How Admissibility Works: The IRPA Framework

Two other terms decide whom a ground can reach. A foreign national is anyone who is neither a Canadian citizen nor a permanent resident. That covers most visitors. A permanent resident may live in Canada for good but has not become a citizen. Some grounds reach both groups and some reach only foreign nationals. The first table shows which grounds reach whom. Passages about permanent residents are flagged where they start, so a visitor can skip them.

All eleven are in Division 4, the part of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (the IRPA) that runs from s.33 to s.43. In the statute's order, the first five are security (s.34), human or international rights violations (s.35), sanctions (s.35.1), serious criminality and criminality (s.36), and organized criminality (s.37). Then come health grounds (s.38), financial reasons (s.39) and misrepresentation (s.40), which means lying or leaving something out. The last three are cessation of refugee protection (s.40.1), non-compliance with the Act (s.41) and an inadmissible family member (s.42). Cessation means a final decision that a person's refugee protection has ended. A criminal record falls under s.36, which chapter 2 covers in full. For every ground, including s.36, the rest of this chapter shows who has to prove it, how sure the decision-maker must be, and how it can end.

Six of the eleven grounds get a full chapter: serious criminality and criminality (s.36), health (s.38), financial reasons (s.39), misrepresentation (s.40), non-compliance (s.41) and an inadmissible family member (s.42). The first table shows how the volume treats the other five. Three of them can involve classified information: security (s.34), human or international rights violations (s.35) and organized criminality (s.37). Some also involve the security-certificate process in Division 9. This volume does not cover those three, or sanctions under s.35.1. Cessation under s.40.1 is touched on in later chapters but not covered in depth.

Whether any of those five could arise on a particular file is a judgment about that file. That judgment is what a licensed consultant or a lawyer is for. The consultant register and the law society directories are free to search. The College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants keeps the public register of Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultants, and each provincial law society's directory lists lawyers by practice area.

Most published summaries still print nine grounds, because two grounds arrived after those summaries were written: s.40.1 in 2012 and s.35.1 in 2023. Where an older summary and the Act disagree, the current Act on the Justice Laws website is the text that counts.

A visa gets a traveller to the border. The decision is made at the counter. Admissibility does not carry over from one crossing to the next, because an officer decides it fresh each time on the record in front of them.

Section 18(1) of the Act provides: "Subject to the regulations, every person seeking to enter Canada must appear for an examination to determine whether that person has a right to enter Canada or is or may become authorized to enter and remain in Canada." So everyone who arrives is checked. The question is whether they may come in and stay. Section 15(1) also lets an officer examine a person whenever someone applies.

IRCC enforcement manual ENF 1 goes further. Summarizing a case known as Mercier, it says: "A visa is no more than a stamp on a piece of paper issued outside Canada which may give the holder a colour of right to come into Canada, but no more. Immigration status is acquired at the port-of-entry" (ENF 1, Appendix A). Status is granted at the counter, or not at all.

This paragraph concerns permanent residents only. A visitor can skip it. A permanent resident's right to enter and remain is "subject to the provisions of this Act" (s.27(1)), so it holds only as far as the rest of the Act allows. Any conditions imposed must be met as well (s.27(2)). A permanent resident must also meet the residency obligation "with respect to every five-year period". Section 28(2)(a) requires at least 730 days of physical presence in each such period, or the equivalents the section lists. The window rolls forward and is checked again at each examination.

Officers decide admissibility before travel and at the border, and the Immigration Division decides the cases referred inland. No one else does. The Division is a tribunal of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Everything else is preparation. It shapes what the decision-maker sees, but the decision stays with them.

Before travel, a visa officer decides under s.11(1). Some travellers who need no visa apply online instead for an electronic travel authorization, or eTA (s.11(1.01)). The Act lets an automated system decide eTA applications (s.186.1(5)). Either way the application is examined first (s.15(1)). The result is a refusal or the document itself. Even the document does not pre-clear the trip.

Section 45 gives the Division four outcomes. It may recognize a right to enter or grant status. It may also authorize entry for further examination, or make the removal order that applies. Since 2026 the Division "must not hold an admissibility hearing if the permanent resident or foreign national who is the subject of the hearing is not physically present in Canada" (s.44.1).

Two routes remain after a decision. They matter mostly to permanent residents and refused applicants. The first is an appeal to the Immigration Appeal Division (s.63). Section 62 names it as the division for those appeals. Section 64 removes the appeal in defined cases. Where no appeal is available, the route is judicial review in the Federal Court. It starts with an application for leave, meaning permission to proceed (s.72(1)). A judge then checks whether the decision was lawfully made. The relief table below lists the barred cases and both deadlines.

The law uses two standards of proof, the rules for how sure a decision-maker has to be. Which one applies depends on the ground. Criminality under s.36 uses the lower one, while health, money and misrepresentation use the higher one. Neither is the criminal standard. That is why a person can be acquitted in a criminal court and still be found inadmissible.

Immigration decisions are often said to run on "reasonable grounds to believe" across the board, but that is true of only five grounds. Section 33 draws the line. It provides: "The facts that constitute inadmissibility under sections 34 to 37 include facts arising from omissions and, unless otherwise provided, include facts for which there are reasonable grounds to believe that they have occurred, are occurring or may occur."

So for those sections, a fact counts if there are reasonable grounds to believe it happened, is happening or may happen. Something a person failed to do can count as well. The five are security (s.34), human and international rights violations (s.35) and sanctions (s.35.1). Criminality (s.36) and organized criminality (s.37) complete the set.

The other six grounds run on the ordinary civil standard. They are health, financial reasons, misrepresentation, cessation, non-compliance and an inadmissible family member. ENF 5 (Writing 44(1) Reports) says immigration proceedings "are civil in nature and therefore the general standard of proof is the one applicable to civil matters: balance of probabilities". Any civil case uses the same test. ENF 5 adds that s.33 provides the lower standard for sections 34 to 37, and its Table 4 sorts every ground into one of the two columns.

The same manual defines both tests. "Balance of probabilities" means the evidence "must show that the facts as alleged are more probable than not", or more likely than not. It is "a higher standard of proof than 'reasonable grounds to believe', but is lower than the criminal standard of 'beyond a reasonable doubt'." So it is the middle one of the three tests.

A standard of proof says how sure the decision-maker must be, but not who has to convince them. One fact decides it. That fact is whether the person has been authorized to enter Canada. A person who has not, usually an applicant outside Canada, has to establish that they are admissible. Once a person has been authorized to enter, the Minister has to prove they are inadmissible.

Section 20(1) asks every foreign national who "seeks to enter or remain in Canada" to establish that they meet the requirements of the Act. That is a positive burden. The applicant has to make the case rather than wait to be contradicted. Nothing in the Act asks an officer to prove inadmissibility before refusing a visa. The checklist below shows what s.11(1), s.16(1), s.21(1) and s.22(1) add on the applicant's side.

ENF 5 shows the same split in its burden-of-proof table. The onus is on the Minister for permanent residents and foreign nationals authorized to enter, and on the foreign national who is seeking entry or who entered illegally.

Some grounds end on a date or an event their own text names, some only through relief the Act names, and some when a present condition ends. Others carry no end in their text at all. Security (s.34), human or international rights violations (s.35) and organized criminality (s.37) are among them.

Misrepresentation under s.40 lasts five years. If the determination is made outside Canada, the count starts at the final determination. If it is made in Canada, the count starts when the removal order is enforced (s.40(2)(a)). Subsection 35.1(2) states that "despite section 33", a person who ceases to be the subject of the relevant order, regulation or measure "is no longer inadmissible under that paragraph". So the s.35.1 sanctions ground ends when the sanction does.

Criminality has no end date of its own. It ends only through the relief the Act names. For a foreign conviction or an act committed abroad, s.36(3)(c) offers two routes. One is the Minister being satisfied, after the prescribed period, that the person has been rehabilitated. The other is deemed rehabilitation. IRPR s.18 treats a person as rehabilitated once the conditions and time periods it sets are met.

Section 36(3)(c) itself has a limit. It reaches only convictions and acts outside Canada (s.36(1)(b) and (c), and s.36(2)(b) and (c)). It does nothing for a conviction in Canada. A Canadian conviction stops counting when a record suspension is ordered, for as long as the suspension stays in effect (s.36(3)(b)). Summary prosecution is the less serious of the two ways Canada can try an offence. One narrow rule needs nothing filed and covers a foreign national who is inadmissible only because of two or more convictions in Canada for offences that can only be prosecuted summarily. Five years after the sentences ended, that person is exempt from s.36(2)(a) (IRPR s.18.1).

Health and financial reasons look at present facts. A past event alone does not settle them. The s.38 health ground asks whether a condition is presently likely to be a danger to public health or public safety, or whether it might reasonably be expected to cause excessive demand on health or social services. The s.39 financial ground asks whether a person can support themselves and any dependants now and in future, and whether adequate arrangements have been shown.