exclusively on his overall IELTS score without considering his scores for each individual component of the test; and failed to provide adequate reasons explaining why his language skills were insufficient to perform the duties of the prospective employment.

The Federal Court dismissed the application. There was no breach of procedural fairness, nor was the visa officer's decision unreasonable.

Administrative Law - Topic 2266

Natural justice - Duty of fairness - Procedural fairness - What constitutes - See paragraphs 8 to 22.

Aliens - Topic 1230

Admission - Immigrants - Application for admission - Immigrant visa - Duty of officer (incl. duty of fairness) - See paragraphs 8 to 22.

Aliens - Topic 1355

Admission - Visitors - Temporary employment authorization visa and work permits - See paragraphs 8 to 35.

Counsel:

Dov Maierovitz, for the applicant;

Nicole Rahaman, for the respondent.

Solicitors of Record:

Dov Maierovitz, Toronto, Ontario, for the applicant;

William F. Pentney, Deputy Attorney General of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, for the respondent.

This application was heard in Toronto, Ontario, on May 12, 2015, before LeBlanc, J., of the Federal Court, who delivered the following decision, in Ottawa, Ontario, on October 2, 2015.