Date: 20061016
Docket: IMM-6250-05
Citation: 2006
FC 1233
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, October 16, 2006
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice von Finckenstein
BETWEEN:
DI
LU
Applicant
and
THE MINISTER
OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
Respondent
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
(Delivered
orally from the bench and subsequently written for precision and clarification.)
[1]
Di Lu (the
“Applicant”), is a citizen of China who came to Canada on June 21, 2000, with a student visa that was valid until September 30,
2002. The visa was later extended to October 30, 2005. He has resided in Canada since that time. While in Canada, he alleges that he
became a Falun Gong (“FG”) practitioner in September 2003, he had protested
before the Chinese consulate, and he had publicly spread “the truth” of FG to
every Chinese person he has met via the telephone, the internet or the fax.
[2]
He believes that the
Chinese authorities know about his activities in Canada and thus, he is at risk
if he returned to China. Allegedly on April 18, 2005, officers
attended his home in China in order to question his parents about him
spreading the message of FG through the internet. He was warned to stop and if
he did not cease his activities, his parents were told they would be arrested
in his place.
[3]
The Board rejected his
claim, finding he lacked credibility as he could not:
a)
Recite the verses of FG correctly;
b)
Missed a movement when performing FG; and
c)
Did not know the significance of January 23,
2001, for FG followers.
[4]
The
Applicant is seeking to set the Board’s
decision aside by
way of judicial review by arguing two points:
a) Large portions of the
transcript of the Board hearing are inaudible, therefore, the reasonableness
of the Board’s decision cannot be adequately determined; and
b) The Board made unreasonable
assumptions when testing whether the Applicant was a FG practitioner.
[5]
There is
no dispute that the appropriate standard of review is patent unreasonableness (see Aguebor
v. Canada (Minister of Employment and
Immigration)
(1993), 160 N.R. 315 (F.C.A.)).
[6]
In my view this
application cannot succeed for the following reasons.
[7]
Defective
transcript: While the transcript has several large gaps, it is
clear enough with respect to the three key findings. Particularly his ignorance
regarding the importance of January 23, 2001, for FG practitioners (a date when
FG members immolated themselves on Tiananmen Square)
undermines his credibility. The transcript is clear in this respect.
Furthermore, the Applicant introduced e-mails and messages wherein he discussed
January 23, 2001. It was open to the Board to make a finding of negative
credibility given his inability to describe the importance of this date to FG
practitioners.
[8]
Unreasonable
assumptions: I fail to
see why it was patently unreasonable for the Board to expect the Applicant, as
an alleged FG member, to know the verses and movements of FG by heart. The
documentary evidence before the Board clearly establishes that FG members
recite such verses and perform such rituals hundreds of times. This has been
upheld as a valid probe by the Board to determine the genuineness of the Applicant’s
testimony in other FG cases (see Liang v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2003 FC 1140). There was no need for the
Board to refer specific documentary evidence as the Applicant alleges. The
Board is deemed to have read the documentary evidence before it (see Townsend
v. (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2003 FCT 371).
[9]
Accordingly this
application cannot succeed.
ORDER
THIS COURT ORDERS that this application be
dismissed.
“Konrad
W. von Finckenstein”
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