In H&C – Family Violence, the Federal Court granted judicial review of a refused humanitarian and compassionate application after finding the officer did not address the immigration consequences of the applicant’s abusive spousal relationship. The matter was returned for redetermination by a different decision-maker.
Federal Court sets aside H&C refusal
In Ferreira v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 1160, released September 15, 2026, Justice Gleeson reviewed a January 2, 2025 decision refusing H&C relief sought by Ms. De Almeida Ferreira and her minor daughter under subsection 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
The applicants entered Canada in September 2022 on temporary resident visas. After the applicant married a Canadian citizen in March 2023, she and her husband submitted a spousal sponsorship application. The applicant later experienced financial, verbal, psychological, physical and sexual abuse, and her daughter witnessed some incidents. Following an incident in July 2024, her husband was arrested and the couple separated.
IRCC approved conversion of the pending spousal sponsorship application to an H&C application in November 2024. The application also sought temporary resident permits as alternative relief. The officer refused both requests, although the temporary resident permit refusal was not challenged before the Court.
Lost spousal pathway was a central H&C factor
The parties agreed that reasonableness was the applicable standard of review. The applicant argued that the officer’s treatment of the family violence, conditions in Brazil and the best interests of the child analysis was unreasonable. The respondent submitted that the officer had assigned considerable weight to the family violence evidence and that the applicant was effectively asking the Court to reweigh the evidence.
Justice Gleeson accepted that the officer had recognized the abusive relationship and had assigned it considerable weight. However, the Court found that, where a spouse or former spouse of a Canadian citizen escapes abuse and thereby loses spousal sponsorship as an immigration pathway, the consequential loss of that pathway must be considered as a central H&C factor.
The Court held that the officer did not do this. After noting that the applicant had escaped the abusive relationship and was receiving government and community support, the officer did not expressly address the consequences of the abuse, its effect on other H&C considerations, or the loss of the spousal sponsorship pathway.
Justice Gleeson found this omission affected the establishment analysis. The officer had compared the applicant’s support from family in Brazil with her relatively limited support in Canada, but did not address whether her continued reliance on family in Brazil and inability to establish herself further in Canada were consequences of the family violence.
Matter returned for a new decision
The Court concluded that the failure to consider and address this central H&C factor made the decision unreasonable. It did not need to decide the applicant’s remaining arguments, including those concerning the officer’s comparative establishment analysis, the evidence on Brazil or the best interests of the child.
The application for judicial review was granted, and the matters were returned for redetermination by a different decision-maker. No question was certified for appeal.
The decision concerns the adequacy of the H&C assessment in this case. It does not itself grant H&C relief; instead, it requires a new decision that addresses the issues identified by the Court.
Source: Federal Court Decisions