If your application has been sitting with IRCC for years with no real explanation, two Federal Court rulings from July 2026 just made it harder for the department to get away with that. In back-to-back decisions, judges ordered Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to actually decide two long-stalled files — one a caregiver permanent residence application waiting 42 months, the other a study permit stuck in security screening for three and a half years. Neither ruling guarantees the same result for anyone else, but together they add real weight to a legal tool applicants can use when IRCC goes quiet for too long: mandamus.
What happened
Dai v. Canada (2026 FC 931), decided July 10. Yu Dai applied for permanent residence under the Home Child Care Provider pilot program in January 2023. By mid-2026 she'd waited roughly 42 months, and IRCC's own processing calculator projected another 39 months on top of that — a total wait north of six and a half years. Justice Michael Battista found that a December 2025 Ministerial Instruction had scrapped the old processing framework for the caregiver program without replacing it with anything — a "processing policy vacuum," in his words — and that IRCC couldn't lean on a policy that doesn't actually describe how or when files get decided to justify an open-ended wait. He ordered a decision within 60 days.
Roghangar v. Canada (2026 FC 987), decided July 22. An Iranian citizen's study permit had been parked in security screening for more than three and a half years — about 21 times longer than IRCC's published 60-day service standard for study permits — with no substantive update. The court found that a vague reference to "ongoing security assessment," with nothing case-specific behind it, wasn't good enough to justify the delay. IRCC was ordered to decide within 45 days.
| Dai v. Canada | Roghangar v. Canada | |
|---|---|---|
| Decided | July 10, 2026 | July 22, 2026 |
| Application type | PR — caregiver (Home Child Care Provider) | Study permit |
| Wait at time of ruling | ~42 months | ~42 months |
| IRCC's stated reason | Processing policy vacuum | Security screening |
| Court's finding | Delay unreasonable, no transparent policy | Delay unreasonable, no case-specific justification |
| Order | Decision within 60 days | Decision within 45 days |
Why this is bigger than two cases
Both rulings lean on a broader shift already underway at the Federal Court. In Benison v. Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal confirmed that once an applicant shows a delay is prima facie unreasonable, the burden flips to IRCC to justify it with real, case-specific evidence — not boilerplate. Benison also knocked down one of the government's go-to defenses: the argument that ordering a decision would let one applicant "jump the queue" ahead of others. The court held that concern alone can't block a mandamus order.
That said, the law here isn't fully settled. The Dai decision itself acknowledged it reached a different conclusion than Hussain v. Canada (2026 FC 885), a contemporaneous ruling on whether the same December 2025 Ministerial Instruction could justify caregiver-program delays. Different Federal Court judges aren't bound by each other's rulings, so a similar file could land in front of a judge who sees it differently. IRCC could also respond by issuing a new Ministerial Instruction with an actual processing framework — which would restore the kind of justification Justice Battista found missing in Dai.
How mandamus actually works
Mandamus is a court order compelling a government body to perform a duty it has unreasonably failed to carry out. In immigration cases, that means forcing IRCC to make a decision — it does not force IRCC to approve anything. A mandamus order can just as easily produce a refusal as an approval.
Courts apply two tests together:
- The Conille v. Canada three-part test for unreasonable delay: the wait exceeds what the process reasonably requires, the applicant didn't cause the delay, and IRCC has no satisfactory explanation.
- The broader Apotex v. Canada (Attorney General) eight-factor test for whether mandamus should be granted at all.
To start, you file an application for leave and judicial review at the Federal Court within 15 days of realizing the delay is unreasonable. You're allowed to represent yourself, but mandamus applications require affidavits and legal argument that make a lawyer's involvement strongly advisable in practice.