Representative Work

What We Do For Our Clients

Will Tao

Lawyer

Will Tao* (pronouns: he/him) is a Canadian Immigration and Refugee Lawyer at Heron Law Offices., who lives and works on the traditional, unceded territories of the Coast Salish – sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations.

Will provides legal services in all areas of Canadian immigration and refugee law with a focus on complex applications, overcoming refusals, inadmissibility matters, appeals, and judicial reviews. Will regularly appeals before the Immigration and Refugee Board and the Federal Court of Canada. His focus is on international students, families, and temporary foreign workers.

Will also provides strategic advice and consultation to government, media, educational institutions, and businesses on immigration/refugee, decolonization, and race equity related issues. He is the founder and creator of Vancouver Immigration Blog (http://vancouverimmigrationblog.com), where he hopes to make immigration and refugee law more accessible to the general public. He is a second-generation Canadian, product of immigrants, and finds his personal motivation in the sacrifices of his parents and the resilience of Indigenous ancestors to this land.

Will speaks conversational Mandarin. When not working, he can be found organizing on behalf of cultural communities such as Chinatown and the Punjabi Market and exploring ethnic grocery stores and beautiful islands with his spouse Olivia.

*a law corporation

Reported Case History

Representative Cases

S v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2020 FC 718 (CanLII)
Canadian Council for Refugees v. Canada (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship), 2019 FC 418 (CanLII)
Z v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 502 (CanLII)
Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) v. M, 2018 FC 729 (CanLII)
C v Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2018 CanLII 89016 (CA IRB)
W v Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2016 CanLII 90976 (CA IRB)

Courses/Community Involvement

Participated in advisory process for IAD Rules reform and Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers (2019);
Instructor, UBC Continuing Studies CILPP Program (beginning in 2020);
Member, Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group (2019);
Member, Punjabi Market Revitalization Collective (2019);
Member and Former Board Member, Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (2014-present);
Former Chair, City of Vancouver Cultural Communities Advisory Committee (2015-2018);
Former Member, City of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Working Group on Immigration (2017-2018);
Former Member, City of Vancouver’s Historical Discrimination Against People of Chinese Descent Committee (2017-2018);
Former Instructor, Ashton College Immigration Consultant Diploma Program (2017);
Special Advisor, Canadian Bureau for International Education’s national Immigration Advisory Committee (2020)

Presentations

CBA National Immigration Section
Canadian Bureau of International Education
Continuing Legal Education, B.C.
Dignidad Migrante
CAPIC
IMEDA
Cornell University
HULT International Business School
University of Canada West
LaSalle College
Vancouver Film School
Douglas College
University of British Columbia
MOSAIC
S.U.C.C.E.S.S,

Publications

Listening to Our International Students (Asia Pacific Post, 2017)
Nine reasons to think twice about being sponsored by a Canadian partner (Polestar, 2017)
From Marriage Fraud to Marriage Breakdown (Asia Pacific Post, 2017)
Name Calling in Vancouver (New Canadian Media, 2016)
An Open Letter on the Family Reunification File (New Canadian Media, 2015)
Media Must Be Cautious Covering Individual Immigration Cases (New Canadian Media, 2015)
Strengthening Canadian Citizenship: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (New Canadian Media, 2015)
“It May Be Too Late to Repent: Immigration, Tax, and Privacy Concerns in the Context of New Proposed Changes to Social Insurance (SIN) Number Sharing”, Canada’s Immigration and Citizenship Bulletin (June 2015).
This “Sham Marriage” Sounds Like Mine (New Canadian Media, 2015)

Awards and Recognitions

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