Overview
In March 2026, legislative changes under Bill C-12 amended Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, barring individuals from referring refugee claims to the Refugee Protection Division (RPD) if the claim is made more than one year after their initial entry into Canada. Claimants affected by this bar are instead redirected to the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) process. A computational study examining nearly 29,000 adjudicative decisions from 2006 to 2025 evaluated the empirical foundations of this policy, specifically testing claims regarding filing timelines and claimant vulnerabilities.
Research Context
The implementation of the one-year bar under Bill C-12 created a procedural diversion in Canadian refugee adjudication. While standard claims proceed to the RPD, claimants filing past the one-year threshold must undergo a PRRA. The PRRA process is typically decided on a paper record by an immigration officer, without an automatic oral hearing, without an appeal on the merits, and without an automatic stay of removal while judicial review is pending.
The policy debate surrounding the measure centered on two competing premises:
- Government rationale: The statutory bar was defended partly on the premise that individuals fleeing persecution make refugee claims promptly upon arrival.
- Critic perspectives: Counterarguments maintained that delayed filings are concentrated among vulnerable populations, notably individuals fleeing persecution based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression (SOGIE).
Approach
To assess these competing assertions, the study applied artificial intelligence tools to extract and analyze information across nearly 29,000 published Canadian adjudicative records spanning 2006 to 2025. The dataset comprised published decisions from three tiers of the refugee determination and review framework:
- The Refugee Protection Division (RPD)
- The Refugee Appeal Division (RAD)
- The Federal Court
Outputs produced through artificial intelligence methods were systematically verified through human review to ensure analytical reliability across the corpus of legal decisions.
Findings
The empirical analysis established several key patterns regarding claimant filing timing and subsequent appellate outcomes:
- Prevalence of late filings: Although the majority of claimants filed within one year of entry into Canada, approximately one in nine claimants within the published record filed after the one-year mark.
- Overrepresentation of gender and SOGIE claims: Claims centered on persecution related to gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression were significantly overrepresented among claims filed past the one-year threshold.
- Differential appellate outcomes: Among claims made after the one-year mark, refusals of gender and SOGIE claims were more likely to be overturned on appeal or judicial review than refusals of claims grounded in other reasons. Conversely, late claims based on other grounds performed somewhat worse during appellate or judicial review than their timely counterparts.
Why This Matters
The findings indicate that the one-year filing bar under Bill C-12 targets a cohort in which gender and SOGIE claims are concentrated, thereby stripping oral hearings, merits appeals, and automatic stays of removal from the specific categories of late claimants for whom these legal safeguards have historically been most active in overturning refusals. In light of these dynamics, the study recommends repealing the one-year bar or introducing specific exemptions, procedural protections, and increased transparency within PRRA decision-making.