Ottawa seeking mass visa cancellation powers to deter fraud from India: internal documents

The federal government is seeking the power to cancel applications for groups of visa holders at least in part due to concerns of fraud from India and Bangladesh, according to internal documents obtained by CBC News.

A departmental presentation to the immigration minister's office said that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and unnamed U.S. partners are aiming to identify and cancel fraudulent visitor visa applications.

The Canadian entities and U.S. partners formed a working group looking to beef up authorities to refuse and cancel visas, according to the presentation, which singled out India and Bangladesh as “country-specific challenges.”

A section explaining how mass cancellation powers could be used listed hypothetical scenarios such as a pandemic, war and “country-specific visa holders.”

Publicly, Immigration Minister Lena Diab has listed a pandemic or war as why the government is seeking these powers, but has not mentioned country-specific visa holders. 

The presentation provides a further glimpse into Ottawa’s motivation for gaining those mass cancellation powers.

The provision was tabled in Parliament as part of Bill C-2, the government's sweeping border legislation. That bill has since been spun off into two pieces, with mass visa cancellation folded into C-12, which the government is hoping  to quickly pass.

More than 300 civil society groups have raised concerns over the legislation. Some, such as the Migrant Rights Network, say group cancellations would give the government the ability to set up a “mass deportation machine.”

Immigration lawyers have also wondered if the mass cancellation ability was being sought to allow the federal government to reduce its growing backlog of applications. 

Asylum claims from Indian nationals increased from fewer than 500 a month in May 2023 to about 2,000 by July 2024, the document said.

The presentation says that verifying temporary resident visa applications from India slows down application processing.

It said processing time rose from an average of 30 days at the end of July 2023 to 54 a year later. It said approvals also started to decline in 2024 as it committed more resources to verification, from more than 63,000 in January to about 48,000 in June.

The presentation also noted a rise in “no boards” in India — passengers not allowed to board airplanes — as of the summer of 2024. By July 31 of that year 1,873 applicants had been identified for further questioning and sent procedural fairness letters outlining their rights and potential legal recourse.

No data about claims from Bangladesh was provided in the document.