Docket: IMM-7669-23
Citation: 2025 FC 440
Ottawa, Ontario, March 10, 2025
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Régimbald
BETWEEN: |
PAL BRAHM SINDER KAUR |
Applicants |
and |
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
I. Overview
[1] The Applicants are a family of Indian farmers from Haryana. They claimed refugee status on the allegation that Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] members and the police had targeted Mr. Pal Brahm, the Principal Applicant, due to his refusal to support the BJP. The Refugee Appeal Division [RAD] dismissed the claim because the allegations were not credible. On judicial review, the Applicants argue that the RAD’s determination was unreasonable. I disagree. For the following reasons, this application is dismissed.
II. Context
[2] The following facts are those alleged in the Applicants’ Basis of Claim [BOC] (Certified Tribunal Record [CTR] at 69–70).
[3] Around election time in Haryana, a BJP candidate and his acolytes allegedly approached the Principal Applicant and asked for his support. He refused, choosing to support the Indian National Lok Dal [INLD] party instead. After this incident, the Principal Applicant claims to have received an anonymous threatening call.
[4] On August 14, 2019, the Principal Applicant was allegedly intercepted by the police, arrested, and mistreated. The police claimed that they had received a tip that he was planning to interrupt the Haryana election and claimed to have found grenades in his vehicle. His fingerprints and photograph were allegedly taken, as well as his signature on blank paper, and he was released two days later upon payment of a bribe.
[5] On September 2, 2019, the Principal Applicant’s wife was allegedly attacked and molested by men wearing helmets with the BJP logo. Two days later, the Principal Applicant claims that he was called to the police station where he was beaten and threatened.
[6] The Applicants left India and came to Canada on November 12, 2019. They claimed that they feared for their lives because they were coerced into voting for the BJP, that the BJP is still after them, and that the police could not be relied upon for protection.
[7] The Applicants were interviewed again by an Immigration Officer on March 16, 2020. In this subsequent interview, they claimed that they were in danger because the Principal Applicant’s father (who passed away in 2002) had switched from the BJP to another party and as a result, these unfortunate incidents happened to them.
[8] The Refugee Protection Division [RPD] heard the Applicants’ claim on April 6 and 26, 2022. In their testimony before the RPD, the Applicants declared, among other things, that the Principal Applicant had never voted for the BJP (CTR at 264), that he was in fact personally working for the INLD (CTR at 262–263), that he had influence over a voting block of about 1,100 people due to his connections as a dairy farmer (CTR at 262), and that his father had moved their family from their home because of political persecution (CTR at 296–297).
[9] The Applicants explained the inconsistencies in their testimony, when compared with their BOC and interviews, by noting the stress they were under at the time of their refugee claim. They were scared, exhausted, and unable to concentrate. They were uneducated and had little experience with interviews, and they allegedly told the Immigration Officers whatever the agent told them to say.
[10] The RPD rejected their claim on the basis of their lack of credibility, determining that they were neither Convention refugees nor persons in need of protection under sections 96 and 97 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27. The RAD reached the same conclusion on appeal. The Applicants now challenge the latter decision before this Court, arguing that its credibility findings were erroneous and its reasons inadequate.
III. Issues and Standard of Review
[11] The sole issue is whether the decision under review is reasonable.
[12] The standard of review is reasonableness (Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paras 10, 25 [Vavilov]; Mason v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 SCC 21 at paras 7, 39–44 [Mason]). To avoid judicial intervention, the decision must bear the hallmarks of reasonableness—justification, transparency, and intelligibility (Vavilov at para 99; Mason at para 59). A decision may be unreasonable if the decision maker misapprehended the evidence before it (Vavilov at paras 125–126; Mason at para 73). Reasonableness review is not a “rubber-stamping”
exercise, it is a robust form of review (Vavilov at para 13; Mason at para 63). The party challenging the decision bears the onus of demonstrating that the decision is unreasonable (Vavilov at para 100).
IV. Analysis
[13] Contradictory statements can be considered in the overall assessment of an applicant’s credibility (Sun v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 477 at para 38, citing Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) v Dan-Ash, [1988] FCJ No 571, 93 NR 33 (FCA)).
[14] The RAD noted numerous discrepancies between the narrative in the Applicants’ BOC and the story they gave when interviewed by the Immigration Officer (RAD Reasons at paras 8–10). Before the Officer, they claimed that the Principal Applicant was being targeted because his father switched from the BJP party and because the BJP wanted his vote. In their BOC narrative, they claimed that a BJP candidate was angry because the Principal Applicant publicly rejected a proposal that he work for the BJP and, at the behest of the BJP, the police are now after him (CTR at 69–70).
[15] The accumulation of contradictions, inconsistencies, and omissions regarding crucial elements of a refugee claim can support a negative conclusion about an applicant’s credibility (Sary v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2016 FC 178 at para 19; Quintero Cienfuegos v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2009 FC 1262 at para 1). In this case, the inconsistencies noted by the RAD are serious insofar as they concern elements at the very heart of the Applicants’ refugee claim, namely, the reasons why they fear persecution and who exactly is persecuting them. Such elements are not irrelevant to the case or peripheral to the claim (Attakora v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), [1989] FCJ No 444; 99 NR 168 (FCA) at para 9; Cooper v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FC 118 at para 4).
[16] The Applicants explain these inconsistencies by noting the stress they were under at the time of their refugee claim, which they argue may have affected the comprehensiveness of their various answers throughout the process. While I sympathize with the difficulties the Applicants may have been experiencing at that time, they are essentially asking this Court to reweigh and reassess the evidence before the Immigration and Refugee Board. Absent exceptional circumstances, which do not arise here, the Court will not interfere with the factual findings of an administrative decision maker upon judicial review (Vavilov at para 125). The Court’s role is not to revisit the evidence presented before the RAD or the RPD (see, generally, Safe Food Matters Inc v Canada (Attorney General), 2022 FCA 19 at para 37, and the authorities cited therein).
[17] The Applicants submitted a letter from the INLD District President, “Mr. Butta Singh,”
which purported to confirm the Principal Applicant’s support and work for the INLD party. Both the RPD and RAD found this letter to be fraudulent (RAD Reasons at paras 14–17). The Applicants argue before this Court that the “minor typographical errors”
in the letter were not enough to establish its inauthenticity (Applicants’ Memorandum at para 15).
[18] With respect, the Applicants’ claim is meritless. The RAD determined that the letter was fraudulent for a host of reasons, notably because the Applicants failed to explain how the letter could have been authored by Butta Singh, when the objective evidence stated that Mr. Singh had resigned from the position of District President. The letter also lacked “the address of the office or other contact information, proper spelling, and the inclusion of information in the fields provided on the template for ‘date’ and ‘reference number’”
(RAD Reasons at para 16). I see no reason to intervene in the RAD’s assessment and reasons on this issue.
[19] The Applicants take further issue with the RAD’s assessments of the affidavits they provided to the panel. Again, I see no reason to intervene with these findings. The RAD undertook a careful assessment of the evidence, clearly stating the reasons why they preferred to assign more weight to certain aspects of it, and less to others. The affidavit provided by the Principal Applicant’s mother was found to be “inconsistent with the allegation that the Principal [Applicant] is being targeted due to his own political opinion,”
and the one provided by his brother-in-law was found to be “inconsistent with the [Applicants’] allegations that they are being targeted due to the Principal [Applicant’s] personal support for the INLD”
(RAD Reasons at para 23). I decline the invitation to reweigh evidence presented before the decision maker.
[20] Finally, the Applicants note that the RAD should have considered the risk they face as Dalits given the documentary evidence of caste-based discrimination available to the decision maker. I disagree. The onus to prove a refugee claim lies with the applicant (Dhillon v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 FC 321 at para 20). The Applicants’ BOC and affidavit are silent in regard to their Dalit identity and the discrimination they face, and the RAD was accordingly under no obligation to consider this potential hardship.
V. Conclusion
[21] For the reasons set out above, this application for judicial review is dismissed. There is no question to certify.
Email this Content