Start-Up Visa Mandamus Granted Over Delay

A Start-Up Visa mandamus application was granted after the Federal Court found that successive Ministerial Instructions had contributed to an open-ended delay in a permanent residence file. The Court ordered that a decision be made within 90 days of its November 9, 2026 judgment.

Case Summary

• Case & citation: Naghavi v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2026 FC 1370, Court file IMM-17672-25.
• Decision date & judge: November 9, 2026, by the Honourable Justice Battista.
• Issue: The applicant sought mandamus to require a decision on a Start-up Visa permanent residence application delayed by successive Ministerial Instructions.
• Outcome: Judicial review and mandamus were granted, requiring a decision within 90 days; there was no order on costs.

Application was ready for finalization

The applicant filed for permanent residence under the Start-up Visa (SUV) class in March 2021, relying on a commitment from Biomedical Commercialization Canada Inc., operating as the Manitoba Technology Accelerator.

Global Case Management System notes showed that an officer had found the applicant eligible and not inadmissible in June 2024. The file was ready for finalization at that point.

By the time of the judgment, the application had been pending for five and a half years, or 67 months. The Court found this was longer than required by the nature of the process, particularly as the file had been ready for finalization for more than two years.

Ministerial Instructions did not justify delay

The parties agreed that two successive sets of Ministerial Instructions had prevented the application from being completed by placing two categories of SUV applicants ahead of the applicant in the processing queue. Both instructions had retroactive effect.

The respondent argued that the instructions were legally authorized prioritization measures and noted that, in September 2026, the applicant received an estimated remaining processing time of 31 months.

Justice Battista accepted that Ministerial Instructions can, in some circumstances, justify an inordinate delay. However, the Court held that their contents and effect must be assessed, including whether they are made in good faith and are consistent with the purpose, objectives and scheme of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The 31-month estimate did not account for the further deprioritizing effect of the second set of instructions. The Court found it was therefore not a realistic completion estimate and left the applicant facing an open-ended delay.

Court applied the mandamus framework

The Court considered whether the requirements for mandamus were met and whether an equitable bar should prevent the remedy. It found no allegation that the applicant or counsel had caused the delay.

Once inordinate delay was established, the burden shifted to the respondent to justify it. Justice Battista stated that the respondent's reasons for delay should be assessed on a reasonableness standard.

The Court concluded that the delay was not caused by the application process or by complexity in the applicant's file. Instead, it resulted from successive instructions that had deprioritized the file twice without a reliable estimate of when processing would conclude.

Justice Battista described accepting the cause of open-ended delay as its justification as circular reasoning. The Court found that the respondent had not discharged its burden to provide a satisfactory justification.

What the order does—and does not do

The judgment requires a decision on this Start-up Visa application within 90 days. It does not grant the applicant permanent residence.

The Court rejected the respondent's argument that granting mandamus would create an entitlement to the remedy for every SUV applicant affected by the instructions. It emphasized that mandamus is discretionary and turns on the facts of each case.

The decision does not invalidate the Ministerial Instructions. Rather, it finds that, on the facts of this application, the instructions did not satisfactorily justify the particular open-ended delay.

Source: Federal Court Decisions