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The son’s passport had not been previously used and had not been reported lost or stolen, raising an alarm with investigators with Passport Canada’s Security Bureau.

Mr. Sathasivam and Ms. Ehamparam were asked about the apparent misuse of their son’s passport. The family told officials they kept the passport in their car and it may have been lost without them realizing it. They did not explain why they so urgently had wanted their son’s new passport.

Passport Canada concluded they allowed the passport to be used by someone else and were banned from Canadian passport services for five years.

The family appealed the ban to the Federal Court of Canada but in a recent decision Justice Roger T. Hughes deemed the punishment to be reasonable.

It is one of several incidents in recent years when Canadian citizens loaned or sold their passport to others.

Last May, two people from Edmonton faced the same five-year ban after two imposters — both Iraqi citizens — were arrested in Dubai using their passports and their Canadian citizenship cards to get on a flight to Toronto.

The passports had been submitted to the Syrian embassy in Ottawa a few days after the passports were issued and the imposter later told authorities they had paid US$10,000 each to use them.

The passports were reported stolen in Edmonton only once the travellers were arrested in Dubai.

A year earlier, a five-year ban was upheld by the Federal Court against a woman originally from Nigeria who, shortly after obtaining Canadian citizenship and a passport, twice allowed others to use it to enter Canada illegally.