Citizenship and Immigration committee  The definition of serious criminality is found in a different section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which is section 36. It has not been affected by the amendment to subsection 64(2). That definition remains the same and, actually, it doesn't necessarily require any time served in jail to meet the definition of serious criminality.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  It's not really an appeal, because the application wouldn't be finalized yet. The visa officer would send them their procedural fairness letter saying that they think the person may be inadmissible pursuant to A40, and explaining why. That would give them a chance to reply. If after receiving the client's submission they still thought they were inadmissible, they would then go to the unit manager to concur with an A40 finding before refusing the application.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The coming into force for this one is royal assent. There is no transitional period for it, which means that for any inadmissibility finding after coming into force, the five-year rule would apply. Otherwise if they were found to be inadmissible, it would be the two years prior to coming into force.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Are you talking about the application for permanent residence?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If as a permanent resident you were reported for misrepresentation, it would be the same process as normal, as right now, only the five years would apply once the exclusion order was executed. Instead of a two-year exclusion order, you would get the five-year exclusion order, but there's no other change to the process.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, that's one of the ways misrepresentation can be applied.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As I say, there's judgment involved. Where someone's put something in an application, you don't necessarily have to establish intent. They are responsible for what's contained in their application. There are Federal Court decisions that have supported our interpretation of this.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Overseas, if these officers suspect that it's a fraudulent degree for instance, but they can't nail it down, there are all kinds of things they can do to try to get to the bottom of that. If it's still unsuccessful, and they wanted to use misrepresentation, which is, I think, what you're suggesting, they would then have to go to their unit manager for concurrence on an A40 finding.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Mr. Chair, I can address the question.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Currently an officer has to be satisfied that the misrepresentation essentially was not unintentional or accidental. There is a use of judgment there. Where they believe it was just an honest mistake, they're not actually found inadmissible. For example, for A40 to be applied, for misrepresentation to be applied abroad, it's even a certain delegation of person, a certain level of individual, who has to make that call.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  They will have access to make an application for leave and judicial review at the Federal Court if they think there was an error in the assessment of their application, namely, that there was a misrepresentation finding that was not done fairly. That would be the main mechanism in most cases, the application for leave and judicial review.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  When you're making an application for leave in a judicial review, there's no new evidence. On appeals, depending again on the class of immigrant, there is new evidence that may be heard. But in general, the administrative law process is that once a decision is made, you would not be submitting new evidence for consideration.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, when someone's being refused overseas, for instance, there's a procedural fairness letter that goes out to them, which gives them an opportunity to reply to the concerns of the officers. That would be an instance where prior to refusal or prior to the inadmissibility finding, the client would have an opportunity to disabuse the officer of any concerns they may have.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm sorry, I think you're on the next amendment, which talks about reporting requirements. We're still on the previous NDP amendment. I think we have it as NDP-3.