Federal Court Upholds Work Permit Denial Due to Illegible Documents

OUTCOME: Dismissed

Date: 20260629 [NAME] : IMM-5779-25 Citation: 2026 FC 871 Ottawa, Ontario , June 29, 2026 PRESENT: Madam Justice McDonald BETWEEN: [APPELLANT] Applicant and THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION Respondent

REASONS AND

JUDGMENT [ 1 ] On this Application, the Applicant, [APPELLANT], seeks judicial review of the [NAME] ([NAME]) Officer’s decision refusing his work permit application. His wife is employed in Canada, and he applied as an accompanying spouse. [ 2 ] The Officer refused the application because several key supporting documents were illegible, including his wife’s pay slips, bank statements, and letters confirming her employment. Without the information contained in those documents, the Officer found insufficient evidence to establish that Mr. [APPELLANT]’s spouse was employed in Canada. The Officer noted Mr. [APPELLANT]’s Iranian bank statements but stated that restrictions on [NAME] may prevent those funds from being transferred to Canada. [ 3 ] Mr. [APPELLANT] challenges the reasonableness of the Officer’s decision, and he claims it was procedurally unfair for him not to be given a chance to provide better quality documents.

I. Analysis [ 4 ] This core issue raised by Mr. [APPELLANT] is the Officer’s treatment of the unreadable documents filed in support of his application. [ 5 ] In support of this judicial review, Mr. [APPELLANT] sought to introduce legible copies of these documents via his Application Record. The Respondent objects, arguing that the Court cannot consider documents that were not before the Officer who made the decision. The Respondent filed the Affidavit of [RESPONDENT], who confirms the Certified Tribunal Record includes the blurry versions of the documents before the Officer. I have reviewed these documents and they are indeed illegible. [ 6 ] Because the documents included in Mr. [APPELLANT]’s Application Record are not of the same sharpness as those before the Officer, the Court cannot consider them. On judicial review, the Court is limited to reviewing the materials that were before the decision maker. [ 7 ] These documents were the primary supporting evidence of Mr. [APPELLANT]’s wife’s employment and earnings in Canada. Considering the Officer could not decipher the information in these documents, it was reasonable for the Officer to find there was insufficient evidence of his wife’s employment in Canada. [ 8 ] Mr. [APPELLANT] argues that procedural fairness required the Officer to give him an opportunity to respond to the issues with this documentation. In support of this position, he relies upon [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2024 FC 581 and [NAME] v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) , 2004 FC 284. However, these cases concern situations where officers doubt the veracity of documents or their contents. The issue here was not the veracity of the documents; rather, the issue was that the Officer could not read the contents of the documents. I do not view these cases as being helpful to Mr. [APPELLANT]’s position. [ 9 ] Furthermore, the duty of procedural fairness in the work permit context is low ( [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2015 FC 1132 at para 10 [ [NAME] ]). As such, situations where procedural fairness requires an officer to provide an opportunity to respond are limited, and include where the evidence gives rise to credibility concerns, suggests misrepresentation by the applicant, or the officer relies on evidence unavailable to the applicant ( [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2022 FC 728 at para 17, citing [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2021 FC 321 at para 80). [ 10 ] None of those circumstances arise in this case, as the Officer does not question the legitimacy of the documents or their contents, but instead, states that the documents are illegible. The Officer noted that an applicant is responsible for “a full, complete and clear/decipherable application, including supporting documents for assessment” , which is consistent with decisions of this Court ( [NAME] at para 10; [NAME] v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) , 2021 FC 483 at para 30). [ 11 ] With respect to the condition of the documents, the Applicant suggests that his documents may have become blurred when they were being uploaded to the [NAME] because of restrictions imposed by [NAME] on the size of documents that can be uploaded. There is no evidence in support of this, such as a notification from [NAME] that there were uploading issues. Further, I note several of the documents filed in support of his work permit application are not blurry. [ 12 ] Mr. [APPELLANT] also challenges the Officer’s statement that his Iranian funds may not be transferrable to Canada, due to restrictions on [NAME]. He argues that this is an unreasonable conclusion because it is speculative. However, Mr. [APPELLANT] himself raised the issue of the financial liquidity of his [COMPANY] in the letter he provided in support of his work permit application where he states as follows: I would again like to highlight that due to Iran's high inflation rate, keeping money in bank accounts is not a practical option, as it results in currency devaluation and can lead to financial instability. For this reason, most Iranians, myself included, avoid storing liquid assets in bank accounts. Otherwise, I would have been able to present a significantly larger balance. I kindly ask that you take my application and financial statement into consideration in light of these circumstances. [ 13 ] Mr. [APPELLANT] bore the burden of providing evidence of his financial liquidity. The Officer was not required to determine how he could convert assets in Iran into cash available in Canada. In my view, the Officer’s statement on this issue is reflective of the information provided by the Applicant himself. In any event, the work permit refusal was based primarily on insufficient evidence of his spouse’s employment in Canada. [ 14 ] I cannot conclude that the decision was unreasonable or that there was a breach of procedural fairness.

II. Conclusion [ 15 ] There is no basis for this Court to interfere with the underlying decision. This judicial review is dismissed.

JUDGMENT IN IMM-5779-25 THIS COURT’S

JUDGMENT is that : This judicial review application is dismissed. There is no question for certification. blank "Ann Marie McDonald" blank Judge FEDERAL COURT SOLICITORS OF [NAME] : IMM-5779-25 STYLE OF CAUSE: [APPELLANT] v mci HEARING

HELD BY VIDEOCONFERENCE AT : Ottawa, Ontario DATE OF HEARING: june 22, 2026

REASONS AND

JUDGMENT : [NAME] J. DATED: June 29, 2026 APPEARANCES : [APPELLANT] [NAME] [NAME] FOR THE RESPONDENT SOLICITORS OF RECORD : [APPELLANT] [NAME], [NAME] [NAME] [NAME] [NAME], Alberta FOR THE RESPONDENT