Docket: IMM-845-20
Citation: 2022 FC 78
Ottawa, Ontario, January 25, 2022
PRESENT: The Honourable Justice Fuhrer
BETWEEN:
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WASI HYDER, SHAHEEN WASI HYDER
AND SYEDA ALINA HYDER JAFRY
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Applicants
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and
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
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Respondent
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JUDGMENT AND REASONS
I.
Overview
[1]
The Principal Applicant, Wasi Hyder is a citizen of Pakistan who identifies as Shia and alleges that he is a renowned activist in the Shia community. Mr. Hyder came to Canada on a temporary resident visa in April 2017, with his co-applicants who are his wife and daughter. Upon their arrival, they filed a claim for refugee protection. The Applicants fear that the people, who previously attacked and threatened them, namely alleged anti-Shia militants, will harm or kill them if they return to Pakistan.
[2]
Mr. Hyder alleges that he retired early from the government in 2008 and returned to university to study electronic engineering. On January 16, 2009, while out with his son (who is not a part of this application) and daughter, Mr. Hyder encountered two robbers who attempted to hijack their vehicle. During this encounter, Mr. Hyder was shot, and his son rushed him to the hospital. The police apprehended one of the hijackers, while the second one fled, and the incident was reported in a local newspaper.
[3]
Mr. Hyder further alleges that the second hijacker threatened to kill Mr. Hyder and his family unless he cancelled the case against him. Packing up their belongings, the family fled to other cities. About one and a half years later, the second hijacker located them and started to threaten them again. Mr. Hyder asserts that he went to the police but they refused to help him with the threats.
[4]
The Refugee Protection Division [RPD] of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada [IRB] found that there was no credible basis for the Applicants’ claims, pursuant to subsection 107(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2011, c 27 [IRPA], and held that they are neither Convention refugees nor persons in need of protection. The Applicants’ application for leave and judicial review of the RPD’s decision was dismissed.
[5]
The Applicants sought a pre-removal risk assessment [PRRA] which was rejected on December 12, 2019 [PRRA Decision]. The Applicants now seek judicial review of the PRRA Decision.
[6]
At the hearing before the Court, the Applicants conceded that the main issue of contention is the reasonableness of the PRRA Decision, specifically whether the PRRA Officer reasonably considered their new evidence. Having considered the parties’ written material, their oral submissions and the applicable law, I am not satisfied the Applicants have met their onus of demonstrating that the PRRA Decision is unreasonable: Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 [Vavilov] at para 100. I thus dismiss their judicial review application for the reasons that follow.
II.
Analysis
[7]
Bearing in mind that it is not the role of the reviewing Court to reweigh and reassess the evidence considered by the decision maker, I am not persuaded that the PRRA Officer here “fundamentally misapprehended or failed to account for”
the Applicants’ new evidence: Vavilov, above at paras 125-126. Looking at the PRRA Decision holistically and contextually, I also am not persuaded that the PRRA Officer’s reasons exhibit a reviewable failure of justification, intelligibility or transparency; rather, they permit me to “connect the dots”
: Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. v Canada (Attorney General), 2021 FCA 157 [Alexion] at paras 15 and 17.
[8]
In support of their PRRA application, the Applicants submitted documentation comprised of two affidavits, a news article from Dawn.com and three police reports. The PRRA Officer considered the affidavits notwithstanding that they were not accompanied by photo identification for the affiants, that they described events pre-dating the RPD decision, and that no reasons were provided why they reasonably could not have been presented to the IRB, further to paragraph 113(a) of the IRPA and subsection 161(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, SOR/2002-227. Noting that the affidavits do not state the affiants witnessed any of the relevant events nor how the affiants came to know of them, the PRRA Officer found that the affidavits have little probative value.
[9]
The first and second police reports relate to the murder of a prominent Shia businessman. The first report describes that the accused “Shan,”
a professed anti-Shia extremist, confessed to the killing of some individuals and the attack on the Mr. Hyder and his children, while the second police report pertains to Shan’s arrest.
[10]
The Dawn.com article mentions that the individuals involved in the businessman’s murder have been identified but it does not mention any names. It further mentions possible political motivation for the murder but nothing about being Shia. Through a Google search, the PRRA Officer located an updated article on the same website, Dawn.com, that named four individuals indicted for the murder of the Shia businessman but made no mention of anyone named Shan, and thus, did not corroborate the Applicants’ evidence.
[11]
The PRRA Officer, therefore, finds these items also have little probative value.
[12]
The third police report relates to attacks and threats against Mr. Hyder’s son who remained in Pakistan and is not a party to this judicial review application. After outlining the report’s shortcomings (no description of the assailants, undefined threats, insufficient information about whether the previous attack on his father, allegedly because of religious hatred, was one and the same as the attack described in Mr. Hyder’s basis of claim form, and unsigned), the PRRA Officer assigned it little weight. The PRRA Officer further noted that only risks associated with the Applicants could be considered; the incidents associated with the son in Pakistan, in themselves, do not demonstrate risks to the Applicants, nor is there sufficient information to support targeting because of the familial relation.
[13]
The PRRA Officer concludes that the Applicants’ documentary evidence is insufficient to establish that Mr. Hyder is a prominent Shia activist or that he was targeted because of his religion or status.
[14]
The Applicants essentially ask that this Court reweigh their evidentiary documentation, which, as mentioned above, is not the role of the reviewing Court. For example, at the hearing before me, the Applicants’ counsel pointed to other articles about the murder of the prominent Shia businessman, located through Google searching, that were not before the decision maker for consideration, even though they pre-date the PRRA Decision by about two weeks.
[15]
The onus is on the Applicants throughout the PRRA application process to put their best foot forward, in the sense of “put[ting] together applications that are convincing and that anticipate adverse inferences contained in the evidence and local conditions and address them”
: Singh v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FC 526 [Singh] at para 52. See also Choufani v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2010 FC 611, at para 26, citing Lupsa v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2007 FC 311, 159 ACWS (3d) 419; and Sufaj v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 FC 373, at para 39.
[16]
If, as in the case before me, an officer’s reasons show that they reasonably considered the evidence before them and reached a justified determination, the Court should avoid stepping in and second guessing the outcome: Quraishi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1145, at para 15, citing Singh above, at para 56. This is what the Applicants request that the Court do by pointing to the other articles located in their own Google search.
[17]
In my view, the PRAA Officer’s reasons demonstrate that they considered and weighed the Applicant’s supporting documentation and provided intelligible conclusions that permit the Court to understand the reasoning process. In other words, I find the PRRA Officer’s determinations are “based on an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis”
and justified in relation to the facts and law that constrained them: Vavilov, above at para 85. In the end, I am satisfied that the reasoning adds up: Alexion, at para 25.
III.
Conclusion
[18]
For the foregoing reasons, I dismiss the Applicants’ judicial review application.
[19]
Neither party proposed a serious question of general importance for certification, and I find that none arises in the circumstances.
JUDGMENT in IMM-845-20
THIS COURT’S JUDGMENT is that:
The Applicants’ application for judicial review of the December 12, 2019 PRRA Decision is dismissed.
There is no question for certification.
"Janet M. Fuhrer"
Judge
Annex “A”
: Relevant Provisions
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27
Loi sur l’immigration et la protection des réfugiés, LC 2001, ch 27
Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, SOR/2002-227
Règlement sur l’immigration et la protection des réfugiés, DORS/2002-227
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FEDERAL COURT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET:
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IMM-845-20
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STYLE OF CAUSE:
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WASI HYDER, SHAHEEN WASI HYDER AND SYEDA ALINA HYDER JAFRY v THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
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PLACE OF HEARING:
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HELD VIA VIDEOCONFERENCE
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DATE OF HEARING:
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July 7, 2021
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JUDGMENT AND REASONS:
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FUHRER J.
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DATED:
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January 25, 2022
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APPEARANCES:
Hussain Bukhari
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For The Applicants
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Suzanne Bruce
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For The Respondent
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SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
Hussain Bukhari
Woodbridge, Ontario
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For The Applicants
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Attorney General of Canada
Toronto, Ontario
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For The Respondent
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