Under some circumstances, candidates may need to add a Letter of Explanation (LoE) to their application. This can result from a missing document that could not be provided, an incoherence that might jump to the attention of the immigration officer reviewing your case, etc.

The LoE is also your way of communicating to immigration officers any supplementary information that is not on the documents uploaded and that you deem important for them to know. 

​As there are multiple sections for uploading documents (Passport, Education, Proof of Work Experience, Medical Exam, etc.), you are only given the choice of uploading one PDF document (under 4MB) per section. This means that you need to write an LoE for each section (if needed of course), and add it to the rest of the documents relating to said section. 

For example, if you are missing your Diploma because it has been lost, write an LoE explaining what happened and why you could not provide the Diploma, add it to the rest of the documents (WES report, transcripts, etc.) to form one PDF file. Then upload the PDF file in the Proof of Studies section.

We strongly advise you to put the LoE at the beginning of the PDF file. This ensures that the immigration officer reads the LoE first, and then goes on to the other documents attached to the LoE (if there are any).

If you cannot provide the documents per IRCC’s requirements, we recommend that you add any other document that you can think of that would make the immigration officer believe that you are acting in good faith. To come back to the missing Diploma example, you can add a police report and/or a school receipt attesting that you have asked for a duplicate.