Docket: IMM-12709-24
Citation: 2026 FC 55
Ottawa, Ontario, January 14, 2026
PRESENT: Mr. Justice Pentney
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BETWEEN: |
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TEKLHE GEBREKIDANE
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Applicant |
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and |
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
[1] The Applicant, Teklhe Gebrekidane, seeks judicial review of the decision refusing his application for permanent residence as a member of the Convention refugee abroad class or as a member of the Humanitarian-Protected Persons Abroad designated class, which in this case is the country of asylum class.
[2] The Applicant is an Eritrean national who was in Israel when he applied to resettle in Canada. The Officer refused his application, finding the Applicant’s narrative to be lacking in credibility. The Applicant argues that the decision should be overturned because the reasons do not provide a sufficient explanation of the credibility finding, and the Officer failed to examine his claim under the country of asylum class.
[3] For the reasons that follow, the application for judicial review will be granted. While I am not persuaded that the Officer’s negative credibility findings are unreasonable, the failure of the Officer to provide any analysis of the country of asylum claim is sufficiently grave to make the decision unreasonable. I can find no basis to support the Respondent’s argument that the Officer’s negative credibility finding applies to the country of asylum aspect of the Applicant’s claim, in light of the specific nature of that claim and the particular circumstances of this case.
I. Background
[4] The Applicant is a citizen of Eritrea. He says that he quit school in 2007 at the age of 17 because he feared being rounded up and forced into service by the Eritrean military, which had visited his school several times. In the written narrative that he submitted as part of his application for permanent residence in Canada, the Applicant stated that he went into hiding for three years to avoid military conscription. In September 2010, he decided to cross the border into Sudan, where he was sent to a refugee camp.
[5] The Applicant was not entirely clear about how long he stayed in the refugee camp. While his written narrative suggests he remained only a few days, the Applicant stated in his interview that he remained for five months. The Applicant then decided to cross the Sahara Desert for Egypt. Following a two-week journey, the Applicant arrived in Egypt and then crossed the border into Israel in November 2010. He claims that the government of Israel did not grant him permanent refugee status, and in June 2022, the Applicant applied for permanent residence in Canada under the Convention refugee abroad class and the country of asylum class.
II. The decision under review
[6] In June 2024, an Officer interviewed the Applicant about his application for permanent residence. Based on the discrepancies between the Applicant’s answers during the interview and his written application, the Officer dismissed the application for permanent residence.
[7] The Officer was not satisfied that the Applicant had been truthful and forthcoming with the information provided. The Officer highlighted inconsistencies related to the Applicant’s stay in a refugee camp in Sudan and stated that the Applicant had failed to allay these concerns:
Specifically, during your interview you said that you stopped going to school in 2007 and hid for three years before leaving Eritrea. When asked what you were doing for these three years, you said that you went to Sudan for one year and five months and then returned to Eritrea. When asked when you went to Sudan, you said you could not remember as you were underage. You said that you lived close to the border, and it was easy to go back and forth. When in Sudan, you did not apply to the UNHCR as a refugee. When asked why you returned to Eritrea, you said that your father took you back. When asked why you left Eritrea again, you said that you were looking after the cattle and did not want to get caught in a round-up. You returned to Sudan and still not apply to the UNHCR for status because your friends said you should go to Israel.
[8] The Officer’s notes in the Global Case Management System (GCMS Notes) indicate that the Officer was not satisfied that the Applicant’s claim was credible given the inconsistencies during the interview and the travel in and out of Eritrea. Their final eligibility assessment summarizes their core concerns:
Based on the applicant’s narrative and his travel to and from Eritrea, I am not satisfied that his claim is credible. I gave him the opportunity to provide further information to support his claim of persecution but he was unable to do.
The application is refused as the applicant has not been truthful nor has he established a fear of persecution given his travel in and out of Eritrea.
[9] The Applicant seeks judicial review of this decision.
III. Issues and Standard of Review
[10] There are two issues in this case:
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Did the Officer fail to provide sufficient reasons to justify the negative credibility findings?
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Is the decision unreasonable because the Officer failed to analyze the Applicant’s country of asylum claim?
[11] These questions are assessed under the framework for reasonableness review set out in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 [Vavilov], and confirmed in Mason v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 SCC 21 [Mason].
[12] In summary, under the Vavilov framework, a reviewing court is to review the reasons given by the administrative decision-maker and determine whether the decision is based on an internally coherent chain of reasoning and is justified in light of the relevant legal and factual constraints (Vavilov at para 85; Mason at para 8). The onus is on the Applicant to demonstrate that “any shortcomings or flaws … are sufficiently central or significant to render the decision unreasonable”
(Vavilov at para 100). Absent exceptional circumstances, reviewing courts must not interfere with the decision-maker’s factual findings and cannot reweigh and reassess evidence considered by the decision-maker (Vavilov at para 125).
IV. Analysis
A. The Officer’s credibility findings are reasonable
[13] The Applicant submits that the Officer’s reasons fail to specify the basis for the negative credibility findings, which makes the entire decision unreasonable. Under long-accepted case-law, Officers are required to provide the “reasons for casting doubt upon the [Applicant’s] credibility in clear and unmistakable terms.”
A credibility finding that is “couched in vague and general terms”
is unreasonable: Hilo v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1991 CanLII 14469 (FCA) at para 6. The Applicant argues that the Officer failed to meet this standard.
[14] I am not persuaded by this argument. The Officer’s reasons, comprised of the decision letter and the GCMS Notes, must be read in their entirety and considered in light of the record: Vavilov at paras 94 - 99. Doing so in this case makes it abundantly clear why the Officer doubted the Applicant’s credibility.
[15] The decision letter and GCMS Notes discuss several major concerns regarding the information provided by the Applicant. During the interview, the Officer pointed out several discrepancies in the evidence and asked for the Applicant’s response. Rather than reproducing all of these exchanges, I will highlight three:
The narrative about fleeing Eritrea:
Your story as to why you left Eritrea does not fully match with your schedule 2. When asked if you had lived in any other countries since leaving Eritrea you first stated no but later when explaining the three year gap between stopping school in 2007 and leaving Eritrea in 2010, you said that you had been in Sudan for one year and five months.
How long he spent in the refugee camp:
At some point you said you were in a refugee camp in Sudan for five months but never registered with the UNHCR. In your schedule 2, you were only in Sudan for one week before leaving for Irael.
What do you have to say? I was a baby when I left Eritrea for the first time. What do you mean? No. Nothing else? No.
How long he was held by smugglers before entering Israel:
How did the transaction go? Don’t know how [his sister] paid. Smugglers said she did and released me after for one month. Schedule 2 says 2 weeks.
[16] When asked about when he had travelled to Sudan, the Applicant responded: “Cannot remember, I was underage. I lived close to the border with Sudan and it was easy to cross over.”
And when asked about why he left Sudan to return to Eritrea, the GCMS Notes record the following exchange:
[The Applicant stated] I had to leave. Why, you were 17 years old? I did not want to go into military. I was in the refugee camp. Why did your father take you back to Eritrea? He knew where I was and it was his right to take me back. How did you cross the border into Eritrea? Illegally with father on foot… What happened when you returned to Eritrea? Nothing, just went home…
[17] Based on the problems with the Applicant’s evidence, the Officer was not satisfied that his claim was credible. The GCMS Notes conclude: “The application is refused as the applicant has not been truthful nor has he established a fear of persecution given his travel in and out of Eritrea.”
The reasons for the credibility finding are confirmed in the decision letter, which describes the Officer’s concerns regarding the time the Applicant spent in Sudan, his lack of memory about when he first went there, his story about why he returned to Eritrea, and finally his evidence about why he went back to Sudan.
[18] The credibility findings are not vague or general, and they are rooted in the evidence as demonstrated by the interview notes. There is no basis to question this aspect of the decision.
B. The failure to analyze the country of asylum claim is unreasonable
[19] The Applicant submits that even if the credibility findings are accepted as reasonable, the decision should still be overturned because the Officer failed to analyze his claim under the country of asylum class. According to the Applicant, the credibility findings do not pertain to that aspect of his claim, and there is no separate analysis to explain why the Officer found him not eligible for permanent residence as a member of the country of asylum class.
[20] The country of asylum class is set out in s. 147 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, SOR/2002-227 [IRPR]:
Member of country of asylum class
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Catégorie de personnes de pays d’accueil
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147 A foreign national is a member of the country of asylum class if they have been determined by an officer to be in need of resettlement because:
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147 Appartient à la catégorie de personnes de pays d’accueil l’étranger considéré par un agent comme ayant besoin de se réinstaller en raison des circonstances suivantes :
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(a) they are outside all of their countries of nationality and habitual residence; and
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a) il se trouve hors de tout pays dont il a la nationalité ou dans lequel il avait sa résidence habituelle;
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(b) they have been, and continue to be, seriously and personally affected by civil war, armed conflict or massive violation of human rights in each of those countries.
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b) une guerre civile, un conflit armé ou une violation massive des droits de la personne dans chacun des pays en cause ont eu et continuent d’avoir des conséquences graves et personnelles pour lui.
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[21] The Applicant had the burden of establishing, with sufficient evidence, that he met the requirements of the country of asylum class: Kore v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2019 FC 1120 at para 15.
[22] In this case, the Applicant’s country of asylum claim as set out in his written application and during the interview involved two main elements. He said he feared returning to Eritrea because of the abysmal human rights situation in the country, and that he would be arrested on his return because he had evaded mandatory military service. The Officer summarized this aspect of the claim in the GCMS Notes:
CLAIM: Stated reasons for not returning to country of alleged persecution are based on fear of persecution as result of having evaded forced indefinite military service under the regime in Eritrea and leaving the country illegally.
[23] However, the GCMS Notes do not contain any analysis of this aspect of the claim, or any discussion of the criteria for analysis that govern the assessment of a country of asylum claim under s. 147 of the IRPR. This is not sufficient to meet the requirement that a decision be “justified”
to the person affected (Vavilov at para 86), as well as being “intelligible and transparent”
(Vavilov at para 95). In this respect, the decision in this case suffers from the same flaw as found by Justice Kane in Saeed v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 129 [Saeed]. I can do no better than to quote the key passage from Saeed, which I adopt in its entirety for the purposes of this case:
[48] Even if the Court could assume that the same reasons that led the Officer to conclude that the Applicants are not Convention Refugees Abroad also led the Officer to conclude that they were not members of the Country of Asylum class, the reasons would lack rationality and justification. The two classes are distinct, as are the criteria. The Officer was required to assess both.
[49] In Saifee, the Court noted this distinction at para 39:
[39] Members of the country of asylum class need not meet the definition of Convention refugee, and consequently need not demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Rather, they must demonstrate that they are displaced outside of their country of nationality and habitual residence, and have been and continue to be seriously affected by civil war, armed conflict or massive violations of civil rights, and that there is no reasonable prospect within a reasonable period of a durable solution elsewhere for them.
[40] Indeed, a foreign national may well never have been persecuted for one of the reasons set out in the definition of Convention refugee and still be eligible for protection as a member of the country of asylum class. It is consequently crucial not to confuse the cases of foreign nationals meeting the definition of Convention refugee with those meeting the criteria of the country of asylum class. [Emphasis added]
[24] Beyond the mention of the basis for the Applicant’s country of asylum claim, I can find no reasoning in the Officer’s decision that explains how or why the credibility findings made in regard to his fear of persecution somehow applied to this aspect of his claim. In light of this, I cannot accept the Respondent’s argument that the Officer’s reasons adequately explain the analysis of both elements of the Applicant’s claim. I find the decision in Gebrewldi v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2017 FC 621 to be distinguishable on its facts, because the Officer’s credibility findings there clearly related directly to the basis for the country of asylum claim. That is not true in this case.
[25] If anything, the GCMS Notes tend to support the inference that the Officer simply failed to conduct the required analysis of the two distinct elements of the Applicant’s claim. As noted previously, the overall assessment of the Applicant’s eligibility noted that the Officer doubted the Applicant’s credibility. The GCMS Notes continue:
I gave [the Applicant] the opportunity to provide further information to support his claim of persecution but he was unable to do so.
The application is refused as the applicant has not been truthful nor has he established a fear of persecution given his travel in and out of Eritrea.
[26] Two main problems emerge from this portion of the reasons. First, the Applicant did not need to establish a fear of persecution in order to establish his country of asylum claim; persecution is only relevant to his Convention refugee abroad claim. Second, it is not evident how the Applicant’s failure to be truthful or his evidence about his travel in and out of Eritrea was relevant to the country of asylum claim, given that he had left the country without serving his mandatory military service, and would be returning from Israel, not slipping across the border from Sudan as he had done previously.
[27] In the absence of analysis, the Applicant, like the Respondent and the Court, is left to speculate about the basis for denying the application under the country of asylum class. The documentary evidence has long confirmed that Eritreans who evade military service are subject to arrest upon their return, and the conditions in prisons there are notoriously bad. The Officer must be taken to be aware of such facts: Saeed at para 51. However, the Officer did not address whether or how the Applicant would not be seriously and personally affected by the widespread violation of human rights in Eritrea, given the likelihood of his immediate arrest on his return.
[28] That is unreasonable. The country of asylum claim was an essential element of the Applicant’s application for permanent residence, and the Officer’s failure to analyze it constitutes a fatal flaw that is sufficiently serious to make the entire decision unreasonable: Vavilov at para 100.
[29] For these reasons, the decision will be quashed and set aside.
V. Conclusion
[30] Based on the analysis set out above, the application for judicial review will be granted and the matter will be sent back for redetermination.
[31] There is no question of general importance for certification.
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