Date: 20000726
Docket: IMM-4448-99
BETWEEN:
DEVINDER SINGH SIDHU
Applicant
- and -
THE MINISTER OF
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
(Delivered from the Bench at Toronto,
Ontario on Monday, July 17, 2000.)
HUGESSEN J.
[1] This is an application to review and set aside a decision of a visa officer which refused the applicant"s application. Only one point is taken.
[2] In a letter from his immigration consultant to the Visa Officer, the applicant specifically asked to be assessed in the occupational category number 2123, "Agricultural Representative Consultant and Specialist" in the NOC Classifications.
[3] It is common ground that neither the refusal letter from the Visa Officer nor the Visa Officer"s notes contained any specific mention of that classification or of an assessment of that classification. However, in the Visa Officer"s affidavit which is of record herein, there is a mention of that category albeit very short. In the last sentence of paragraph 11 of that affidavit, the Visa Officer says, "I determined that the Applicant did not have experience in the occupation of Agricultural Representative Consultant and Specialist."
[4] The Visa Officer was cross-examined on his affidavit and my attention has been drawn particularly to questions and answers numbers 10 and 11 which I set out textually herewith:
| 10. Q. Okay. Was there anything in the notes about this other one, 2123? |
| A. No. There was not. |
| 11. Q. Okay. So I guess no assessment, as such, for that occupation? |
| A. No specific assessment on that occupation, no. |
[5] There can be no doubt in my view that the law is that an applicant is entitled to be assessed in any occupation in which he requests assessment. In my view, the best way of proving that that duty which is laid on the Visa Officer has been carried out is by the mention of that assessment and its results in the letter which the Visa Officer sends to the applicant. The fact of such assessment may also be proved by the production of the Visa Officer"s notes. I concede that there may even be some cases where both the notes and the letter are silent on the subject in which an affidavit from the Visa Officer would be adequate to show that an assessment was in fact carried out.
[6] But, it is not necessary for me to decide that point. Here it seems to me to be quite plain that although the Visa Officer came to a conclusion, a very summary conclusion, that the applicant did not have the experience required for a category number 2123 - Occupation. He did not carry out in his own words, a "specific assessment" of the applicant under that category. He was under a duty to do so. Of course, he was not obliged as Madam Justice Reed pointed out in the case of Goussev v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1999), 174 F.T.R. 140 to complete an assessment which had been properly undertaken once he had concluded that the applicant had no possibility of successfully qualifying in that category. But, he was under an obligation to at least start such an assessment and to measure the applicant against the listed requirements. I am not satisfied that the assessment in the present case meets even that minimum standard.
[7] Accordingly, the application will be allowed and the matter will be sent back for re-determination.
"James K. Hugessen"
Judge
Ottawa, Ontario
July 26, 2000