Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Ms. Aida Patricia Salas Manjarres sought judicial review of the Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration's (MIFI) decision refusing her application for temporary selection under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).
• Central to the dispute was whether the applicant met the occupational entry conditions for the administrative assistant position under National Occupational Classification (NOC) code 13110, which requires either a one- to two-year college diploma in office techniques or experience in office work.
• An out-of-court settlement in the first judicial review proceeding required the Minister to conduct a new analysis upon receipt of additional documents from the applicant.
• Following the second review, the Minister again refused, finding that only 3 of the 24 tasks listed in the applicant's employment attestation from Fondation CEFI (12.5%) qualified as office work, and that her experience was principally that of a psychologist.
• The applicable standard of review was the reasonableness standard, as established by the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 CSC 65.
• The applicant failed to demonstrate that the August 18, 2025 decision contained a serious flaw in its justification, intelligibility, or transparency, and the court found she was merely seeking a different assessment of her work experience.

Facts of the case

In September 2024, Aida Patricia Salas Manjarres filed an application for temporary selection under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) for a position as an administrative assistant with company 9207-2933 Québec inc. On March 24, 2025, her application was refused, and she filed for judicial review of that decision. The parties subsequently reached an out-of-court settlement on May 15, 2025, under which the Minister agreed to conduct a new analysis upon receipt of additional documents from the applicant.

After the applicant submitted supplementary documents, the Minister issued a new notice of intention to refuse on June 4, 2025. On June 17, 2025, the applicant's counsel responded within the prescribed timeline, reiterating that the applicant met the conditions of the TFWP and relying on the entry conditions listed in the National Occupational Classification (NOC). In her response, the applicant submitted a highlighted version of the NOC for group 13110 (administrative assistants), an employment attestation from her employer Fondation CEFI, and a correspondence establishing a link between her tasks at CEFI and the highlighted NOC functions.

Policy terms and regulatory provisions at issue

The NOC entry conditions for the administrative assistant position (code 13110) require either a one- to two-year college diploma in office techniques or experience in office work, pursuant to paragraph 2(e) of the first paragraph of section 5 of the Règlement sur l'immigration au Québec. Because the applicant did not hold the required diploma, she could only qualify through demonstrated office work experience. She also submitted an employment attestation in Spanish with its translation for a position as an administrative assistant at Restaurante La Bendiciòn de Dios, which the Minister found was uncorroborated by any other document and described tasks corresponding to restaurant management rather than office work.

Reasoning and analysis

On August 18, 2025, the Minister issued the final refusal decision, analyzing each of the 24 tasks listed in the applicant's CEFI attestation against the NOC functions for administrative assistants. The Minister found that only tasks 3 to 5 — representing 12.5% of the listed tasks — could be considered office work. The remaining tasks, including the management of school platforms and the maintenance of confidential records on student progress, were characterized as the work of a psychologist in a school setting, not office work. The Minister further concluded that the applicant's overall experience at Fondation CEFI was psychological work, not office work.

The court applied the reasonableness standard as established by the Supreme Court of Canada in Vavilov (2019 CSC 65), under which there is a presumption that the reasonableness standard applies to judicial review of administrative decisions on the merits. Both parties agreed no reason existed to depart from this presumption. The court affirmed that the Minister, as the specialized decision-maker in immigration matters, enjoys broad discretion, and that immigration is a privilege, not a right — a principle confirmed in Chazi c. Québec (Procureur général), 2008 QCCA 1703, and Singh c. Procureure générale du Québec, 2017 QCCS 4544. The burden rested on the applicant to demonstrate that the decision suffered from serious flaws going to its justification, intelligibility, or transparency. The court found that the applicant did not meet this burden; rather than identifying a flaw in the decision, she was seeking a different appreciation of her work experience than that reached by the Minister. The court noted that the August 18, 2025 decision was intelligible, that each task and work experience was analyzed, and that no lacuna was demonstrated.

Ruling and overall outcome

The Honourable Lise Bergeron, j.c.s., sitting in the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec (District of Quebec), dismissed the application for judicial review on May 22, 2026. The successful party was the respondent, the Procureur général du Québec acting for the Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI). Costs were awarded against the applicant. No specific monetary amount was ordered or awarded beyond costs, and no exact quantum of costs was specified in the decision.