Date: 20030114
Docket: IMM-1765-02
Neutral citation: 2003 FCT 27
BETWEEN:
MARIA EULALIA SUAREZ GUTIERREZ
Applicant
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER
TREMBLAY-LAMER J.:
[1] This is an application for judicial review of a decision of the Convention Refugee Determination Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (the "Board") dated March 26, 2002, wherein the Board determined that the applicant was not a Convention refugee.
[2] The applicant is a 75-year-old citizen of Cuba. She claims to have a well-founded fear of persecution by reason of her perceived political opinion.
[3] The facts as set out by the Board are as follows:
[4] In 1951, the applicant married an engineer, with whom she had two daughters. According to the applicant, the Catholic schools closed down after the Revolution, and all children had to attend public schools, where they were taught Communist ideas. All children and teachers were forced to do a 45-day work term in the fields.
[5] The applicant's husband worked for a sugar cane research institute in Havana. According to the applicant, he constantly expressed his opinions against the government's ideas.
[6] On September 18, 1964, he made the decision to stop working for the institute, in the hope of leaving Cuba. The applicant alleged that he was killed by a colleague, a man named Antonio Alonso Bolanos, and that this man also said to the applicant, "before you leave, I will kill you."
[7] The applicant claimed that in 1980, during the Mariel exodus, many Cubans attempted to leave the country. Her nephew came from Miami to fetch the applicant and her daughters. She alleged that the Cuban authorities told him that he would have to transport antisocial people (prisoners) to the United States before he could take the applicant and her daughters. He did not accept this condition and left without the applicant and her daughters. She alleged that the Cuban authorities told people in her neighbourhood and her workplace that she had planned to leave the country, upon which they declared her to be a person not reliable to the revolution.
[8] The applicant claimed that she was under continuous surveillance by the Revolution Committee. She testified that in April 2000, while watching a report on the evening television news, she made a comment criticizing the Cuban government regarding the Elian Gonzalez case (a child at the centre of a propaganda battle between the Cuban and American government). She alleged that the chief of police sent her a note requesting that she be present at the police station the following day. The police told her to stay quietly at home or else, she would have problems.
[9] The applicant left her country on September 1, 2000.
[10] This Court has held that for a convention refugee claim to succeed, there must be a nexus or link between the harm feared and one of the five Convention reasons, that is race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion. Without the required nexus, the claim for refugee status will fail. (Mia v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, [2000] F.C.J. No. 120).
[11] The Board found that the applicant did not discharge the burden of proving that she had a well-founded fear of persecution by reason of her perceived political opinion, and that there was no link to one of the grounds of the Convention. Contrary to the applicant's submissions, I am satisfied that the Board considered all the relevant evidence. It did not separate all the major incidents in her life, but rather considered and weighed those events as a whole, and made its decision based on the totality of evidence before it.
[12] The applicant argues that the Board erred by failing to refer to documentary evidence relating to the practices of the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution ("CDR").
[13] As mentioned by the respondent, there are two types of evidence required to determine if an applicant has a well-founded fear of persecution: evidence which is specific to the applicant's claim and which corroborates the applicant's story and general documentary evidence regarding the applicant's country. (Herabadi v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [2001] F.C.J. No. 1729). The failure of the Board to consider and refer specifically to the first type of evidence may vitiate the decision. On the other hand, the Board is not required to refer to each piece of general documentary evidence regarding the applicant's country, but must simply weigh the totality of the evidence. (Iordanov v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1998), 145 F.T.R. 289).
[14] In the case at bar, the evidence which fell under the first category consisted of the applicant's PIF and her daughter's testimony. The Board referred to that evidence in its reasons. All other documentary evidence was of the second type as it dealt with general country conditions. This includes the documentary evidence describing the practices of the CDR. A statement in its reasons that it considered all the evidence before it when making its findings is enough to satisfy the Court that it directed itself to the totality of the evidence. There is no reason to justify the Court's intervention.
[15] For all these reasons, this application for judicial review is dismissed.
"Danièle Tremblay-Lamer"
J.F.C.C.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
January 14, 2003.
FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA
TRIAL DIVISION
NAMES OF COUNSEL AND SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET: IMM-1765-02
STYLE OF CAUSE: MARIA EULALIA SUAREZ GUTIERREZ
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
PLACE OF HEARING: Ottawa, Ontario
DATE OF HEARING: January 13, 2003
REASONS FOR ORDER
AND ORDER OF THE HONOURABLE MADAM JUSTICE DANIÈLE TREMBLAY-LAMER
DATED: January 14, 2003
APPEARANCES:
Mr. Jacques Despatis FOR APPLICANT
Mr. Richard Casanova FOR RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Jacques Despatis
Barrister & Solicitor
2nd Floor, 162 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario FOR APPLICANT
Morris Rosenberg
Deputy Attorney General of Canada
284 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario FOR RESPONDENT