Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

World Refuge For Sociopaths: Canada

Come one, come all, it so often seems. Canada opens its friendly, welcoming arms to all who seek refuge from the travails of the world outside our Dominion. The country absorbs one quarter of a million immigrants every year. Little wonder, then, that immigration officers cannot always detect when an emigrating candidate is being frank and honest, or when he/she commits casual perjury in declaring themselves to be other than what they truly are.

Such false declarations, under Canadian law, exempt applicants from remaining in the country as landed immigrants. If sufficient time has passed for landed immigrants to embrace Canadian citizenship, that citizenship can legally be revoked if it is discovered that the application was false in any notable dimension. Canada has done some clearly fascinating things of late; placing a former Rwandan on trial for crimes against humanity.

On the other hand, when a friendly country like France issues a request for extradition of one suspected of having indulged in other crimes, like the bombing of a synagogue in that country where people died as a result, and where that very suspect entered Canada illegally, not fully divulging background details that would have restricted him from entry to the country, our laws permit him to vigorously defend himself.

When the Government of Canada has every intention of deporting an immigrant to his native country because both CSIS and the RCMP consider him to be a potential threat to the safety and security of the country, he is enabled to hold up proceedings by appealing to the justice system on the grounds that his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are being eroded.

Canada has, now, on a number of occasions, been forced to repatriate violent criminal offenders whom it has deported to their country of birth because our laws permit such individuals to employ lawyers on their behalf to contest the will and determination of federal government agencies such as the Canada Border Services Agency or the Immigration Ministry determined to rid the country of them.

We are to feel concerned that the human rights of people like Parminder Singh Saini who served a 10-year truncated life-sentence penalty in Pakistan for having been a brutally active member of the militant India Sikh Student Federation who enthusiastically undertook to lead a hijacking of an Air India flight with 264 passengers and crew, forcing the plane to land in Pakistan.

Parminder Singh Saini and his crew threatened to murder the hostages, demanding the release of imprisoned Sikh militants, asylum for themselves and a paltry pay-off of $23-million to assuage their thunderously furious sentiments against their country of birth. Which was more than happy to take him into custody after a two-decade-long absence - but never too late to pay the piper.

This man entered Canada under false identity, claiming to be an Afghan, with an entirely different name than his own. Living in Canada for 15 years before being discovered, he fought ferociously against deportation, ably aided by his Canadian lawyers. He even gained a law degree from University of Windsor; unfortunately for him the Law Society of Upper Canada deeming him to be 'not of good character' ruled him ineligible to practise.

Simply being successful at practising deceit, he learned, does not enable one to practise law in this country. A puzzling conundrum, he must feel, given the amazing support he has received from some Canadian lawyers who feel, obviously, that they are upholding the right of a decent citizen to full justice under the law. Their conception of how the law should be practised and arbitrated, obviously.

And they are appealing his removal from Canadian soil, and being deposited directly on arrival in India in prison there. To serve out his time on Indian soil for a crime committed there. It's fascinating that people whose activities are criminal and socially offensive seek out haven under false pretenses in a country like Canada, doubtless recognized internationally as a soft touch.

His deportation was seen to be a minor victory for the country in ridding itself of yet another leech, representing, in the opinion of two federal Ministers of the Crown, Vic Toews and Jason Kenney, "a victory for the rule of law, the integrity of our immigration system, and the safety and security of Canadians".

Not so fast, say the cadre of lawyers lingering in the background, awaiting their opportunity to render service to scoundrels, criminals and outcasts.

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