Prasanna Balasundaram is the Director of Downtown Legal Services. He represented the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers as interveners in the Supreme Court of Canada case Law Society of Saskatchewan v. Abrametz, which dealt with when delays can amount to an abuse of process.   2:00 Why did CARL intervene in this case? 6:00 Recalibrating abuse of process. 10:00 Possible remedies for abuse of process. 17:00 What is an abuse of process claim? 20:00 What is the Blencoe test? 25:00 Is a remedy under an abuse of process claim cash? 28:00 How can lawyers, stakeholders, and CARL collaborate on systemic issues? 31:00 Why does __ think that the Supreme Court did not address CARL’s argument about removal in the decision? 39:00 How does one choose test litigation cases?

Pantea Jafari is lead counsel at Jafari Law, which she opened in 2012. In 2022 Pantea won a successful group litigation for over 100 Iranian applicants whose applications were refused under the Self-Employed Class. Pantea successfully argued that the Canadian government unfarily changed the standards for these applicants after they had applied. We discuss the Self-Employed Class, the doctrine of legitimate expectations, breaches of procedural fairness, changing visa offices and how group litigation works.  

Three former counsel at the Department of Justice discuss what practicing at the DOJ is like vs. private practice. Jennifer Dagsvik worked as Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice from 2007 – 2017, and now is a Lecturer at Immigration and Refugee Law at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law in Thunder Bay, and also a Director at the Newcomer Legal Clinic there. Nalini Reddy worked as a Lawyer at the Department of Justice from 1999 to 2017. She is currently an Associate at Gindin Segal Law in Winnipeg. Rafeena Rashid worked as a Lawyer at the Department of Justice in the Immigration Division from 2010 to 2016. She is a Partner and Co-founder of Rashid Urosevic LLP, where she practices immigration law full-time.  

Peter Scarrow practiced Canadian immigration law from 1981 – 1991, opening the Taiwanese representative office for a prominent Vancouver law firm. We discuss what practicing high net worth immigration from Taiwan and China was like in the 1980s and early 1990s, ghost consultant fraud, tax avoidance, and being a private banker vs. immigration lawyer (Peter did both).