This is NOT funny. Not at all.
If the RPD does not believe a statement of fact presented in the case (such as what the PR-refugee actually knows) and that is a factor in its decision, procedural fairness requires the PR-refugee be informed of this and given an opportunity to address it. Let's be clear, the law is clear (but not clearly applied), what a PR-refugee should know is NOT the issue, rather what they actually know is what matters and is a
key factual consideration. (Also see previous post.)
The discussion of this issue in Camayo explicitly addresses this. The court's summary of the case states:
The respondent testified that she was not aware that using her Colombian passport to travel to Colombia and elsewhere could have consequences for her immigration status in Canada. The RPD rejected this claim, not because the respondent was not credible, but because it found that ignorance of the law was not a valid argument. The RPD should have considered not what the respondent should have known but rather whether she did subjectively intend by her actions to depend on the protection of Colombia. In order for it to make a reasonable decision, the RPD was required to take account of the state of the respondent’s actual knowledge and intent before concluding that she had intended to reavail herself of Colombia’s protection.
In Al Balushi v. Canada, 2025 FC 567 (CanLII),
https://canlii.ca/t/kb9kc . . . as for her not knowing the consequences, it is perhaps too difficult to resist a snarky this-is-funny quip, in this particular case, since when this individual became a PR-refugee of Canada and initially obtained an Omani passport, and traveled to Oman, that had NO CONSEQUENCES for her status. That was BEFORE the Harper government amended the law by adding the draconian Section 46(1)(c.1) provision that would terminate status.
She obviously did not know because she could not have known because it simply was not the case, at the time, that using an Omani passport and traveling to Oman could, let alone would jeopardize her Canadian PR status.
What about her later travel to Oman? After the change in law she traveled to Oman for three days. Just three days. That was in 2015. That was around the time I started this topic because not only were forum participants recommending PR-refugees get a home country passport to submit when they applied for citizenship, the CIC (before name change to IRCC) help line (call centre) was also advising clients to do that, even though the law had changed in December 2012 pursuant to which just getting a home country passport created a presumption of reavailment for which the potential consequences was loss of PR status.
(Refugee related issues were totally outside the sphere of what I followed at the time, but when I became aware of the blatant injustice of the government advising PR-refugees to get a passport and then using the fact they did against them, to strip them of being able to live in a country that had purportedly given them status to live PERMANENTLY, I started this topic to help spread the word.)
But you think it is funny she did not know what government immigration agents engaged in giving information to clients did not know (assuming they were not being deliberately giving false information to entrap refugees). So, yeah, it is indeed too difficult to resist repeating a snarky this-is-funny quip in response.
Make no mistake, the case for cessation against this individual was mostly based on:
-- obtaining a passport and travel to Oman when a PR-refugee could do that without any consequences to their status (that is, prior to December 2012)
-- returning to Oman in 2015 for three days, to renew her passport, at a time when government agents were advising PR-refugees to get a passport to submit with an application for citizenship
-- using her passports, last one obtained in 2015, to travel to other countries
As for the use of a passport to travel to third countries constituting reavailment of home country protection, there are way more people who do not know or understand that rather technical formality, and this has indeed been one of the things I have struggled to persuade many who find it unbelievable, so many believing it cannot be true that traveling to Cuba using an Omani passport means someone settled in Canada permanently, who has Permanent Resident status in Canada, is availing themselves of protection by the nation of Oman. That this is a technicality few understand is so widely and well recognized that in most cessation cases, in the view of most FC justices (judges like Justice Heneghan excepted), even though the use of the passport for travel to third countries is considered an act of reavailment, as a more or less technical fact, this generally carries little weight in regards to the individual's intention, it being recognized that people generally do not intend to do something they do not know or understand they are doing . . . even though they do the act.
(Analogy: an actor on a film set pulling the trigger on a gun, thinking it is shooting blanks, but if somehow there is a live round in the gun, as Alec Baldwin experienced, someone could be shot and killed . . . the act of shooting is a fact, but the actor who did this act did not intend to shoot someone. Similarly, using a passport is an act that legally constitutes availment of that country's protection, but most people use their passport without thinking of that, without knowing that, without using it with the intent to avail that country's protection).
