How a mother used humanitarian and compassionate considerations to pursue permanent residence for her child when the other parent's consent could not safely be obtained.
The obstacle
A mother had rebuilt her life in Canada. Her young daughter remained abroad.
Ordinarily, when a dependent child has another parent who will not accompany them to Canada, IRCC expects a signed Declaration from Non-Accompanying Parent or Guardian, known as IMM 5604. The declaration confirms that the other parent understands that the child may become permanently separated from them.
In this case, asking for that signature was not a simple administrative step.
The evidence described a history of abuse, abandonment, failed family-court proceedings and repeated attempts by the father to exercise control without assuming the responsibilities of parenting. Contacting him for consent risked reopening the same pattern of intimidation the mother had worked to escape.
The application therefore presented IRCC with a difficult question:
Could the child be reunited with her mother in Canada without the signature normally required from the non-accompanying parent?
Legal framework
- IRPA section 25(1): the decision-maker must take into account the best interests of a child directly affected.
- Baker v Canada, [1999] 2 SCR 817, paras 74 to 75: the officer must be alert, alive and sensitive to the child's interests, which carry substantial weight but are not automatically determinative.
- Kanthasamy v Canada, 2015 SCC 61, paras 35 to 41: the interests of the particular child must be identified, defined and examined with significant attention.
- IRCC Guide 5291 and IMM 5283: specific evidence must show how this child would be affected, and the best interests of the child are important but do not automatically outweigh every other factor.
BIOC was not merely an appeal to sympathy. Section 25(1) required the officer to consider the interests of the child directly affected, and the evidence had to define those interests in relation to this particular child.
How the case moved
Step 1
Mother establishes herself in Canada
Step 2
Caregiving arrangement deteriorates
Step 3
Consent cannot safely be obtained
Step 4
H&C evidence filed
Step 5
Permanent residence approved
Case at a glance
| Matter | Dependent-child sponsorship for permanent residence |
|---|---|
| Central obstacle | The non-accompanying parent's declaration could not safely be obtained, and no final court order granted the mother sole custody. |
| Requested relief | Humanitarian and compassionate relief under section 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act |
| Principal considerations | The unresolved custody record, the child's best interests, family violence, abandonment, actual caregiving arrangements and international child-relocation concerns. |
| Evidence submitted | Court records, sworn declarations, school and financial records, photographs, correspondence and evidence of the mother's continuing parental role |
| Outcome | IRCC approved the child's permanent residence application, allowing her to reunite with her mother in Canada |
Why the missing signature mattered
For a dependent child under 18 whose other parent is not immigrating, IRCC ordinarily requires a signed IMM 5604 declaration. That requirement serves a serious purpose. Officers must be satisfied that a child is not being permanently removed contrary to another parent's custody rights. The expectations for a sponsorship application are set out in the IRCC family sponsorship guide.
The court record created an additional difficulty. The matrimonial judgment did not determine custody or grant the mother sole custody, and the father's separate guardianship claim was withdrawn before adjudication. No final sole-custody order existed, so the mother could not offer one as a simple substitute for the other parent's declaration.
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is related but distinct. It addresses wrongful removal or retention of a child in breach of custody rights, and it does not itself decide a permanent residence application. Because no custody order resolved the question, the submissions still had to show why the proposed relocation was not an attempt to bypass genuine custody rights.
IRCC therefore could not simply ignore the missing consent. The applicant had to provide reliable evidence explaining:
- Why the declaration cannot be obtained
- What custody or access rights exist
- Whether the other parent has meaningfully exercised those rights
- Whether the proposed relocation is lawful
- How the decision will affect the child
- Whether exceptional relief is justified
A mother trying to rebuild
The mother had become a permanent resident of Canada and was working to establish a stable life.
She had initially left her daughter in the care of the maternal grandmother while she found employment and secured suitable living arrangements. It was intended to be temporary. The mother continued supporting the child financially and remained involved in her education, healthcare and daily life.
Over time, however, the arrangement became increasingly fragile.
The grandmother's health deteriorated and caring for a young child became more difficult. Other close family members who had helped support the child also moved to Canada. The mother was now financially established and ready to care for her daughter, but the daughter remained abroad without the parent who had consistently assumed responsibility for her.
The separation was no longer merely painful. It was becoming unsustainable.
Why approaching the father was not a neutral act
The evidence submitted to IRCC described a history of family violence and coercive conduct.
A sworn declaration from close family members recounted an incident in which the mother was allegedly physically assaulted while the child was still an infant. According to that declaration, the infant also sustained an injury during the incident. The evidence described further threats and harassment occurring in the child's presence.
The history did not end with the separation.
The matrimonial litigation did not produce a custody determination. The husband's petition for dissolution of the marriage was dismissed, but the judgment did not award custody to either parent. In a separate proceeding under the Guardians and Wards Act, he sought custody and then withdrew that claim before adjudication, citing that his career did not allow him to assume custody. The result was a procedural gap: the mother remained the child's actual and continuing parent, yet there was no final order formally granting her sole custody. Although the father lived nearby, the evidence indicated that he had made little or no meaningful effort to visit or maintain a relationship with the child for several years.
At the same time, he challenged the payment of child maintenance being deducted through his employer.
Another incident illustrated how parental authority could be used without corresponding parental involvement. The child's preferred school required identification documents bearing the father's signature. When those documents were not provided, the mother was forced to seek judicial assistance. The admission deadline passed before the matter could be resolved, and the child lost the opportunity to attend that school.
Viewed separately, any one of these events might have appeared to be a private disagreement between separated parents. Viewed together, they showed a persistent pattern: the father was not performing the ordinary responsibilities of parenting, but his formal position could still be used to obstruct decisions concerning the child.
Asking him to sign an immigration declaration therefore carried a foreseeable risk of renewed pressure, delay or retaliation.
Our strategy: turn a missing form into an evidentiary case
A request for humanitarian and compassionate relief cannot succeed merely because completing a form is inconvenient.
Our task was to show why this particular signature could not safely and realistically be obtained, why the absence of the declaration should not defeat the application, and why the child's interests supported reunification.
1.We asked for a precise exemption
We did not ask IRCC to disregard parental rights or decide a custody dispute.
We requested relief under section 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act from the applicable requirement associated with the non-accompanying parent declaration.
Section 25(1) permits an officer to grant an exemption from an applicable statutory obligation or criterion when justified by humanitarian and compassionate considerations. In doing so, the officer must take into account the best interests of a child directly affected.
The request was deliberately narrow: assess this child's immigration application on its complete evidence even though the mother could not provide the father's signed IMM 5604. We did not pretend that a sole-custody order existed. We put the absence of such an order before IRCC, supplied the matrimonial and guardianship records, and asked the officer to decide the exemption request on the complete evidence.
2.We built a chronology instead of making accusations
Family-conflict cases often arrive with strong allegations from both sides. A submission becomes less persuasive when it merely repeats emotionally charged conclusions, so we organized the evidence chronologically:
- The marriage, the separation and the mother's role as principal caregiver
- The child's temporary care with the grandmother after the mother moved to Canada
- The father's custody litigation and his withdrawal of the custody proceeding
- The years without meaningful contact, alongside the dispute over financial support
- The school-document incident and the lost admission
- The grandmother's declining health and the mother's readiness to care for the child in Canada
This allowed the officer to see a documented pattern rather than a collection of accusations.
3.We distinguished formal parental rights from the child’s lived reality
The application did not suggest that a parent loses every legal interest simply because they have been absent or difficult. It asked IRCC to examine what had happened in practice. The father had invoked legal processes but had not assumed custody, had lived close to the child without maintaining a meaningful relationship, and had challenged financial responsibility while retaining the ability to obstruct decisions affecting her.
The child's circumstances then shaped the whole analysis rather than a closing paragraph. The evidence addressed who had actually cared for her, the mother's continuing emotional and financial involvement, the grandmother's declining ability to provide daily care, the educational consequences of parental obstruction, and the effect of prolonged separation on a child who needed stability.
The question was not whether Canada might offer better opportunities. It was whether withholding relief would protect this child or merely perpetuate a harmful and unstable separation.
4.We corroborated the account
The request was supported by more than the mother's personal statement. The submission included or referred to:
- Court and litigation records: family-court files, custody proceedings and pleadings
- Sworn declarations from the mother and close family members
- Education and care records: school records, report cards and parental-contact records
- Financial records: tuition, medical and travel expenses and the mother's continuing support
- Relationship and establishment evidence: photographs, correspondence and the mother's establishment in Canada
The documents performed different functions. Some established the litigation history. Others demonstrated the mother's continuing parental role. Together, they made the application difficult to dismiss as a private disagreement unsupported by objective evidence.
“A safeguard intended to protect a child should not become an instrument of indefinite separation.”
The result
IRCC accepted the humanitarian and compassionate request and approved the child's permanent residence application without the ordinary declaration from the non-accompanying parent.
The decision did not erase the family's history or determine the merits of every dispute between the parents. That was not IRCC's role.
It meant that, on the evidence presented, the missing consent form did not have to remain an absolute barrier to reunification.
The daughter was able to join her mother in Canada.
What this case teaches
A missing parental consent form is serious, but it is not always the end of a dependent-child sponsorship.
These cases are strongest when the applicant can demonstrate:
- A genuine inability to obtain consent. Silence, abandonment, coercive control, safety concerns or an unavailable parent must be explained with specific evidence.
- A disclosed legal and evidentiary gap where no sole-custody order exists. Matrimonial judgments, withdrawn guardianship proceedings and pleadings should be filed rather than left unexplained.
- Both formal rights and actual parenting conduct. Officers may need to understand who has provided care, made decisions, paid expenses and maintained contact, and whether the proposed relocation is lawful rather than a way to bypass genuine custody rights.
- A child-specific best-interests analysis that is corroborated. General statements about better opportunities are not enough. Sworn declarations, court records, school documents, financial records and communications should show how the decision affects this particular child.
The outcome in this matter depended on its unusual and extensively documented facts. It should not be understood as a general exemption from obtaining the other parent's consent.