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The "Immigration and Refugee Protection Act", S.C. 2001, c. 27, ("IRPA") is an Act of the Parliament of Canada, passed in 2001, which replaced the "Immigration Act, 1976" as the primary federal legislation regulating immigration to Canada.
The IRPA came into force on June 28, 2002. Controversially, the government failed to implement a component of the legislation that would have implemented a Refugee Appeal Division as part of Canada's immigration system.
IRPA creates a high-level framework detailing the goals and guidelines the Canadian government has set with regards to immigration into Canada by foreign residents. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR) contain the laws created to fit within the IRPA in order to specify how the IRPA is to be applied.
Portions of IRPA are administered by the Canada Border Services Agency.
Constitutionality
In the case of Charkaoui v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) (2007), Chief Justice McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada held that certain aspects of the scheme contained within the IRPA for the detention of permanent residents and foreign nationals on the grounds of national security violate s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by "allowing the issuance of a certificate of inadmisibility based on secret material without providing for an independent agent at the stage of judicial review to better protect the named person’s interests." She also concluded that "some of the time limits in the provisions for continuing detention of a foreign national violate ss. 9 and 10(c) [of the Charter] because they are arbitrary." The Government of Canada responded by introducing a revised security certificate regime in the IRPA that includes the use of special advocates to review a summary of the evidence without being able to share this information with the accused. The bill to amend the IRPA was passed by Parliament with support from the Conservative and Liberal caucuses and received royal assent in 2008.