The Federal Court has ordered a fresh assessment of a Canadian Experience Class permanent-residence application after finding that an immigration officer failed to address an employment-extension letter and pay records bearing directly on the applicant's qualifying work experience.
In Kariminezhad v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 1207, Justice Negar Azmudeh granted judicial review and returned the matter for a different officer to decide. The September 29 judgment did not approve the application for permanent residence.
The ruling concerns the explanation an officer must give when rejecting an application despite documents that could answer the stated concerns. Although applicants bear the burden of proving their eligibility, the court found that an officer cannot leave central, contradictory evidence unaddressed.
Employment records went beyond the first letter
Shohreh Kariminezhad applied through the Canadian Experience Class based on work at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. The reasons describe her employment as a post-doctoral research fellow from November 2022 to August 2024, followed by a research-analyst position.
As the court explained, the program required, among other things, at least one year of full-time skilled work in Canada within the three years before the application, together with performance of the relevant occupational duties. The policy materials reproduced in the judgment contemplated a combination of employer letters and other supporting records, including pay stubs.
The documents before the officer included an initial fellowship offer and a subsequent letter extending the position. Both set out duties, salary and employment periods. Kariminezhad also supplied pay stubs spanning more than a year and an excerpt from her 2023 tax assessment. The court identified the period covered by the extension letter as critical to the work-experience requirement.
The officer's refusal reasons focused on shortcomings in the documentation. They said the research-analyst letter lacked enough detail about the duties performed, while the earlier fellowship offer did not establish the employment dates claimed. The officer concluded that the evidence did not validate the claimed work experience.
Kariminezhad later requested reconsideration, which was refused. Justice Azmudeh clarified that the judicial review concerned the original refusal, rather than the reconsideration decision.
Silence on central evidence made the refusal unreasonable
The court applied reasonableness review. Its task was to examine the officer's reasoning in light of the record, rather than reassess the evidence and decide eligibility itself.
Kariminezhad acknowledged that the initial fellowship letter, standing alone, was insufficient. But the extension letter and corresponding pay stubs addressed the duration and nature of the work. Justice Azmudeh found no indication in the reasons that the officer had considered the extension letter or explained why the corroborating records did not answer the concerns.
The minister argued that decision-makers need not discuss every document. The court accepted that general proposition but found it could not explain the omission here: these documents went to the central issue and could undermine the stated basis for refusal. Their status as supporting rather than mandatory documents did not remove the obligation to consider them.
The judge also preserved the distinction between considering evidence and accepting an application. An officer could still find the requirements unmet after assessing the additional material, but would have to explain why the deficiencies identified in the first letter prevailed over the other evidence.
Government counsel could not supply missing reasons
At the hearing, the minister argued that neither employment letter complied with policy because neither confirmed the work had actually been performed. Justice Azmudeh noted both the information in the letters and the matching salary payments reflected in the pay stubs.
More fundamentally, the policy-compliance explanation came from counsel rather than the officer. The court held that arguments developed during judicial review could not fill the gap left by the decision's silence on the second letter.
The application now returns for redetermination by a different officer. Neither party proposed a question for certification, and the court certified none.
