Docket: IMM-3544-25
Citation: 2026 FC 436
Toronto, Ontario, April 2, 2026
PRESENT: Mr. Justice Sébastien Grammond
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BETWEEN: |
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OVER EDUARDO BARAHONA FRANCO
ANA MILENA ORJUELA VELASCO
JULIAN DAVID BARAHONA ORJUELA
DANIEL FRANCISCO BARAHONA ORJUELA
VERONICA ANDREA BARAHONA ORJUELA
DIEGO ALEJANDRO BARAHONA ORJUELA |
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Applicants |
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and |
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THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
(Delivered from the Bench in Toronto, Ontario, on April 2, 2026)
[1] Mr. Barahona and his family, who are citizens of Colombia, claimed asylum based on alleged death threats by the Fuerzas armadas revolucionarias de Colombia [FARC]. Mr. Barahona testified that he was threatened by the FARC on several occasions over a 12-year period and that he was recently declared objetivo militar (military target), which prompted him and his family to flee the country. The Refugee Protection Division [RPD] found that they had an internal flight alternative [IFA] in a different city in Colombia, because the FARC would not be motivated to find them there.
[2] I am allowing Mr. Barahona’s application for judicial review of the RPD’s decision. In my view, the RPD misapprehended the country condition evidence regarding declarations of military targets. It made the error that was described by my colleague Justice Alan Diner in Olaya Bustos v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 1596, regarding the very same piece of country condition evidence.
[3] Although its reasoning is somewhat elliptical and difficult to grasp, the RPD appears to have rejected the evidence that Mr. Barahona was declared a military target because he did not fit the most common categories of people who are targeted in this way. Yet, as Justice Diner explained, the list is not exhaustive. It is not reasonable to reject Mr. Barahona’s evidence merely because his precise situation is not mentioned in the country condition evidence. After all, agents of persecution are not bound by the description of their activities contained in the country condition evidence.
[4] In relying on the fact that Mr. Barahona did not fit the profile of a military target as described by the objective evidence, the RPD misapprehended a significant component of his case. This is not a minor mistake: as the RPD acknowledges, declaring a person a military target is among the most serious forms of threat. I am unable to say what the outcome would have been had the RPD properly analyzed this piece of evidence. The RPD did not consider the declaration of military target in its analysis of the motivation of the FARC to track Mr. Barahona and his family in the proposed IFA. Thus, the RPD’s mistake causes me to “lose confidence in the outcome,”
to borrow the words of the Supreme Court in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paragraph 106, [2019] 4 S.C.R. 653. Therefore, the RPD’s decision is unreasonable and must be quashed.
[5] While the above is sufficient to dispose of the application, I am also concerned by the RPD’s statement that Mr. Barahona and his family lived in Bogotá for 12 years and the inference it draws from that fact. Although the RPD’s reasoning is unclear, it appears to rely on this to buttress its finding that the FARC have lost interest in them. This overlooks Mr. Barahona’s testimony that he was threatened in Bogotá in 2015 and that another incident occurred in a different region in 2021, which tends to show that the FARC will follow him throughout the country.
[6] For these reasons, the application for judicial review will be granted, the RPD’s decision will be quashed and the matter will be sent back for redetermination.
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