All your visa refusals should be declared in your application, not doing so can lead to misrepresentation. As per law, you have an obligation to be truthful. Section
See Tuiran v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 324 (CanLII), <
http://canlii.ca/t/hr59k
Alalami v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 328 (CanLII), <
http://canlii.ca/t/hr6r1>
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Any application you file can be looked into and there should be no discrepancy if you have filed multiple applications. If you filed a TRV in which you did not declare a job, and then you claimed a job in your PR application, this is a discrepancy. Similarly, if you were refused a visa before, the same has to be declared in the subsequent application filed with IRCC.
If you file any application with IRCC, TRV, WP, PR etc, any of them can be looked into to review your current application and any inconsistency can be a cause of misrepresentation. All applications have to be consistent, and if they are not, a reason on why you omitted the information has to be provided. Even if the reason is that you inadvertently forgot to mention a prior refusal, you have to inform IRCC.
While answering the statutory questions you have to list all prior visa refusals. Failing to declare any prior visa refusal is misrepresentation and the federal court has ruled on it in the following decision:
Algohar v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1364 (CanLII), available at
http://canlii.ca/t/j36dk
It is an applicant's duty to disclose all material information pertaining to ones information and answer all questions truthfully.
If you inadvertently forgot to mention a prior visa refusal, you can send a web form and inform IRCC. Irrespective of what stage your application is at, or if it has even been approved, if it is found that you failed to disclose any material information in your application, it can impact your PR status.
In Tuiran v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 324 (CanLII) the court held, " Section 16(1) of the Act requires visa applicants to answer all questions truthfully and produce all relevant documents and evidence reasonably required when making an application under the Act. The purpose of the misrepresentation provisions in the Act is “to ensure that applicants provide complete, honest and truthful information in every manner when applying for entry into Canada” (Jiang v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2011 FC 942 at para 36; Khan v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2008 FC 512 at paras 26-29; Wang v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2005 FC 1059 at paras 57-58, affirmed in 2006 FCA 345 [Wang])." I emphasize that it does not matter that the authorities may have the ability to catch the misrepresentation or not. What matters is whether the misrepresentation induced or could have induced an error in the administration of the IRPA.
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Does a prior visa refusal have an impact on the process of your PR application?
The answer is maybe. It will depend on why the visa was refused. If it was refused for criminality, immigration fraud, HRV issues etc. then you will have to look into criminal inadmissibility and security inadmissibility issues. If the reason was just an administrative one, such as the via officer not being satisfied, then it will not have any impact as long as you have disclosed it.
Also, if you have a prior visa refusal from Canada, the same applies, as long as you have disclosed it. The criteria for PR and visitor's visa are different and except for what is listed above, it will not have an impact, provided you disclose it.
