Toronto Immigration Law, Toronto Refugee Law, Levine Associates

On June 27, 2018, the Legal Aid Ontario Refugee Law Conference was held at the Jackman Law Building at the University of Toronto. In the spirit of legal excellence and to benefit from the discussion of the wide range of topics regarding the evolving state of refugee law in Canada, Levine Associates attended the Conference. […]

The Trumpist Contagion?   The sequence of facts I am about to reveal sounds so far fetched, so Orwellian in its bureaucratic absurdity that one would assume I am either writing a piece of fiction or describing a sequence of events in some far off dysfunctional country in Africa or the Middle East.  Sadly, this […]

Introduction of New Law Legacy Claims – The forgotten Refugees – UPDATE It has now been about 18 months since the Liberals came to power with the promise of unwinding some of the more Draconian Immigration amendments which were introduced by the former Harper government. In July 2016, I published an article on the status […]

  Now that Donald Trump has become the official Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, it is time to consider what impact his election might have on Immigration to Canada. 1)      Clearly, Trump has committed himself to removing millions of illegal Mexicans from the United States.  One would expect some percentage of these immigrants to attempt […]

Introduction of New Law In December 2012 Immigration completely revamped the refugee system.  Perhaps the most dramatic change, was to statutorily require that most new refugee claims complete within 60 days of the claimant’s arrival in Canada.  This timeline compares with the 1 to 3 year waits claimants faced prior to the introduction of the […]

  Understanding the “First Safe Country” Concept and Why it’s Obsolete Until the Syrian refugee crisis, it was accepted by those who practice refugee law that a claimant’s failure to make a claim in the First Safe Country—also known as Forum Shopping—could be interpreted by decision makers as evidence that a claimant lacked a subjective […]

Has Trump’s bluster gotten you interested in Canada? The coming American presidential election has given way to a great deal of interest on the topic of “moving to Canada”. The question of whether this is feasible can only be answered on a case-by-case basis. There are a number of different avenues for immigration to Canada, […]

The RAD has power and sometimes they use it! Today I received a positive decision at the RAD which not only overturned the negative RPD decision but substituted its own positive decision, declaring the claimant a Convention Refugee.

Until recently, refugees in Canada have correctly assumed that a positive determination would entitle them to remain in Canada permanently. In fact, until legislative changes in 2012, once a refugee obtained permanent resident status, refugees were guaranteed the right to remain in Canada permanently unless the claimant violated Canadian law, which in some cases resulted […]

In February 2014 the government tabled Bill C-24 which proposes a number of significant changes to existing citizenship law.  While some changes will work to the advantage of most applicants we are of the view that many permanent residents would be well advised to proceed under the present legislation. 1)   Under the present law a […]