Date: 20090525
Docket:
IMM-4864-08
Citation: 2009 FC 542
Ottawa, Ontario, May 25, 2009
PRESENT:
The Honourable Mr. Justice Martineau
BETWEEN:
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP
AND IMMIGRATION
and
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
Applicants
and
BEKIM
IMERI
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT AND
JUDGMENT
[1]
The
applicants are challenging the lawfulness of the decision made by the
Immigration and Refugee Board (the Board) on October 2, 2008, in
which the Board accepted the respondent’s claim for refugee protection and
refused to exclude him from the definition of Convention refugee.
[2]
The
respondent is a citizen of Macedonia and a member of the Muslim
Albanian minority. He is a former student of the University of Tetovo and an activist for Albanian minority
rights. In the summer of 2001, during the conflict between the Albanian
minority and the Macedonian government, the respondent offered his assistance
to the National Liberation Army (NLA). According to the documentary evidence,
the NLA was created in early 2001 and dissolved in September of the same year.
During that period, the NLA, which was pro‑Albanian, occupied certain
villages, including the respondent’s village. NATO quickly intervened; the
Macedonians feared that their Albanian neighbours wanted to create a Greater
Albania. In August 2001, an agreement was reached to amend the
Constitution to give the Albanian minority greater rights and disarm the NLA.
During his testimony, the respondent explained that he had never been a member
of the NLA’s “army section”; however, he said that he had been a member of the
“civilian section”. In any event, he participated in the NLA for only
two months, May and June 2001. At that time, the people in his
village believed that the NLA would protect them from the Macedonian army. All
those who were able became involved in the village’s defence in anticipation of
an attack that never occurred. The respondent dug trenches at the NLA’s request
and helped house refugees from the Albanian minority. In his testimony, the
respondent stated that he had agreed with the NLA’s objectives but not the
means it used, namely violence. However, he said that he had not witnessed any
acts of violence by the NLA.
[3]
In the
decision under review, the Board found that the respondent was credible. In
particular, it noted that in 2001 he was committed to a cause “supported by the
European Union and by the United States, namely, the defence of the rights of
the Albanian minority, and in particular educational and language rights”.
Moreover, in the Board’s opinion, the respondent’s past activities were along
these lines, both in the Tetovo university community and as a member of his
village’s municipal council. With regard to the respondent’s exclusion, the
Board determined that the NLA was an organization that “had many purposes other
than the limited, brutal purposes”. The Board also refused to find that the
respondent was complicit by association, noting that it had not been
“established that the claimant personally and knowingly participated in acts of
persecution” and that “there was no existence of a shared common purpose as
between ‘principal’ and ‘accomplice’”. With regard to inclusion, the Board
concluded that the documentary evidence confirmed the respondent’s fear of
being personally persecuted by the Macedonian police. As a result, it decided
to accept his claim for refugee protection.
[4]
The
applicants now submit that the Board erred with respect to the applicable
standard of proof and that it clearly erred in finding that the NLA was not an
organization with a limited, brutal purpose and that the respondent could not
be considered complicit by association. In short, because of his membership in
the NLA and the material support he provided to the NLA in 2001, and also
because of his knowledge of the abuses committed by the NLA against the
civilian population, the applicants submit that the respondent participated or
was complicit in crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts contrary to the
principles of the United Nations, which means that he can be excluded from
having Convention refugee status.
[5]
The
decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, 2008 SCC 9, [2008]
1 S.C.R. 190, has not substantially changed the scope of the standard of
review applicable to the Board’s decisions concerning the applicability of the
exclusion clauses. According to past decisions of this Court and the Federal
Court of Appeal, the application of the legal concept of complicity to the
facts of a case is a question of mixed fact and law within the Board’s
specialized expertise and is therefore subject to the standard of
reasonableness (Tchoumbou v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration), 2008 FC 585, at paragraphs 21‑24, [2008]
F.C.J. No. 920 (QL); Harb v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration), 2003 FCA 39, at paragraph 14, [2003] F.C.J.
No. 108 (QL); Valère v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration), 2005 FC 524, [2005] F.C.J. No. 643 (QL), at
paragraph 12; Salgado v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration), 2006 FC 1, at paragraph 8, [2006] F.C.J. No. 1
(QL)).
[6]
Mere
membership in an organization that is principally directed to a limited, brutal
purpose makes it possible to infer that an individual is complicit in the
organization’s purpose and systematically results in the application of the
exclusion clauses (Ramirez v. Canada (Minister of Employment and
Immigration), [1992] 2 F.C. 306, at paragraph 16, [1992] F.C.J.
No. 109 (Ramirez); Moreno v. Canada (Minister of Employment
and Immigration), [1994] 1 F.C.
298, [1993] F.C.J. No. 912, at paragraph 45 (Moreno); Harb,
at paragraph 19). This is a presumption of complicity: a shared common
purpose between the individual and the organization is presumed unless the
individual rebuts the presumption (Yogo v. Canada (Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration), 2001 FCT 390, [2001] F.C.J. No. 655
(QL), at paragraph 35 (Yogo); Bukumba v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration),
2004 FC 93, [2004] F.C.J. No. 102 (QL)). The Minister must therefore prove
actual or presumed complicity (Ramirez). This is an exception to the
general principle that mere membership in a group is not enough to create
complicity (Ramirez, at paragraph 16). The characterization of the
nature of the organization therefore becomes determinative (Yogo;
Sivakumar v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1994] 1 F.C. 433, at paragraphs 9,
13, [1993] F.C.J. No. 1145 (QL)).
[7]
With regard to the abuses committed by the NLA
in 2001, the documentary evidence in the record refers to the U.S. Department
of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2001, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which reveals the following:
NLA insurgents also committed serious abuses against the civilian
population, including killings, beatings, looting, and "ethnic
cleansing."
. . .
The NLA also killed civilians during the conflict (see Section 1.g.). For
example, on August 26, NLA members killed two Macedonian employees in a bomb
explosion at a Macedonian-owned restaurant.
. . .
b. Disappearance
Several persons disappeared during the conflict, possibly for political
reasons or due to conflicts among organized crime groups. Authorities and the
local press frequently addressed the status of 12 ethnic Macedonians and, less
frequently, 6 ethnic Albanians, all of whom disappeared during the conflict.
Former NLA leaders denied knowledge of the whereabouts of the 12 ethnic
Macedonians who disappeared from their villages around Tetovo. The Government
accused the NLA of having killed them, and the Public Prosecutor and the
Minister of Interior claimed that their bodies were buried northeast of Tetovo.
However, an exhumation of the suspected gravesite conducted by the Ministry of
the Interior from November 22 to 25 was inconclusive at year's end.
. . .
The NLA beat,
threatened, and otherwise mistreated civilians during the conflict. On
May 24 and 25 in Matejce, NLA members detained for 4 days four elderly
ethnic-Serb men in the village mosque and reportedly beat them with their fists
and guns, and kicked them. The NLA members also detained a second group
of ethnic Serbs for 4 days and beat some of them. On August 7, NLA
members abducted five ethnic-Macedonian road workers on the Tetovo-Skopje
highway. They beat the workers, mutilated them with knives, and forced
them to perform sexual acts on each other. The workers were then
released. There were persistent, unconfirmed rumors that the NLA
threatened to kill elected ethnic-Albanian political leaders and journalists if
they publicly opposed the insurgency (see Section 2.a.).
. . .
The NLA frequently
and arbitrarily detained ethnic Macedonians, and in at least one instance,
ethnic Serbs, in areas under its control. Most were released unharmed
shortly after their detention. According to Human Rights Watch, on May
24, NLA elements detained four ethnic-Serb men--all reportedly fathers of
Macedonian policemen--from the village of Matejce and allegedly tortured them for 4 days before they released them
(see Section 1.c.). On June 29, NLA insurgents detained three ethnic
Macedonians, including one foreigner. On August 26, the NLA released the
three men to the ICRC.
. . .
On June 11, the
NLA burned ethnic-Macedonian homes and an Orthodox Church in southern
Matejce. On July 28, members of the NLA reportedly set fire to
ethnic-Macedonian homes in Tearce to discourage returns of ethnic Macedonians
to their villages; an NLA rebel commander claimed that the fires were caused by
electrical problems from downed power lines.
. . .
NLA combatants
sometimes used ethnic-Albanian civilians as human shields, forcing them to
remain against their will in villages under artillery attack, thereby
purposefully increasing the risk of civilian casualties. Both sides
tortured, beat, and harassed civilians of the opposing ethnic group (see
Section 1.c.). The NLA actively spread misinformation about the police,
exaggerating the number and extent of their confirmed, serious abuses.
Both the Macedonian police and the NLA arbitrarily arrested and detained
persons (see Section 1.d.). Both sides destroyed homes and property (see
Section 1.f.)
Civilians were
killed by landmine explosions, which the NLA laid on roads heavily traveled by
civilians. On July 19, two European Union monitors and their interpreter
were killed in western Macedonia when their vehicle hit a landmine that allegedly was laid by the
NLA. On July 29, an NLA landmine explosion on the Lesok-Zelce road north
of Tetovo killed two ethnic-Macedonian civilians. Landmines planted by the
NLA also killed security forces, including two members of the security forces
on March 4. At year's end, no statistics were available on persons killed
or injured by landmine explosions.
The NLA reportedly
attacked the ethnic-Albanian village of Malina Maala with mortars when villagers disobeyed NLA instructions to
evacuate the settlement.
The NLA at times
engaged in "ethnic cleansing" campaigns in areas under its
control. Threatening violence, the NLA forced thousands of ethnic
Macedonians from their homes in northern and western Macedonia. The
Framework Agreement called for safe conditions under which displaced persons
could return home, and much progress had been made toward that goal by year's
end.
The NLA cut off
the water supply to the city of Kumanovo in June for approximately 11
days, causing serious health and humanitarian problems for civilians in the
city. A cease-fire was negotiated in June by the national security
advisor and the NLA, which allowed ethnic-Macedonian water engineers to reopen
the water valves.
[8]
Subsection 4(3)
of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, S.C. 2000,
c. 24, defines “crime against humanity” as follows:
|
“crime
against humanity” means murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation,
imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution or any other inhumane act
or omission that is committed against any civilian population or any
identifiable group and that, at the time and in the place of its commission,
constitutes a crime against humanity according to customary international law
or conventional international law or by virtue of its being criminal
according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of
nations, whether or not it constitutes a contravention of the law in force at
the time and in the place of its commission. . . .
|
«
crime contre l'humanité » Meurtre, extermination, réduction en esclavage,
déportation, emprisonnement, torture, violence sexuelle, persécution ou autre
fait - acte ou omission - inhumain, d'une part, commis contre une population
civile ou un groupe identifiable de personnes et, d'autre part, qui
constitue, au moment et au lieu de la perpétration, un crime contre
l'humanité selon le droit international coutumier ou le droit international
conventionnel, ou en raison de son caractère criminel d'après les principes
généraux de droit reconnus par l'ensemble des nations [...]
|
[9]
In this
case, the respondent does not dispute the fact that the NLA committed the
crimes against humanity alleged against it in the documentary evidence on which
the applicants rely. What the respondent considers problematic is
characterizing it as an organization principally directed to a limited, brutal
purpose. He relies on the following reasoning of the Board:
[29] Was the NLA an organization
that was principally directed to a limited, brutal purpose? There is no
question that the NLA led an armed insurrection and attacked Macedonia’s armed forces. Although it
claimed to be fighting to protect the rights of Albanians, it unquestionably
carried out some reprehensible acts, such as forcing Albanian villagers to
remain in their village and thus making them human shields, and forcibly
removing Macedonians from their homes and using antipersonnel mines, thus
endangering the lives of civilians. The NLA was also responsible for a number
of civilian deaths.
[30] An analysis of the
documentation submitted reveals that Macedonian authorities may have committed
more human rights violations than the NLA, although this does not excuse the
NLA’s actions.
[31] Nevertheless, the armed
conflict lasted only a short period of time, that is from February to
July 2001, and very few lives were lost. Furthermore, when the conflict
ended, the NLA laid down its weapons after obtaining a number of concessions
from the Macedonian authorities.
. . .
[33] The panel does not conclude
that the NLA did not commit crimes against humanity, but it does conclude that
it had many purposes other than the limited, brutal purposes. The panel is of
the opinion that assisting the cause defended by the NLA does not automatically
constitute complicity in crimes against humanity.
[10]
In
the decision under review, the Board also concluded that the criteria for
complicity by association had not been met for the following reasons:
[34] In the claimant’s case, the
Minister is not alleging that the claimant personally committed such acts.
However, the Minister did not establish on the balance of probabilities that
the claimant was aware of the crimes against humanity that had been committed by
the NLA. The claimant was isolated in his occupied village and kept busy
relocating the refugees and digging trenches to protect the population. His
involvement was limited to the two‑month period during which his village
was occupied. To support the allegation of complicity, it was not established
that the claimant personally and knowingly participated in acts of persecution
(assuming that such acts were committed), within the meaning of the criteria
set out by the Federal Court of Appeal in Ramirez v. MEI.
Furthermore, to quote the Federal Court of Appeal in Moreno v. Canada,
there was no existence of a shared common purpose as between “principal” and
“accomplice”.
[35] Consequently, there were no
serious reasons for considering that the claimant had committed a crime against
humanity, either directly or indirectly. The panel therefore determines that
the claimant must not be excluded from protection pursuant to the provisions of
Article 1F of the Convention.
[11]
The
applicants submit first that the Board erred at paragraph 34 of its
decision with regard to the standard of proof applicable to the respondent’s
exclusion. However, paragraph 34 must be read in conjunction with
paragraph 35, so I will presume that the Board applied the criterion
established by the case law for the requisite standard of proof, namely
“serious reasons for considering”. Indeed, the Board cited Moreno and Ramirez at paragraph 34 of its
decision.
[12]
In
Pushpanathan v. Canada (Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration), 2002 FCT 867, this Court stated the
following about the evidence required for an organization to be characterized
as having a limited, brutal purpose:
[40]
The Refugee Division
in the case at bar came to the same conclusion as in Suresh, supra. The
LTTE is responsible for brutal and calculated acts. The applicant however
suggests that an organization must be one that engages “solely and exclusively
in acts of terrorism” in order to be an organization with a limited and brutal
purpose. To do so, he relies on the case of Balta v. Canada,
[1995] F.C.J. No. 146 (F.C.T.D.). I am unable to agree. Rather the
two cases of Mehmoud v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration), [1998] F.C.J. No. 1019 (F.C.T.D.) and Shakarabi v.
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1998] F.C.J.
No. 444 (F.C.T.D.) illustrate that where there is no evidence that
political objectives can be separated from militaristic activities, an
organization could still be found to have a limited, brutal purpose. There is
no evidence to suggest that the LTTE's terrorist activities can be separated
from other objectives it may have. The LTTE resorts to terrorist methods to
reach their objectives and this suggests that the LTTE is an organization with
a brutal and limited purpose.
[Emphasis
added.]
[13]
On
the issue of whether the NLA was an organization principally directed to a
limited, brutal purpose, it is my view that the Board made a palpably erroneous
finding of fact without regard for the documentary evidence before it and in
reliance on irrelevant considerations, which is a reviewable error in this case
(Cepeda‑Gutierrez v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1998] F.C.J.
No. 1425 (F.C.T.D.) (QL), (1998), 157 F.T.R. 35, at paragraph 17; Berete v.
Canada (Minister
of Citizenship and Immigration), [1999] F.C.J. No. 359 (F.C.T.D.)
(QL), at paragraph 8; Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v.
Molebe, 2007 FC 137, at paragraph 27). Based on the fact that the
armed conflict was of short duration, the Board arbitrarily brushed aside the
documentary evidence submitted by the Minister’s representative and trivialized
the NLA’s abuses because there had been little loss of human life and the NLA
had laid down its weapons. However, an analysis of the documentation filed
shows that, on the contrary, the NLA committed many abuses against the civilian
population, including human rights violations, kidnappings, arbitrary
detention, torture, ethnic cleansing, murder, the use of civilians as human
shields and sexual abuse.
[14]
In
this case, the Board seemed to infer that the NLA’s political objectives could
be separated from its militaristic activities. That conclusion is not supported
by any clearly articulated reasoning in the decision under review, nor is it
echoed in the documentary evidence in the record. This means that it was
unreasonable for the Board to conclude that the NLA was not an organization principally directed to
a limited, brutal purpose. In any event, it is not permissible for the
Board to infer that, because an organization seeks to defend minority rights,
it is entitled to do so by all possible means. Not every legitimate motivation
excuses the commission of acts repressed by the international community or
international instruments, which was the case here with the NLA’s abuses (Tutu v.
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1994), 74 F.T.R. 44; Shakarabi v.
Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (1998), 145 F.T.R.
297, at paragraphs 21‑22; Suresh v. Canada (Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration), [2000] 2 F.C. 592
(F.C.A.), at paragraph 36; Pushpanathan v. Canada (Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration), 2002 FCT 867, at paragraph 40).
[15]
Moreover,
complicity by association was described as follows in Bazargan v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration)
(1996), 205 N.R. 282, [1996] F.C.J. No. 1209 (QL) (Bazargan):
[11] In our view, it goes without
saying that “personal and knowing participation” can be direct or indirect and
does not require formal membership in the organization that is ultimately
engaged in the condemned activities. It is not working within an organization
that makes someone an accomplice to the organization’s activities, but
knowingly contributing to those activities in any way or making them possible,
whether from within or from outside the organization. At p. 318 [F.C., in Ramirez],
MacGuigan J.A. said that “[a]t bottom, complicity
rests . . . on the existence of a shared common purpose and the
knowledge that all of the parties in question may have of it”. Those who become
involved in an operation that is not theirs, but that they know will probably
lead to the commission of an international offence, lay themselves open to the
application of the exclusion clause in the same way as those who play a direct
part in the operation.
[12] That being said, everything
becomes a question of fact. The Minister does not have to prove the
respondent’s guilt. He merely has to show - and the burden of proof
resting on him is “less than the balance of probabilities” (Ramirez, supra,
note 3, at p. 314) - that there are serious reasons for
considering that the respondent is guilty. . . .
[16]
Once
again, I consider the Board’s analysis in the impugned decision flawed because
of a number of factors. First, with regard to the recruitment method, the
respondent declared the following to the immigration officer at the port of
entry:
Subject says he is afraid of the police,
because they could charge him for working for the [A]lbanian movement
« National Liberation Army of Macedonia », UCK (the Macedonian one). Says
he was building trenches for the soldiers and bunkers for civilians in the
mountains. Says he was building trenches for the soldiers and bunkers for
civilians in the mountains. Says he had been recruited by “commandant MALA
ISMAIL, who was coming from his village, JAZHINCÉ, himself sent by the movement
headquarter.
Subject says he worked two months, from
May to June, during the Macedonian [A]lbanian insurrection in 2001. Since the
end of the insurrection, he did not meet them anymore. Although there were
amnesty, the police is arresting from time to time young people who got
involved in those events, that why he says he was afraid to stay in Macedonia.
[Emphasis
added.]
(Immigration officer, port‑of‑entry
notes dated June 8, 2003)
[17]
During
his testimony, the respondent was confronted with his port‑of‑entry
declaration and went over what he had stated about being recruited by an NLA
commander. After saying that he had not been recruited, contrary to his port‑of‑entry
declaration, he stated the following:
A. “But since I was a member of that I
felt as obligation and, you know, to help in any way I could help and that’s
why we did. But you know, (inaudible) the whatever, like you know doing
those military things that probably I did, I was forced to do so.”
(Transcript of the hearing before the
Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board, Bekim Imeri,
file MA3‑04338, April 16, 2008 (Transcript of the Board’s
hearing), at p. 48)
A. (…) “But what I said I
wasn’t recruited-- I did what I was forced to do whatever they asked me to do,
so that’s what I did.”
(Transcript of the Board’s hearing, at
p. 49)
A. (…) So he did came [sic]
(inaudible), you are going to do this because I am forcing to do that You know,
like it wasn’t like that (inaudible) but I felt as a member of like
civilian, like council that I was and you know, doing whatever like was asked
me to do (sic). So probably they asked me to do trench [sic] and I did
the trench.
Q. Okay. So you did basically what they
asked you to do.
A. Yes I did.
(Transcript of the Board’s hearing, at
p. 49)
[Emphasis
added.]
[NTD: It should be noted that I have
corrected and re‑transcribed each of these quotes taken from the
applicants’ record, which differed from the hearing transcript found in the
panel’s record]
[18]
At
the hearing, the respondent also confirmed that he had dug trenches for the NLA
at its request. I agree with counsel for the applicants that the respondent’s
testimony was confused when he was asked whether he had been forced or had
offered his help voluntarily. He testified that he had not tried to refuse to
do what the NLA had requested of him, namely digging trenches.
BY MINISTER’S COUNSEL (to the person
concerned)
Q. Okay. What would have happened if
you had said no I am not building trenches, me, I am not doing it, what would
have happened to you?
A. Probably they would have made me
like to go in and guard somewhere.
Q. On a what?
A. Guard.
Q. Guard?
A. The term like you know, goes to a
certain place and just stay there and I don’t know, I don’t really know.
I can’t really say like what would happen if I said no.
Q. You didn’t try to say no?
A. Because I was a member of the, you
know, the ---
Q. No, but just answer the question.
You can explain, you can always explain but still you are not answering the
question.
A. But as I said, you know, I - at that
time I didn’t think for the consequence might happen in future because that was
the time of the war and everybody was compelled to apply by the rules and the
requirement that Uchuka was asking us to do, so ---
Q. Sir, did you try to say no?
A. Did I try to say no? No I didn’t.
BY THE PRESIDING MEMBER (to the person
concerned)
Q.
You did
try?
A.
No, I did
not.
Q.
Oh, you
did not try, all right.
A. No, I did not.
[Emphasis
added.]
(Transcript of the Board’s hearing, at
p. 49)
[19]
In
any event, although the respondent claims that he was a member of the “civilian
body”, he was nonetheless recruited to dig trenches, a decidedly military
operation. The respondent tried as best he could to explain this
inconsistency (Transcript of the Board’s hearing, at pp. 50‑51).
[20]
During
his testimony, the respondent was also confronted with the documentary evidence
revealing the abuses committed by the NLA. He answered that this had all been
made up by the Macedonian government. However, he admitted that he had been
aware of it, since there had been media coverage of the acts in question.
A. Yeah, there were abused like that.
The Macedonian Government was applying force so, you know, what the
government said to me was just like bolognie (ph) and like I don’t
really think (inaudible). You know like I wasn’t there, I haven’t seen
something that happened so I don’t know.
Q. Did you know that, did you know
about the ---
A. That was in the news that time so
yeah, I was aware.
Q. It was in the news, okay. So you
were aware of that but do you believe that?
A. No, I don’t believe that.
Q. You don’t believe it.
A. As long as I haven’t seen them and
like you know, I cannot tell like that happened so I can’t comment, I cannot
comment that one.
Q. Okay. So you don’t believe that. Do
you agree with these methods?
A. No I don’t.
[Emphasis
added.]
(Transcript of the Board’s hearing, at
pp. 65-66)
[21]
According
to the evidence in the record, which the Board had a duty to consider, the
respondent did not try to find out whether what he had heard about the crimes
committed by the NLA was true (Transcript of the Board’s hearing, at
pp. 67‑72). The Board completely ignored that highly relevant
evidence, merely noting in its decision that the respondent had no knowledge of
the NLA’s acts and did not share its intentions. On the contrary, the
respondent clearly testified that he had been aware of the crimes committed by
the NLA. Therefore, this Court has no choice but to conclude, as requested by
the applicants, that the decision was made without regard for and contrary to
the evidence in the record, which is a reviewable error.
[22]
For
all these reasons, this application for judicial review must be allowed. No
question of general importance has been raised by counsel.
JUDGMENT
THIS COURT
ORDERS AND ADJUDGES that the Board’s
decision of October 2, 2008 be set aside and the matter referred to
another member of the Board for rehearing. There is no question to be
certified.
“Luc
Martineau”
Certified true
translation
Brian McCordick,
Translator
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