Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave Allowing Criminals to Deceive

"[To deny him the chance to appeal] means he will suffer the 'unduly punitive effect' of removal from Canada based on guilty pleas that would not have been entered had he been properly informed, and deportation to a dangerous country he does not know and that does not want him."

"He and his family were declared Convention refugees by the United Nations in 2013 based on race-based attacks in Somalia, where his parents were born."

"Immigration proceedings leading to deportation were initiated against the applicant in 2024 because of his convictions, and he has since been found inadmissible to remain in Canada on grounds of serious criminality."

Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Kevin Feth 

 

"Mr. Sharif's criminal activities were both serious and dangerous to the public, in addition to the lack of evidence of rehabilitation and the difficulty following rules."

"I have reasonable ground to believe that Mr. Sharif represents a present and future danger to the Canadian public, whose presence in Canada poses an unacceptable risk."

Immigration Minister delegate

 

"My lawyer also told me that I likely would not be deported after pleading guilty because the charges were not serious."

"When I pled guilty to the charges, I did not know that a conviction for sexual assault or a sentence of more than six months would make me inadmissible in Canada and subject to deportation. I also did not know that if I was ordered removed by immigration officials, I would not be able to appeal that decision because I was a permanent resident and not a citizen."

Mahir Yahya Sharif 

The Court of Appeal building in Calgary. Photo by Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald/Postmedia

 

This man of Somalian heritage who had been given refugee status in Canada with his family when he was 19 years of age in 2019, pleaded guilty to trafficking large amounts of methamphetamine and fentanyl, and committing  sexual assault. The Alberta judge whom the man stood before with his legal team allowed himself to be convinced by the man's pleas that he should be given more time to appeal his convictions, through his argument that he had been misled by previous legal advice.

 

Mahir Yahya Sharif, a permanent resident of Canada at the time of his 2022 conviction, having served three years for drug and sex crimes, now faces deportation to Somalia, having been declared a danger to Canada by the Department of Immigration. After his parents fled to Saudi Arabia from Somalia, Sharif was born there, in 1999. His first language is Arabic, speaking no Somali. The claim is that his substance abuse began after his arrival in Canada, exacerbating his history of schizophrenia.

 

He was returned to custody in 2024 when he breached his parole conditions, placed in the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatchewan. Claiming his English to be too poor for him to fully comprehend the language and portent of the immigration documents he was given by an immigration officer when he was told to respond by April 2025, Justice Feth is in complete sympathy with a man whose criminal record is serious and who was purportedly unable to master English in his years of residence in Canada. 

 

Justice Feth took issue with the Immigration Department delegate who "found a 'less than reasonable chance' that the applicant would be at risk if returned to Somalia, and that any humanitarian and compassionate considerations for his continued residency in Canada were outweighed by the danger he posed to the public". He had been transferred into the Custody of the Canada Border Services Agency in Ontario, awaiting deportation scheduled for June of 2025. 

 

He was to be deported to Nairobi, Kenya from whence he would be left to travel on to Somalia, since officials in Somalia informed Canadian officials that they were not prepared to accept him (or anyone else with a mental health condition). The Canadian Federal Court dismissed Sharif's application for a judicial review of the report by the ministerial delegate. Sharif applied for  judicial review of the Immigration Minister's refusal to accede to a request by the UN Human Rights Committee that Canada suspend the man's removal.

 

The appeal of that decision was also dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal, leading Sharif to apply to the Albert Court of Appeal for more time to appeal his convictions. Justice Feth took issue with the delegate failing to touch on "Somalia's corresponding refusal to issue him travel documents ... the CBSA's decision not to accompany him to Somalia, contrary to CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency) policy, and ... evidence about Al-Shabaab posing a significant and growing security risk in Mogadishu contrary to the author's conclusion that the group has not had a presence in Mogadishu in over a decade and poses minimal risk."

 

"The decision to remove Mr. Sharif given his mental health condition and concomitant needs is harsh", stated Justice Feth, noting that Sharif plans to apply for leave to appeal the outcome of his Ontario Court of Appeal case to the Supreme Court of Canada.  

 

The Rebel 

 

Beijing's Deep Concern for Human Dignity

"The facts of the crimes committed by the Canadian nationals involved in the cases are clear, and the evidence is solid and sufficient."

"The Chinese judicial authorities have handled the cases in strict accordance with the law, and have fully guaranteed the rights and interests of the Canadian nationals concerned."

"China always imposes severe penalties on drug-related crimes and maintains a 'zero tolerance' attitude toward the drug problem."

"[Canada should] respect the rule of law and China's judicial sovereignty [and] stop making irresponsible remarks."

China's Ottawa Embassy 

"Global Affairs Canada [Canadian Foreign Affairs Department] can confirm it is aware that, earlier this year, Canadians were executed in the People's Republic of China."

"Canada strongly condemns China's use of the death penalty, which is irreversible and inconsistent with basic human dignity."

"Canada repeatedly called for clemency for these individuals at the senior-most levels."

Foreign Affairs Canada 

The Chinese flag flies outside Beijing’s embassy to Canada in Ottawa. (Photo: Jharnett44 via Wikimedia Commons)  

 

China is distinct in the world for many reasons, and one of its distinctions is its free use of the death penalty for what it considers to be capital offense crimes. Although there are many countries across the globe that continue to use the death penalty -- the United States among them -- China has the distinction of putting more people to death as a crime penalty than all other countries combined. A runner-up in the state-death competition is the Islamic Republic of Iran whose mode of execution includes hanging, crucifixion, stoning and firing squads.

 

China's choice of state execution for those judged to have run afoul of its criminal laws in capital offenses also die by firing squads, although Beijing has latterly introduced lethal injections as well. Once a charge has been laid by the state of anyone having committed a capital offense, it is almost unknown for a court to strike a trial, instead rubber-stamping guilt with the accompanying penalty of execution. With its vast population of over 1.4 billion people, Beijing is not known to be sensitive to any concept as remote to it as 'human rights'.

 

In the instance of the publicly newly-revealed death by state execution of Canadian citizens, neither the Chinese embassy in Canada's capital of Ottawa or Canada's Foreign Affairs department divulged just how many Canadians had been executed, nor identified those executed by publishing their names. An Abbotsford, British Columbia native, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, known to have been sentenced to death by a Chinese court in 2019 on a charge of drug smuggling, however, was not among the executed. 

 

A photo submitted by the RCMP shows a clandestine drug lab where Mounties say a large quantity of fentanyl was discovered in Mission, B.C. in November 2023. (submitted by Mission RCMP)

Those who met their untimely fate may have been dual citizens of Canada and China. China does not recognize or give credence to dual citizenship, and feels no diplomatic sensitivity in ignoring Canadian citizenship alongside Chinese citizenship. Although the Chinese head of mission at the embassy in Ottawa did not clarify whether any of these executed were involved in drug smuggling or trafficking, they did state that Beijing has a "zero tolerance" approach to drug crime.

 

There are, it seems, altogether 100 Canadians currently detained in China. It is interesting to note that while China deals severely with anyone identified and caught being involved in the drug trade, it is from China that the artificial, laboratory-produced opioid Fentanyl arrived in North America to wreak deadly havoc in Canada and the United States. Although on appeal Beijing listed fentanyl making it illegal to transport or sell it abroad, the precursor chemicals associated with fentanyl production still emanate from Chinese labs, where criminal gangs in North America employ 'cooks' to produce lethal fentanyl.

 

Health Canada says it can only take a few grains of fentanyl to kill someone. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

"As in pre­vi­ous years, exe­cu­tion totals do not include the esti­mat­ed thou­sands of exe­cu­tions car­ried out by the world’s lead­ing exe­cu­tion­er, China, where exe­cu­tion data is con­sid­ered a state secret; secre­cy prac­tices and chal­lenges access­ing infor­ma­tion in Afghanistan, North Korea, Palestine, Syria, and Vietnam also cre­at­ed dif­fi­cul­ties in iden­ti­fy­ing min­i­mum totals. This world­wide increase was pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by a 48% rise in exe­cu­tions in Iran, which account­ed for 74% of exe­cu­tions world­wide. Iran (at least 853 exe­cu­tions), Saudi Arabia (172 exe­cu­tions), Somalia (at least 38 exe­cu­tions), the U.S. (24 exe­cu­tions), and Iraq (at least 16 exe­cu­tions) were the top five coun­tries respon­si­ble for record­ed exe­cu­tions."

Death Penalty Information Center