Yes, they can. There are some grounds for removal of a permanent resident in Canada and they are called “inadmissibility grounds”: national security concern, human rights violations, criminality or serious criminality, or organized criminality.
The decision of a removal order can be made by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) department, when it is believed that a permanent resident (PR) is a subject of section 44 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. If report officer, upon review, makes an inference that the report is well founded (there are reasons for a PR to lose their status in Canada), a removal order is drafted or the matter is transferred for an admissibility hearing to the Immigration Division (ID) of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). The ID is a quasi-judicial process conducted by an adjudicator (judge in a tribunal). The ID are very specific types of hearings where the standard of proof is reasonable grounds (a lesser threshold than a balance of probabilities, a principle which is used in refugee cases, for example). In plain English, the lower standard of proof means that, if you are accused of a criminal offence and evidence came from credible and trustworthy sources, it will be accepted as reliable.
Rules of evidence that are applicable in a normal court of law are not applicable in immigration admissibility tribunals. As a sample of the difference between a court and an admissibility hearing, the tribunal can include hearsay evidence (somebody said something that is tried to be introduced as evidence): in a court of law it would be challenging for hearsay to be accepted whereas in ID hearings it is very possible. However, it does not mean that the adjudicator can accept every allegation in admissibility hearings. For example, an affidavit of a person, even though sworn and properly prepared, cannot be taken as evidence, if the substance of it raises an issue of the quality of a person’s words.
Let’s take a closer look at evidence in those types of proceedings. The Immigration Division may, under section 173 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), rely upon evidence that it considers to be reliable and trustworthy. The Tribunal is not bound, under the said section of the Statue, by any rules of evidence that is applicable in any other legal proceeding. So, an Affidavit of an official can be found trustworthy and acceptable, however if an Affidavit is prepared by somebody who relied on a speculation, assumption, or gossip, then it would likely be rejected because, notwithstanding relaxed rules at the ID, the Tribunal must act fairly and responsibly.
