Student Visa Entitlements : Breaking the Law in Canada

"[If I am deported, it will mean that] many in my generation will be further disillusioned with the possibility of having their voices heard in Canada."

"[My treatment by Canadian authorities has been] Kafkaesque." 

"[With deportation, separation from my Canadian wife would be] devastating."

Pakistani national Zain Haq, 24, Canada student visa holder 

Climate activist Zain Haq who faces imminent deportation for nonviolent climate activism despite prior intervention by the minister of immigration, appears at a press conference in Vancouver, B.C. on January 20, 2025. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10106969A

"Haq is not a violent criminal, and his mischievous convictions do not meet the legal threshold for serious criminality."

"He has made a lawful application for permanent residence as the spouse of a Canadian citizen, and he has properly applied to extend the temporary status that was granted to him in April."

"This deportation is entirely avoidable, resulting from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada's [IRCC] inability to locate his application."

Haq lawyer Randall Cohn

"[Haq's environmental zeal was] laudable; [he is an] intelligent, motivated young person."

"[However, it is clear that Haq knew what he was doing]. He knowingly and deliberately broke the law and he did so fully aware of the consequences and the impact that his actions would have on innocent parties."

British Columbia Judge Reginald Harris

According to the terms of the student visa which enabled Pakistani national Zain Haq to enter Canada in 2019 he was expected to respect Canadian law. This he clearly did not do. And despite his student visa he failed to meet his academic requirements. As an international student he arrived in Canada with a pledge to abide by the law of the land. And once the terms of study were complete he was meant to leave the country. Standard visa privileges and obligations.

However, from 2021 forward Haq became, among other individuals, a central figure in disruptive illegal road blockades in the Vancouver area. In tallying up the damage from the blockades, Crown prosecutors spoke of tens of thousands of transit buses, delivery drivers and motorists snarled in traffic for hours while emergency vehicles were unable to access St. Paul's Hospital, and travellers missed their flights out of Vancouver International, the second-busiest airport in the country.

He had been barred as a result of earlier blockades from being present on the city's Cambie Street Bridge where he had earlier been arrested as well as having just been released from immigration detention just prior on condition he not organize any additional blockades. Nonetheless he violated those release conditions with yet another blockade. Finally facing a long-delayed deportation order he appealed the deportation at a press conference this week. His original deportation order was for April but a temporary stay came from someone in the Trudeau government.

Environmental groups with which he was allied in the blockades have come to his defence, as has the Green Party leader. The sentence meted out to Haq by B.C. judge Reginald Harris called for a light sentence in part because he is not a Canadian citizen, since judges are required to weigh the "potential immigration consequences" to foreign nationals, and to consider it as part of their overall punishment for a criminal conviction, explaining the 61-day house arrest.

The man was in the country on a prolonged basis through a temporary resident permit which he attempted to renew. His deportation order was reactivated when Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced his renewal application had never been received by the department. He is now scheduled for removal on January 25.

Green Leader Elizabeth May (left) and climate activist Zain Haq at a news conference on Monday. Haq faces imminent deportation. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG

"Enough with this nonsense."

"If you come to British Columbia to study -- you shouldn't be breaking the law here."

"Deport him back to Pakistan."

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad