A procedural fairness letter arrives before a decision rather than after one, and answering it is usually the best opportunity an applicant gets. This page is about the response itself: what IRCC’s own guidance says the officer has to do, and how to build an answer around that.
What the officer is required to do
Procedural fairness is an obligation on the decision-maker, not a courtesy extended to the applicant. IRCC’s operational guidance on procedural fairness states that decision-makers must follow its rules throughout the decision-making process, and that the requirement applies to all types of immigration and citizenship application and to all aspects of decision-making.
Three entitlements follow from that guidance. An applicant is entitled to a fair and unbiased assessment of the application. An applicant is entitled to be informed of the decision-maker’s concerns, and to be advised of the significant facts likely to affect the outcome. And an applicant is entitled to a meaningful opportunity to respond to those concerns, which the guidance describes as including a reasonable opportunity to bring evidence or make arguments.
The guidance puts the principle in a single phrase: a person affected by a decision has “the right to know the case to be met”. That is worth reading before drafting anything, because it describes what the letter is meant to do. It is meant to tell you what the concern is.
Information that did not come from you
One part of the guidance is easy to miss and matters a great deal.
Where an officer relies on extrinsic evidence — which the guidance defines as “evidence received from sources other than the applicant” — the guidance states that the officer must advise the applicant of it and must give an opportunity to respond to it. The duty is triggered by the officer relying on that material; once triggered, the guidance expresses it as a requirement rather than something left to discretion.
In practice, a letter that refers to something you never supplied — a verification made with an employer or an institution, or information obtained from a third party — is putting that material to you, and it forms part of what you are answering. Where the letter refers to information of that kind without describing it, say so in the response and answer it as far as the description allows.
Work out precisely what is being put to you
Fairness letters are short, and the substance is often a single sentence. Setting that sentence out in your own words, before writing anything else, is worth the few minutes it takes.
The type of concern decides the evidence. A concern that a document appears altered is answered differently from a concern that an employment history does not match a reference letter, which is different again from a concern about the source of funds or the purpose of a visit. Where more than one concern is raised, each is a separate question, and a response that answers one of them well and the others not at all is a partial response.
The time you have
Treat the deadline in the letter seriously. IRCC’s general procedural fairness guidance does not set a universal response period for fairness letters, so a period someone else was given is not a guide to yours.
Where a period has been given, the guidance recognises the principle of legitimate expectation: a person who has been assured that a particular procedure will be followed is entitled to that procedure. Applied to a fairness letter, the point is that time already granted is time you are entitled to use, and a negative decision should not be taken before the period stated in your letter has run. The guidance illustrates the principle using a thirty-day period, but that is an illustration of the principle and not a standard response time. Fairness letters set their own periods, and yours will state what it is.
On asking for more time, the honest position is this. IRCC’s general procedural fairness guidance does not establish an entitlement to an extension, and it does not deal with requests for more time at all. Whether additional time can be sought, and how, depends on the particular communication and on the channel IRCC provides for that application. As a matter of prudence rather than any rule, do not assume additional time has been granted unless IRCC confirms it.
Building the response
What follows is not drawn from IRCC guidance. It is a way of organising a response.
Answer each concern separately, and identify for each the evidence that addresses it. Assurance is weaker than documentation. Where authenticity is doubted, confirmation from the body that issued the document does more than a statement that the document is genuine. Where employment is doubted, records that exist independently of the applicant — payroll records, tax filings, statutory deductions — do more than a further letter. Where funds are doubted, the source of the money and the entitlement to it are what is in question.
Where something looks inconsistent, explain it rather than leaving the officer to work it out. An inconsistency with an ordinary explanation stays damaging for exactly as long as it is unexplained.
Where a document genuinely cannot be obtained, say so, say why, and provide the best available alternative together with an account of what was attempted.
Then read the draft against the application itself. The officer has the forms and everything submitted previously, and a response that contradicts the file creates a second problem on top of the first. Where something in the earlier material was wrong, deal with it directly.
Where the letter raises misrepresentation
Most fairness letters raise nothing of the kind, and a discrepancy is not the same thing as a misrepresentation. Where a letter does raise it, however, the stakes change, because the consequence reaches past the application in front of you.
Section 40(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act makes a permanent resident or foreign national inadmissible for misrepresentation 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”.
Where such a finding is made, section 40(2)(a) provides that the person continues to be inadmissible for five years. That period does not run from the refusal. Where the determination is made outside Canada it runs from the final determination of inadmissibility; where the determination is made in Canada it runs from the date the removal order is enforced. Section 40(3) provides that a foreign national who is inadmissible under section 40 may not apply for permanent resident status during that period.
Advice before responding is worth obtaining where that concern is raised. An explanation of a genuine error, supported by evidence, is a different document from a defensive reply.
If a refusal follows
A fairness letter does not mean the application will be refused. Where a refusal does follow, the guidance states that the provision of the Act or Regulations relied on must be cited in the record of the refusal, and that the reasons given to the applicant should reflect the assessment of the facts and the evidence relied upon.
That makes the reasons the first thing to read, because they generally show whether the response was engaged with, and that bears on what is worth doing next. The refused applications page sets out the routes available after a refusal, and which of them are appeals.
Last reviewed: 26 September 2026 against Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada procedural fairness guidance and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Requirements and guidance change. This page is general information, not legal advice about any particular application.