Docket: IMM-6235-24
Citation: 2026 FC 168
Ottawa, Ontario, February 5, 2026
PRESENT: Mr. Justice Pentney
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BETWEEN: |
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THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
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Applicant |
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and |
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A.B. |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
[1] The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (Minister), seeks judicial review of the decision of the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) that dismissed the Minister’s application for cessation of the Respondent’s refugee protection.
[2] The Respondent is a gay man who obtained refugee protection in Canada because he feared persecution in Pakistan due to his sexual orientation. The Minister’s cessation application was based on the Respondent’s admission that after being granted asylum in Canada, he obtained a Pakistani passport which he used to return to Pakistan on three occasions. The RPD found the Respondent’s evidence to be credible and accepted his explanation for his trips to Pakistan, and it therefore concluded that he had rebutted the presumption that he voluntarily and intentionally reavailed himself of the protection of Pakistan. Based on this analysis, the RPD dismissed the Minister’s application.
[3] The Minister seeks to overturn the RPD’s decision, arguing that it failed to engage with the evidence and that its reasons are inadequate. The Minister notes the weaknesses in the evidence put forward by the Respondent and submits that the RPD should have explained in greater detail why it accepted his narrative. The Respondent argues that the Minister is simply asking the Court to re-weigh the evidence, which is not appropriate on judicial review. The Respondent contends that the RPD’s decision examined all of the relevant evidence and it explained its reasoning in a satisfactory manner.
[4] For the reasons that follow, the application for judicial review will be dismissed. I am not persuaded that the RPD’s decision is unreasonable, despite the imperfections pointed out by the Minister. The decision must be examined in light of the record, in particular the transcript of the hearing and the documentary evidence submitted. Doing so confirms that the decision meets the standard of reasonableness, in light of the deference that is owed to the RPD as the decision-maker designated by Parliament to consider cessation applications at first instance.
[5] One procedural note should be mentioned here. On May 16, 2025, I granted the Respondent’s motion for an anonymity order, based on the risks he would face in Pakistan due to his sexual orientation. The Respondent is therefore identified in these reasons as A.B. to shield his actual identity.
I. Background
[6] The Respondent is a citizen of Pakistan. He came to Canada on a study permit, and while he was here, he married his then-husband (they subsequently divorced). The Respondent claimed asylum in Canada due to his fear of persecution as a gay man in Pakistan, and in June 2013 the RPD upheld his refugee claim. He became a permanent resident of Canada on November 19, 2015. One month later, the Respondent obtained a Pakistani passport on December 10, 2015.
[7] In September 2018, the Respondent applied for Canadian citizenship, which required him to complete a physical presence calculator to demonstrate how long he had been in Canada during the qualifying period. This showed that he had travelled to Pakistan on three occasions: in February 2016 (89 days) to support his then-husband who was looking after his mother (who died during this period); in April 2018 (20 days) to visit his own mother who was sick; and a third time in January 2020 (42 days) to visit his sick mother and to attend the funeral of his grandfather. The Respondent stated that he also tried to sell property in Pakistan during this trip, but was not successful in doing so.
[8] The Minister applied to the RPD to cease the Respondent’s refugee protection pursuant to s. 108 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 (IRPA) because he had voluntarily returned to Pakistan, using his Pakistani passport. The Minister argued the Respondent had reavailed himself of the protection of Pakistan. The Minister noted that the law confirms that travel to a refugee’s country of nationality using that country’s passport creates a strong presumption of an intention to reavail of that country’s protection, which could be rebutted if there were exceptional circumstances that justified the trip. In this case, the Minister argued that the Applicant had not demonstrated that his presence to care for his mother-in-law or his own mother was absolutely necessary, and thus he had not established exceptional circumstances.
[9] The Respondent appeared for the initial RPD hearing without counsel. The hearing was adjourned to give him an opportunity to retain a lawyer, but when the hearing re-convened he was still not represented. The Respondent testified and was questioned by the RPD member and the Minister’s representative; he also provided some medical evidence about his mother’s illness, as well as death certificates, which turned out to be the wrong documents. The death certificates were for the Respondent’s paternal grandfather and his maternal grandmother, not for the grandfather whose funeral he attended in Pakistan. The Respondent offered to provide a copy of his grandfather’s death certificate, but it does not appear that was done.
[10] The RPD’s decision is discussed below in detail. At this point it is sufficient to note that the RPD found the Respondent to be credible and accepted his explanation for his trips to Pakistan, namely that he went the first time to support his then-husband and felt compelled to go the second and third time under pressure from his mother who was ill. The RPD found that the Respondent continued to fear persecution in Pakistan and took steps to hide his sexual orientation and minimize contact with others while he was there. Based on its application of the binding case-law, the RPD dismissed the Minister’s application.
[11] The Minister seeks judicial review of this decision.
II. Issues and Standard of Review
[12] The only issue in this case is whether the decision is unreasonable. The Minister submits that the decision should be quashed because the reasons are insufficient, given the significant consequences of a cessation application. The Minister argues that the RPD failed to engage with the evidence on the key question of whether the Respondent had established exceptional circumstances to justify his travel to Pakistan, and that it did not analyze whether his actions demonstrated that he no longer has a subjective fear of persecution in Pakistan. In addition, the Minister contends that the RPD ignored the absence of corroborating evidence to support the Respondent’s narrative, and his failure to explain why he did not provide such evidence.
[13] These questions must be assessed under the framework for reasonableness review set out in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 [Vavilov], and confirmed in Mason v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 SCC 21 [Mason].
[14] In summary, under the Vavilov framework, a reviewing court is to review the reasons given by the administrative decision maker and determine whether the decision is based on an internally coherent chain of reasoning and is justified in light of the relevant legal and factual constraints (Vavilov at para 85; Mason at para 8). “The reasonableness standard requires that a reviewing court defer to such a decision.”
(Vavilov at par 85).
[15] This approach demands a focus on the decision-maker’s reasons, which must be viewed in the context of the record and understood in the legal and administrative context in which they were given. While the standard is not one of perfection, “it is not enough for the outcome of a decision to be
justifiable… [T]he decision must also be
justified, by way of those reasons, by the decision maker to those to whom the decision applies.”
(Vavilov at para 86).
[16] The onus is on the Applicants to demonstrate that “any shortcomings or flaws … are sufficiently central or significant to render the decision unreasonable.”
(Vavilov at para 100).
[17] Absent exceptional circumstances, reviewing courts must not interfere with the decision-maker’s factual findings and cannot reweigh and reassess evidence considered by the decision-maker (Vavilov at para 125).
III. Analysis
[18] The Minister raises a number of issues about the RPD’s decision, under the overall umbrella of an argument about the general insufficiency of the reasons. I will discuss the specific questions raised by the Minister before examining the more general question about the sufficiency of the reasons.
A. Legal framework
[19] No question is raised about the RPD’s understanding of the legal framework that applies to cessation applications; the dispute concerns its application of the factors to the evidence. A short summary of the law will be helpful to frame the analysis that follows.
[20] Cessation of refugee protection has been an integral part of the international asylum scheme from the start. The idea that other countries should offer safe haven to those who flee their home state seeking refuge is a powerful one, but this protection is subject to certain criteria, including that asylum will only be granted when the person seeking asylum cannot obtain the protection of their home state. In that sense, refugee status is “‘surrogate or substitute protection’, activated only upon failure of national protection…”
(Canada (Attorney General) v Ward, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 689 at p. 709. If an individual subsequently seeks and obtains the protection of their state of nationality, they no longer need refuge and their refugee status can be ceased.
[21] The law of cessation of refugee status rests on the simple and common-sense idea that a person who fled a country in fear of their life, or to escape torture or similarly grave mistreatment, would not voluntarily return there without exceptionally compelling reasons. As this Court observed in Ortiz Garcia v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2011 FC 1346 at para 8, “[r]eavailment typically suggests an absence of risk or a lack of subjective fear of persecution. Absent compelling reasons, people do not abandon safe havens to return to places where their personal safety is in jeopardy.”
[22] In assessing cessation of refugee protection under s. 108 of IRPA, the jurisprudence confirms that the three criteria set out in the Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, UN Doc. HCR/1P/4/ENG/REV.4 (Geneva, reissued February 2019) (Refugee Handbook) must be considered. These are:
(1) Voluntariness: The refugee must have acted voluntarily;
(2) Intention: The refugee must have intended by his or her actions to reavail him or herself of the protection of their country of nationality; and
(3) Reavailment: The refugee must actually obtain state protection.
[23] In this case, the Respondent acknowledged that he returned to Pakistan voluntarily, and so there is no issue about the first element. He also admitted that he obtained a Pakistani passport and used it for his travel to Pakistan and other countries, which gave rise to a very strong presumption that he subjectively intended to reavail himself of Pakistan’s protection (Refugee Handbook at p. 121). This Court has consistently held, in conformity with the Refugee Handbook at para 124, that once the presumption is triggered, it is only rebutted where the refugee establishes, on a balance of probabilities, that “exceptional circumstances”
existed to justify the travel to their country of origin: see, for example Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Safi, 2022 FC 1125 [Safi] at para 19; Abadi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 29 at para 18.
[24] Before the RPD and again in this Court, the Minister’s argument focuses on the second and third factors: subjective intention and reavailment. As the RPD noted in its decision, subjective intention must now be assessed using the framework set out by the Federal Court of Appeal in Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v Galindo Camayo, 2022 FCA 50 [Galindo Camayo], which requires a case-by-case analysis of the individual’s reasons for returning to their country of origin.
[25] The Galindo Camayo decision provides guidance on the factors that the RPD should consider in assessing whether the refugee has rebutted the presumption of reavailment, noting that no single factor is determinative of the outcome (Galindo Camayo at para 84). The Court of Appeal stated that in cessation cases, the RPD should consider the specific circumstances of each particular case, including these factors:
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The state of the individual’s knowledge with respect to the cessation provisions. Evidence that a person has returned to their country of origin in the full knowledge that it may put their refugee status in jeopardy may potentially have different significance than evidence that a person is unaware of the potential consequences of their actions;
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The personal attributes of the individual such as age, education and level of sophistication;
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The identity of the agent of persecution. That is, does the individual fear the government of their country of nationality or is the claim based on fear of a non-state actor? Evidence that a person who claims to fear the government of their country of nationality nevertheless discloses their whereabouts to that same government by applying for a passport or entering the country may be interpreted differently than evidence with respect to individuals seeking passports who fear non-state actors. In this latter situation, applying for a passport or entering the country will not necessarily expose the individual to their agent of persecution. This may be especially so when all the individual has done is apply for a passport: applying for a passport may have little bearing on the risk faced by a victim of domestic violence, for example, or their level of subjective fear;
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What was the purpose of the travel? The RPD may consider travel to the country of nationality for a compelling reason such as the serious illness of a family member to have a different significance than travel to that same country for a more frivolous reason such as a vacation or a visit with friends;
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The frequency and duration of the travel;
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What the individual did while in the country in question;
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Whether the individual took any precautionary measures while he or she was in their country of nationality. Evidence that an individual took steps to conceal their return, such as remaining sequestered in a home or hotel throughout the visit or engaging private security while in the country of origin, may be viewed differently than evidence that the individual moved about freely and openly while in their country of nationality.
B. The Minister’s arguments
[26] The Minister submits that the RPD’s analysis falls short in a number of specific areas, and that overall, it fails to reflect a sufficient engagement with the fundamental questions raised by the Respondent’s evidence. As the Minister notes, the case-law has repeatedly found that a more exacting burden rests on the RPD to justify its decision given the significant consequences of a cessation finding: see, for example Farahani v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 423 at para 7. This is confirmed in Galindo Camayo at para 50:
Where the impact of a decision on an individual’s rights and interests is severe, the reasons provided to that individual must reflect the stakes. The principle of responsive justification means that if a decision has particularly harsh consequences for the affected individual, the decision maker must explain why its decision best reflects the legislature’s intention: Vavilov SCC, above, at paragraph 133…
[27] According to the Minister, the RPD’s lack of detailed analysis of several key points makes the decision unreasonable because it lacks justification and transparency. I will address the Minister’s principal arguments in turn.
(1) The purpose of the visits
[28] The Minister argues that the RPD erred in concluding that the purposes of the Respondent’s three trips to Pakistan were compelling, in large part because the RPD failed to engage in a sufficiently detailed analysis of the evidence. The Minister says that the RPD erred in conflating the purpose of all three trips, without examining the weaknesses in the Respondent’s evidence.
[29] For example, the RPD accepted that the Respondent’s first trip was to support his then-husband who was dealing with the illness and death of his mother, and because his own mother was sick. However, the RPD did not analyze why the Respondent’s presence was necessary, nor why he was required to stay for 89 days, given the risks he put forward as the basis for his refugee claim. The Minister notes that the transcript shows that the Respondent gave only vague answers about why he was compelled to go to Pakistan or what he did to support his then-husband during this trip. According to the Minister, the RPD acted unreasonably in accepting that there were exceptional circumstances that justified this trip without explaining its analysis of the Respondent’s specific evidence.
[30] Turning to the second and third trips, the Minister submits that the case-law requires that the Respondent demonstrate that his presence in Pakistan was necessary in order to establish “exceptional circumstances”
for his return: Tung v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 1224 at paras 41-46 and Jing v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 104 at paras 24-28. In this case, the Respondent’s brother was in Pakistan, and he was looking after their mother. The Respondent did not explain why he needed to be there, nor did he provide details of what he did during the second and third trips. The Minister argues that the RPD’s acceptance of the Respondent’s explanation is unreasonable because it fails to examine the totality of the evidence.
[31] I am not persuaded that there is any basis to find the RPD’s analysis of the purpose of the trips to be unreasonable. It bears repeating that it is only in exceptional circumstances that a reviewing court will intervene to quash a decision-maker’s findings of fact and assessments of credibility: Vavilov at para 125. In this case, the RPD questioned the Respondent at length about the purpose of his trips, and its decision reflects its assessment of the explanations he offered.
[32] The Respondent stated that he went to Pakistan the first time mainly to support his then-husband, who was dealing with his mother’s illness and death. The RPD accepted that this was a compelling reason and noted that during this trip the Respondent took precautions to hide his sexual orientation by staying with a friend (thus avoiding his own family) and not showing any affection towards his then-husband when they were in public. The Respondent testified that his mother-in-law passed away during this trip, which provides an indication of the serious nature of her medical condition and his then-husband’s desire to be with her, which in turn helps to explain why the Respondent felt compelled to go to provide support. The RPD’s analysis reflects the evidence, and there is no basis to require a more in-depth analysis of this point.
[33] As for the second and third trips, the RPD accepted the Respondent’s evidence that he felt pressured to return to Pakistan by his mother. I must examine the RPD’s decision in light of the record, and the Respondent’s testimony on this point is stark. For example, he explained the second trip:
That time, my mother, like she got really sick and my grandparent and my grandfather. So my mother forced me, like of I don’t come, she’s gonna die. Like she really got really sick, so I can’t [indiscernible] emotion that time that she forced me.
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Yeah, again, she told me like she, she was really sick, bad sick, sir. She said that will might be last time, or we’ll have see, like if you don’t come, I’m gonna die, like…
[34] The Minister criticizes the RPD for failing to require corroborating documents to confirm the nature of the mother’s medical condition (a point I discuss in the next section) and says that it unreasonably failed to consider that the Respondent’s brother lived in Pakistan and was the mother’s primary caregiver. In the absence of such analysis, the Minister argues that the RPD failed to engage with the key question which is whether the Respondent had demonstrated a particularly compelling reason for his trips.
[35] I disagree.
[36] Recall that the Minister’s representative before the RPD had argued that the Respondent had failed to establish that his presence in Pakistan was absolutely necessary. The RPD did not accept this approach, and I find this reasonable. The case law does not require a return to be absolutely necessary for the care of a sick family member: Shah v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 1332 [Shah] at paras 12-14, citing Ahmad v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 8 at para 44 [Ahmad]. By focusing on whether the Respondent’s presence in Pakistan was absolutely necessary, the RPD would be doing “exactly what the Court in Camayo sought to prevent with regard to the assessment of subjective intent”
in that it would fail to consider how compelling a claimant’s reasons were from their own perspective (Ahmad at para 44).
[37] On this point, the facts of this case bear a remarkable similarity to those in Shah. In that case, the RPD had found that the claimant’s explanation for returning to Pakistan was insufficient. On judicial review, Justice Norris noted that the applicant had stated that he “returned to Pakistan because his then five-year-old son (who lives in Pakistan with his mother) was seriously ill. He believed that his son might die. The applicant also provided evidence that, while in Pakistan, he took precautions to avoid his agents of persecution.”
(Shah at para 12) In Shah, the RPD found that the applicant’s return to Pakistan had been voluntary because he failed to show that his presence there was absolutely necessary. Justice Norris rejected this type of analysis: “In my view, the RPD adopted an unreasonably narrow view of the circumstances that could support the applicant’s argument that his actions were not voluntary.”
(Shah at para 14)
[38] Here, the RPD reasonably assessed the compelling nature of the circumstances prompting the Respondent’s returns to Pakistan from his own perspective and made that clear in its reasons. In accepting that the Respondent felt compelled to return because of his mother’s pleas, the RPD acted reasonably. The RPD found that the Respondent had honestly believed that his mother was seriously sick, and accepted that he had not demanded medical proof before going to comfort her. Based on its assessment of the evidence, the RPD accepted that the Respondent felt compelled to return to Pakistan, despite the risks he took by going there.
[39] I can find no basis to disturb this finding.
(2) The lack of corroborating evidence
[40] The Minister submits that the RPD’s analysis of the Respondent’s failure to provide corroborating evidence is unreasonable. Instead of asking why the Respondent had not produced evidence that should have been available to him to back up his story, the RPD instead simply noted that it is an error to make adverse credibility findings solely because corroborating evidence is lacking. The Minister argues this was an error, because the absence of corroborating evidence can result in a finding that there is insufficient evidence on a particular point, without any negative credibility finding being made. The Minister says the RPD failed to appreciate this and thus acted unreasonably.
[41] Moreover, the Minister argued that the scant additional evidence the Respondent provided should have prompted more questions. For example, he failed to provide any evidence from his ex-husband about the first trip, but the RPD never inquired about whether he made any efforts to obtain such evidence. Along the same lines, the Respondent said he stayed with his friend when he was in Pakistan, but no letter or affidavit from this person was produced, nor did he provide evidence about his mother’s medical condition or explain why it was not available. The Minister contends that the RPD’s failure to examine the reasons why the Respondent did not provide corroborative evidence, or to demand an explanation of his efforts to obtain it, was unreasonable.
[42] I am not persuaded. While the Minister may not agree with the RPD’s reasoning on this question, it cannot be said that the RPD ignored the point. The decision specifically addresses the Respondent’s explanations about why he did not have more evidence to support his narrative. As regards the first trip, the Respondent stated that he did not have any documentation about his former mother-in-law’s illness, and that he had not been in contact with his ex-husband after their divorce. On the second and third trips, the RPD accepted the Respondent’s explanation that “[he] was told by his mother that she is terminally ill, and he did not ask [for] proof of such sickness or [seek] an independent assessment…”
[43] The Respondent did produce letters from a health clinic in Pakistan indicating that his mother had several medical conditions, including insulin-reliant diabetes, ischemic heart disease, chronic kidney injury requiring ongoing dialysis, and that she was diagnosed with a myocardial infarction (a heart attack) in December 2019. One of the letters stated that on August 1, 2023, his mother was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit and had been intubated among other treatments. He also produced another letter from that same clinic stating that his mother had presented with shortness of breath on August 25, 2023. This evidence supports his claim that his mother was quite ill.
[44] In light of the Respondent’s testimony, I cannot agree with the Minister that the RPD was required to inquire further, including questioning him about whether he made any attempts to get corroborating evidence from his ex-partner or others. The RPD heard and accepted the Respondent’s answers when questions about the lack of supporting documents were put to him. While it may have been prudent for the RPD to seek out further supporting evidence, the RPD was not foreclosed from determining that the Respondent’s credible testimony was sufficient and that it did not need to request further corroboration.
(3) Lack of a finding on subjective fear and flawed analysis of precautions taken by the Respondent
[45] The Minister submits that the RPD’s analysis of the Galindo Camayo factors is inadequate because it failed to make a specific finding on a crucial element of the test: whether the Respondent’s actions demonstrated a lack of a subjective fear of return to Pakistan. The Respondent had admitted that after the first trip to Pakistan he was advised that his travel had put his refugee status at risk, but he nevertheless went back two more times. The Minister argues that the failure to examine subjective risk means that the RPD failed to engage with a key element of the test for reavailment, and therefore the decision is not justified or transparent.
[46] While I accept that it is regrettable that the RPD did not make a clear and specific finding on the subjective fear element of the test, I am not persuaded that this is sufficient to make the entire decision unreasonable. The transcript of the hearing shows that the Respondent stated repeatedly that he believed that he was taking a great risk by returning to Pakistan, and the RPD’s decision discusses his evidence about the steps he took to mitigate this risk.
[47] The Minister challenges several findings made by the RPD on the steps the Respondent took to minimize his risks in Pakistan, focusing on three main issues. First, the Minister says that the RPD erred in finding that the Respondent testified that he did not go out in public during his three trips. Instead, he had stated that he attended his grandfather’s funeral, travelled while in the country, and that he tried to sell property in Pakistan during the third trip.
[48] Next, the Minister questions the RPD’s finding that the Respondent’s risks were minimized because his sexual orientation was a “tightly held secret that only few people know in Pakistan.”
The Minister submits that the evidence contradicts this finding, pointing to the Respondent’s refugee claim which indicated his greatest risks were from Pakistani fundamentalists because his same-sex marriage in Canada had become known by his relatives in Pakistan. He also testified that he had no guarantees about how many people knew about his sexual orientation.
[49] I am unable to find that the RPD’s assessment of the Respondent’s evidence on the precautions he took while in Pakistan was unreasonable. The decision reviews the Respondent’s evidence on the various ways in which he sought to minimize his risk. This included the fact that during the first trip he did not show any affection towards his then-husband. During the second and third trip, the Respondent knew that his father, who knew about – and strongly disapproved of – his sexual orientation, was out of the country when he went to Pakistan. He stayed with a friend who knew about his sexual orientation and only went outside when it was dark. He sat at the back during his grandfather’s funeral and only went to the grave after others had left. The Respondent testified that he did not show any affection with his then-husband during the first trip.
[50] Overall, the RPD accepted that the Respondent took reasonable precautions in the circumstances. This finding is explained, and it is based on the Respondent’s evidence. The Minister does not point to any crucial evidence that was ignored or fundamentally misunderstood; instead, the Minister takes issue with the RPD’s interpretation of the evidence. The RPD’s finding on the precautions taken is reasonable.
[51] The Minister argues that the RPD’s finding that the Respondent’s sexual orientation was a “tightly held secret”
is unfounded, given the evidence. I am unable to agree. It is not the role of a reviewing Court to parse the words in a decision; instead, I am required to determine whether I can trace the RPD’s line of analysis in a logical fashion that reflects its consideration of the evidence. On this point, the Respondent testified that while his father knew about his sexual orientation, he did not think that information had been shared because none of his other family members had raised it or expressed any concerns. He stayed with a friend who was aware of his sexual orientation but otherwise took steps to minimize his contact with his family and generally hid his identity while he was in Pakistan. While the specific phrasing used by the RPD may not have been as precise as might have been preferred, this is not an editing exercise. The Respondent’s evidence was that few people knew about his sexual orientation, and that reduced his risk of travelling there. The RPD’s finding on this point is reasonable.
[52] To conclude on the argument about the absence of any analysis of subjective fear, I agree with the Minister that the RPD’s decision on this point is weaker because it does not make an explicit finding on this essential point. However, that is not enough to make the decision unreasonable, when viewed as a whole in light of the record. The very fact that the RPD discussed the precautions taken by the Respondent is an indication that it was alive to the question of whether he felt subjective fear during his trips to Pakistan. This is also confirmed in the transcript of the hearing, which shows that the RPD specifically questioned the Respondent on this point. His evidence could not be clearer. For example, the Respondent testified that after the last trip he told his mother about his sexual orientation and explained that he would not be seeing her again because of the risks he faced in Pakistan. This is consistent with his evidence as a whole.
[53] While it would have been preferable for the RPD to make a specific finding on subjective fear, I am not persuaded it either misunderstood the Respondent’s evidence or failed to consider this factor. This gap in the RPD’s reasons is not sufficiently grave to make the decision unreasonable, in light of its discussion of the Respondent’s precautions, and the extensive evidence about the risks he took on returning to Pakistan.
(4) The insufficiency of the decision as a whole
[54] As noted earlier, the Minister argues that the decision does not meet the Vavilov standard which requires that the Court and the parties must be able to understand the decision-maker’s reasoning on the critical points (Vavilov at para 103). Put another way, reasonableness review “is concerned mostly with the existence of justification, transparency and intelligibility within the decision-making process”
(Vavilov at para 86, citing Dunsmuir v New Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9 at para 47). The Minister submits that the reasons in this case simply do not indicate the type of engagement with the specific circumstances of this case that Vavilov demands, particularly given the consequences of a cessation decision.
[55] While I agree that the Minister’s arguments certainly show some shortcomings in the reasons provided by the RPD, in the end I am not persuaded that the deficiencies are as significant as the Minister contends, or that they justify quashing the decision. It is important to recall that the Vavilov framework imposes a demanding standard on decision-makers, while acknowledging that the unattainable goal of perfection is not a requirement. Judicial review must respect Parliament’s choice to assign the task of assessing cessation applications to the RPD. Where the decision is justified in light of the law and the facts, and the Court can trace its line of reasoning without identifying any fatal flaws, Vavilov requires that the Court defer to the decision-maker’s findings.
[56] In this case, as explained above, there is no question that the RPD understood and applied the appropriate legal framework; its description of the legal test, and its understanding of the guidance provided by Galindo Camayo, is beyond reproach. While I have noted certain gaps or weaknesses in some elements of the reasoning, I have found these to be not fatal when examined in light of the record. Because of this, I am unable to conclude that the Minister has established that the decision as a whole is unreasonable. I readily acknowledge that a different panel of the RPD might well have come to a different conclusion on the evidence here. That alone does not make the decision unreasonable.
[57] In conclusion, I would add one further point. Under the Vavilov framework, an important consideration is whether the reasons are responsive to the submissions of the parties (Vavilov at para 127). In this case, an important element of the arguments advanced by the Minister’s representative was that the Respondent’s reasons for returning to Pakistan did not meet the “exceptional circumstances”
threshold because his presence there was not absolutely necessary. The RPD reasons were responsive to this argument, and the RPD reasonably did not accept it. This finding is consistent with the guidance in Galindo Camayo (at para 84) as confirmed by the decisions of this Court: see, for example, Ahmad; Shah; and Alaybiyi v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 289 at para. 55.
[58] The RPD did not have the assistance of any meaningful submissions from the Respondent in regard to the legal test or the finer points of evidence; as noted previously, he was not represented at the hearing. When asked by the RPD member for any final submissions, the Respondent’s reply was as follows: “Your Honour, I can’t say anything. I’m just – that’s whatever action I did, that will just because of my mother, and I can’t say more.”
[59] I am satisfied that the RPD’s decision, while not perfect, is sufficient to meet the Vavilov standard. It reflects an engagement with the evidence, in particular when examined in light of the detailed questioning of the Respondent reflected in the transcript of the hearing. The reasoning applies the legal framework, notably the guidance of the Federal Court of Appeal in Galindo Camayo. I can find no basis to conclude that the decision as a whole is marred by fatal flaws on essential points. I am also satisfied that the decision, read as a whole and in light of the record, “reflects the stakes”
of a cessation application. I therefore conclude that the decision is reasonable.
IV. Conclusion
[60] Based on the analysis set out above, the application for judicial review will be dismissed.
[61] There is no question of general importance for certification.
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