Docket: IMM-13850-23
Citation: 2025 FC 314
Ottawa, Ontario, February 19, 2025
PRESENT: The Honourable Madam Justice Ngo
BETWEEN: |
AMNINDERDEEP SINGH |
Applicant |
and |
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
I. Overview
[1] The applicant, Amninderdeep Singh [Applicant], is a citizen of India who alleges a fear of persecution in his country of origin. He seeks judicial review of a decision dated October 11, 2023, where the Refugee Appeal Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada [RAD] rejected his refugee claim [Decision] on the grounds that he is not a refugee nor a person in need of protection within the meaning of sections 96 and 97 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 [IRPA]. The RAD confirmed the Refugee Protection Division [RPD] decision and found that the Applicant has a viable Internal Flight Alternative [IFA].
[2] For the reasons that follow, this application for judicial review is dismissed. The Applicant has not met his onus of demonstrating that the Decision is unreasonable.
II. Background and Decision Under Review
[3] The Applicant claims to be persecuted by the Bhartiya Janata Party [BJP] and the Punjab police because of his political affiliation to the Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar, a party that advocates for Khalistan. In November 2021, goons of the leader of the BJP attacked the Applicant on two separate occasions. Since his arrival to Canada, the Applicant alleges his family members told him that people came by the family home looking for him and asking about his whereabouts.
[4] On March 7, 2023, the RPD accepted that the Applicant was targeted by the BJP and that he was a supporter of Khalistan in India prior to his departure but rejected his refugee claim because of the existence of a viable IFA. With respect to the first prong of the IFA test, the RPD found that the Applicant failed to demonstrate that the leader of the BJP would have the capacity and the motivation to track him outside of his local constituency. The Applicant did not have a profile such that his agents of persecution would use their connections to try to track him and the particulars of his case did not have a nationwide scope. With respect to the second prong of the IFA test, the RPD found that it would not be objectively unreasonable for the Applicant to relocate to the IFA.
[5] On October 11, 2023, the RAD confirmed the RPD’s decision that both prongs of the legal test for an IFA were satisfied. The RAD’s decision is the subject of this judicial review.
III. Issues and Standard of Review
[6] The issue on judicial review is whether the RAD’s Decision was unreasonable as it relates to the analysis of the IFA test.
[7] The parties submit that the standard of review with respect to the merits of the Decision is reasonableness (Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 [Vavilov] at paras 10, 25). I agree that reasonableness is the applicable standard of review.
[8] On judicial review, the Court must consider whether a decision bears the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility (Vavilov at para 99). A reasonable decision will always depend on the constraints imposed by the legal and factual context of the particular decision under review (Vavilov at para 90). A decision may be unreasonable if the decision maker misapprehended the evidence before it (Vavilov at paras 125-126). The party challenging the decision bears the onus of demonstrating that the decision is unreasonable (Vavilov at para 100).
IV. Analysis
[9] A claimant has an IFA when (1) they will not be subject to a serious possibility of persecution nor to a risk of harm under sections 96 and 97 of the IRPA in the proposed IFA location and (2) it would not be objectively unreasonable for them to seek refuge there, taking into account all the circumstances. Both prongs need to be satisfied to conclude that a claimant has an IFA (Bassi v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 910 at paras 15-16 [Bassi] citing Rasaratnam v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1991 CanLII 13517 (FCA), [1992] 1 FC 706 and Thirunavukkarasu v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1993 CanLII 3011 (FCA), [1994] 1 FC 589 (FCA) at pp 597-598) [Thirunavukkarasu]).
[10] With respect to the first prong of the IFA test, an applicant must demonstrate that the proposed IFA is unreasonable because they fear a possibility of persecution throughout their entire country. An applicant must establish that the agents of persecution have both the means and the motivation to cause harm on a prospective basis (Bassi at para 17, other citations omitted).
[11] The threshold on the second prong of the IFA test is a high one. There must be “actual and concrete evidence”
of conditions that would jeopardize an applicant’s life and safety in travelling or temporarily relocating to a safe area. Once the potential for an IFA is raised, the applicant bears the onus of establishing that it is not viable (Olusola v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 799 at para 9 [Olusola] citing Ranganathan v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2000 CanLII 16789 (FCA), [2001] 2 FC 164 at para 15 [Ranganathan] and Thirunavukkarasu at pp 594-595). If a claimant has a viable IFA, this will negate a claim for refugee protection under either section 96 or 97 (Olusola at para 7).
[12] The Applicant argues that the RAD committed an error in its analysis of the second prong of the IFA test as it failed to address the Applicant’s risk as a Khalistan supporter. In the Decision, the RAD confirmed that the Applicant was a “true supporter of Khalistan”
and that individuals who support the Khalistan movement can face persecution by government authorities, which may lead to more difficult requirements when relocating. The Applicant states that the RAD unreasonably analyzed his risk in the IFA as it related to his identity as a Sikh without considering his involvement as a Khalistan supporter. Hence, his relocation to the IFA would force him to suppress and renounce his core human right of freedom of speech and religion as a Khalistan supporter (citing Olori v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1308). The Applicant states that this argument was presented before the RAD who failed to consider it.
[13] On the other hand, the Respondent underlines that the issue before the Court is whether the RAD erred on the second prong of the IFA test. The Applicant’s argument is ill-founded because reading the RAD’s decision holistically, the Applicant’s claim was properly assessed. The Applicant simply failed to demonstrate with concrete and actual evidence that the conditions in the IFA would jeopardize his life and safety (Ranganathan at para 15; Akewushola v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 67 at para 13). The Respondent points out that the RAD reasonably found that the objective evidence did not apply to the Applicant with regards to his political support. The critical distinction is the finding that the Applicant was a Khalistan supporter before he left India, but had a low profile that did not attract the attention of his agents of persecution.
[14] I agree with the Respondent’s arguments. The Decision did consider and analyze the Applicant’s argument at numerous instances, including in a footnote. While the Applicant is correct in that he should not be coerced into renouncing his fundamental beliefs and rights to avoid persecution (Pimental Colmenares v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2006 FC 749 at para 14; Gur v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FC 992 at para 22), this is not what occurred.
[15] The RAD considered the objective evidence, such as Tab 12.8 of the National Documentation Package [NDP] which acknowledges the government’s hostile attitude towards Khalistan activists, to conclude that the Applicant’s profile did not match one that would be persecuted in the IFA. The RAD considered the Applicant’s past political activities and the perceived political profile that might result from those activities but concluded that the Applicant failed to demonstrate that this would place him at risk in the IFA.
[16] This conclusion was based on uncontested facts such as the state was never the Applicant’s agent of persecution, the rejection of the Applicant’s sur place claim and the fact that the Applicant was able to exercise his political opinions in India without being persecuted by the police. Objective evidence in an NDP that is not supported by subjective evidence is not sufficient to conclude that an Applicant is subject to persecution (Hafid v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1810 at para 13). The Applicant failed to establish that the RAD’s conclusion in this regard is unreasonable.
[17] Additionally, the Applicant argues that the RAD erred in its analysis of the second prong by only considering his Sikh religion. According to the Applicant, the RAD erred in not addressing his political profile under the second prong when finding that it was reasonable for the Applicant to seek refuge in the IFA.
[18] This Court has considered similar arguments in Singh v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1483 [Singh 2024] where the applicants argued that the RAD should have specifically considered their ability to express their deeply held pro-Khalistan beliefs in the IFA locations under its second prong analysis, despite having already impugned the significance of these beliefs under the first prong.
[19] Justice Gascon concluded that it was sufficient for the RAD to properly examine this issue under the first prong and that, in those circumstances, it was reasonable not to reconsider it under the second prong (Singh 2024 at paras 42-43, citing Singh v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 297 at para 35). Similarly, when the RAD finds that the alleged agents of persecution do not have the motivation to pursue an applicant in an IFA, it is “unnecessary for the RAD to revisit [the] fear-related claims at the second stage of the IFA analysis.”
(Singh 2024 at para 44 citing Kaur v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2021 FC 1219 at para 22). These principles, as described, apply to the Applicant’s case.
[20] I therefore cannot conclude that the RAD erred in its assessment of the second prong of the IFA. The first prong of the IFA was not contested on judicial review. The crux of the IFA related to a reasonable finding that the Applicant did not have the type of profile that would support a fear of persecution or risk of harm throughout the entire country. In other words, in assessing his profile under the first prong of the IFA test, the RAD found that the Applicant was not someone who would be targeted for his political views. It did not need to specifically reassess this profile under the second prong.
[21] Respectfully, the Applicant’s arguments amounted to a disagreement on the RAD’s assessment of the evidence. The Applicant is asking the Court to reweigh the evidence, by considering the evidence that the RAD examined such as section 12.8 of the NDP and coming to a different conclusion. The Court cannot do so on judicial review (Vavilov at para 125).
V. Conclusion
[22] The RAD’s Decision is transparent, intelligible and justifiable in light of the legal and factual constraints that bear on it. As such, I cannot find that the Decision is unreasonable. The application for judicial review is dismissed.
[23] The parties do not propose any question for certification and I agree that in these circumstances, none arise.
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