Today, our office was contacted with an interesting question, whether or not a foreign national can be granted a multiple entry visa for coaching Canadians on soccer (the foreign national is an athlete and a professional coach with many years of experience). The answer would be yes, if the foreign coach was not “inadmissible class in Canada”. When we reviewed his documents, we learned that he was refused a temporary resident visa application to visit his relatives in Canada on the grounds of misrepresentation. When he applied for a temporary resident visa (TRV) at the time, he did not disclose the existence of a dependent family member on the application. Although it was not his direct mistake (he hired a travel agency in his country to fill out the forms and the agent who was preparing them simply missed the important information), under our immigration laws, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, section 40 (1) (a) he is inadmissible to Canada for a period of 5 years for “directly or indirectly misrepresenting or withholding material facts relating to a relevant matter that induces or could induce an error in the administration of this Act” meaning that even though it was an error of his agents, he still was responsible for the mistake.
Misrepresentation is a serious matter and our client would be precluded from entering Canada, possibly on any application. Is there any solution for this case? It would be hard to persuade the immigration authorities to overcome our client’s inadmissibility, however, pursuant to s. 24 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, we can apply on behalf of our client for a temporary resident permit (TRP) for a limited period of time (the time for coaching Canadian soccer players). Our submissions will be based on a fact that our client’s coaching will reap benefits to Canadians and that his past misrepresentation will not negatively affect the safety of the Canadian public. We will also provide supporting documents such as the credentials of our client, his bank account statement and letters of the inviting Canadian business which will be paying our client for his performance indicating he has sufficient funds available for his temporary stay.
