Citizenship and Immigration
Status in Canada
Persons in Need of Protection
Judicial review of rejection by Refugee Protection Division of Immigration and Refugee Board of refugee claims—Board wrongly rejecting refugee claims under Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, S.C. 2001, c. 27 by failing to consider totality of evidence, ignoring evidence contrary to Board’s view of claimant’s evidence—Board’s reasons for rejecting claim of generalized risk under IRPA, s. 97(1)(b) unclear—Under IRPA, ss. 96 or 97 claim, claimant must establish personal, objectively identifiable risk—Under IRPA, s. 97(1)(b)(ii), risk must be “personal”, not “generally” faced by other persons in claimant’s country—Generalized risk may fall within definition of Convention refugee if applicant personally subject to serious harm having nexus to one of five grounds enumerated in United Nations Convention Relating to Status of Refugees, July 28, 1951, [1969] Can. T.S. No. 6—Claimant must establish that broadly based harassment or abuse claimant facing sufficiently serious; that risk personalized to claimant, including risk faced by others similarly situated—Protection must be denied under s. 97(1)(b)(ii) only if risk faced generally by all other persons in country, if risk indiscriminate or random—Application allowed.
Surajnarain v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (IMM-1309-08, 2008 FC 1165, Dawson J., judgment dated October 16, 2008, 12 pp.)