Docket: IMM-2007-25
Citation: 2026 FC 353
Ottawa, Ontario, March 16, 2026
PRESENT: Madam Acting Chief Justice St-Louis
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BETWEEN: |
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MOHAMMAD FARUK MADBAR |
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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
I. Introduction
[1] On July 7, 2023, the Applicant, Mr. Mohammad Faruk Madbar, a citizen of Bangladesh, entered Canada holding a multiple entry temporary resident visa. After his arrival in Canada, Mr. Madbar claimed refugee protection based on fear that he would face persecution and harm at the hands of the police, the Awami League members and their affiliate groups, and the mayor of Dhaka [the agents of harm] if he were to return to Bangladesh.
[2] The Refugee Protection Division [RPD] dismissed Mr. Madbar’s claim, having found issues of credibility and, determinatively, that an internal flight alternative [IFA] existed for him in Chittagong. The Refugee Appeal Division [RAD] assumed without deciding that Mr. Madbar’s allegations were credible for the purpose of the appeal, and also concluded that Mr. Madbar had a viable IFA in Chittagong. The RAD concluded that the RPD was correct in finding that Mr. Madbar was neither a Convention refugee nor a person in need of protection.
[3] Mr. Madbar now seeks judicial review of the RAD’s decision and submits, generally, that the RAD erred in finding that a viable IFA exists for him in Chittagong. More precisely, Mr. Madbar submits that the RAD (1) erred by referring to incorrect facts in its analysis; (2) unreasonably identified that the agents of harm do not have the means and motivation to find him based on the lack of charges against him, his stay with his brother in Tongi, and the ability to enter and exit the country without any issues; (3) failed to consider the behavior of his agents of harm who contacted his family and his manager; (4) unreasonably concluded that Mr. Madbar’s profile does not fit the profile of individuals who the agents of harm would be motivated to locate; (5) erred in concluding that the mayor would not have the necessary means or influence to locate Mr. Madbar in another area of Bangladesh in light of the evidence of corruption in the country; and (6) erred by failing to consider the objective documentary evidence in its entirety.
[4] The Minister essentially responds that the RAD’s conclusion is reasonable, that Mr. Madbar raises no reviewable error, and that he is essentially asking the Court to reweigh the evidence which it cannot do.
[5] For the reasons that follow, this application for judicial review will be dismissed. In brief, Mr. Madbar has not met his burden to show that the RAD’s decision is unreasonable.
II. Decision
[6] The underlying principle to an IFA analysis is that international protection can only be provided to claimants if the country of origin cannot offer adequate protection everywhere within its territory (Rasaratnam v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1991 CanLII 13517 (FCA) at para 5; Ranganathan v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [2001] 2 FC 164, 266 NR 380 [Ranganathan] at para 13 and 16). Once the possibility of an IFA is raised, the burden shifts to the claimant to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that “there is a serious possibility of persecution in the area alleged to constitute an IFA”
(Thirunavukkarasu v Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration), 1993 CanLII 3011 (FCA) at para 9 [Thirunavukkarasu]).
[7] The test for determining whether a viable IFA exists is two-pronged. First, the RAD must be satisfied on a balance of probabilities that there is no serious possibility that the claimant will be persecuted in the proposed IFA. Second, the conditions in the proposed IFA must be such that it is not unreasonable for the applicant to seek refuge there (Thirunavukkarasu and Rasaratnam).
[8] The RAD’s conclusions regarding the existence of a viable IFA must be reviewed on the reasonableness standard as nothing rebuts the presumption Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 [Vavilov]; Mason v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 SCC 21; Khosla v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 1557 at para 16).
[9] On judicial review, the onus is on the applicant to establish the RAD’s decision as unreasonable. Flaws must be more than superficial for the reviewing court to overturn an administrative decision: the Court must be satisfied that there are “sufficiently serious shortcomings”
(Vavilov at para 100). A reasonable decision is one that is based on an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis and that is justified in relation to the facts and law that constrain the decision-maker. The reasonableness standard requires that a reviewing court defer to such a decision (Vavilov at para 85).
[10] In brief, the RAD dismissed the appeal and found that Mr. Madbar had a viable IFA. On the first prong of the applicable IFA legal test, the RAD ultimately found that Mr. Madbar failed to discharge his burden to show that the IFA of Chittagong failed. The RAD found that the agents of harm lacked the means and motivation to track and harm Mr. Madbar in Chittagong as (1) he continued to protest for the 3 months prior to leaving Canada, although the RAD erroneously situated Mr. Madbar in Tongi for these 3 months; (2) no warrants, summons or charges were led against him; (3) Mr. Madbar moved in and out of the country freely; (4) contacts with Mr. Madbar’s family and his manager were limited to Dhaka and the suburbs; (5) he himself was not contacted and no attempt to contact him occurred since he left the country; (6) in light of his activities, his profile was not that of one who would be pursued by the agents of harm outside Dhaka; (7) there was no evidence that the agents of harm had the ability to coordinate and track individuals between cities; (8) there was no evidence that the agents of harm could request the police to locate him in the IFA despite rampant corruption; and (9) the contacts made with his family were insufficient to establish that Mr. Madbar would have to live in hiding in the IFA.
[11] On the second prong of the applicable IFA legal test, the RAD noted that Mr. Madbar alleged difficulties he would face in the proposed IFA location, in that he would have to use his identity card, be recognized and found because he would need to operate a business should he return, and he will not be able to safely engage in political activities. Ultimately, the RAD was sympathetic to the difficulties faced by Mr. Madbar in relocating to another city and noted that there would be a period of adjustment but did not find that this rendered the IFA location unreasonable in the circumstances.
[12] In regard to the arguments Mr. Madbar raised on this application, first, I agree that the RAD erred in mentioning that Mr. Madbar was in Tongi for three months, while he had indicated he was there for about three weeks. However, the RAD did not err in mentioning that Mr. Madbar continued to attend protests during that period, ie three months before he left the country. In his narrative, Mr. Madbar outlined he participated in demonstrations on April 20 and on June 20, 2023, in fact well after having applied for, and even after having obtained the multiple entry Canadian visa he sought precisely as he feared for his safety. The RAD’s error in locating Mr. Madbar in Tongi for three months rather than for three weeks is not fatal in the present circumstances.
[13] The other arguments Mr. Madbar raised must fail. While Mr. Madbar asserts that the RAD failed to consider the totality of the evidence and limits the RAD’s analysis to three elements in particular, I note these arguments are unsubstantiated; in particular, the RAD did not limit its consideration to these three elements as I detailed above.
[14] Furthermore, I agree with the Minister that there is no basis supporting Mr. Madbar’s position that the RAD failed to consider the agents of harm’s behaviour when assessing their level of motivation and potential future behaviour, as the RAD addressed this particularly at paragraph 27 of its decision. I also note that the RAD acknowledged the evidence of corruption and political conflict in Bangladesh but nevertheless reasonably concluded that there was no evidence to support the assertion that the agents of harm would have the necessary connections within the police to locate him or exercise influence at a national level. The RAD appropriately stressed that Mr. Madbar bore the onus to establish the evidence he considered necessary to support his claim (Iglesias et al. v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 CF 1700 at para 34); the Court’s role is not to conduct a de novo analysis.
[15] As for Mr. Madbar’s profile, I find it reasonable for the RAD to conclude that his activities, although vocal, did not establish he was high ranking or such an agitator that the agents of harm would be motivated to locate him. The evidence in the file, and particularly Mr. Madbar’s narrative and account of his activities, supports this conclusion, his protest was limited, was mainly in reaction to the demolishing of the 5th floor, was not frequent and was local, in and around Dhaka; it is reasonable to conclude his activities were not at a level that would warrant a national query and for the agents of harm to locate him in the IFA.
[16] Also, I am satisfied the RAD reasonably relied on Achugbe v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 876 to conclude that Mr. Madbar’s family would likely continue to protect him; the suggestion that he exercise discretion in sharing his location does not amount to requiring him to hide is, in the circumstances, reasonable. Also, I note that in Shakil Ali v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 156 [Ali], the Court stated that: “Relying on cases such as Ali v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 93, and AB v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 915, the applicants also argue that if they return to India, they will need to withhold their contact information from family and friends, which amounts to living in hiding. The holdings in these cases are fact-specific and cannot be generalized to every IFA situation: Essel v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 1025 at paragraph 15. Moreover, such an assertion must be assessed based on the facts found by the RAD, not on the facts alleged by the applicants:
Pastrana Acosta c Canada (Citoyenneté et Immigration), 2023 CF 139 at paragraphs 6–9.”
I agree with the RAD that discretion does not amount to hiding, the facts and the evidence in this case is distinct from the one in Ali. In essence, Mr. Madbar’s encounters and activities were local, in Dhaka and its suburbs, and he has not established that the agents of harm would have the motivation or the means to pursue him nationally and in the proposed IFA. Mr. Madbar has simply not presented sufficient evidence to support his allegations or to discharge his burden of establishing that a viable IFA does not exist.
III. Conclusion
[17] Although Mr. Madbar raises several alleged deficiencies in the RAD’s analysis, I am satisfied he is essentially asking the Court to reassess and reinterpret the evidence in his favor. I agree with the Minister that this is not the role of the Court on judicial review. As stated by the Supreme Court of Canada in Vavilov at para 83: “a court applying the reasonableness standard does not ask what decision it would have made in place of that of the administrative decision maker, attempt to ascertain the “range” of possible conclusions that would have been open to the decision maker, conduct a de novo analysis or seek to determine the “correct” solution to the problem.
(..) Instead, the reviewing court must consider only whether the decision made by the administrative decision maker — including both the rationale for the decision and the outcome to which it led — was unreasonable”
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[18] Mr. Madbar has not met his burden to establish that the RAD decision is unreasonable and the application for judicial review will consequently be dismissed. Based on the record and the law, I am convinced it was open for the RAD to determine he has a viable IFA in Chittagong.
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