Docket: IMM-6670-14
Citation:
2015 FC 421
Edmonton, Alberta, April 8, 2015
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Campbell
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BETWEEN:
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CLAUDIA PATRICIA GOMEZ FLORES (A.K.A. CLAUDIA PATRICI GOMEZ
FLORES)
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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
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ORDER AND REASONS
[1]
The present claim pursuant to s. 96 and s. 97 of
the IRPA concerns a family of parents and four children, citizens of Mexico, who came to Canada under the temporary foreign worker program. In 2009 the father returned
to Mexico leaving his wife and children in Canada. The father is a lay Catholic
preacher who, upon return to Mexico, spoke out against organized crime in that
country. According to his written statement filed with the RPD in the present
Application, he is at risk from the Zetas in Mexico, and, as a result, so are
the members of his family. Based on this evidence the children in the family
applied for refugee status independently from their mother, the Applicant in the
present Application. The children’s claim was accepted by the RPD pursuant to
s. 97 on the basis of personalized risk. The Applicant subsequently also
applied; her claim was refused. The present Application is a challenge to that
decision. For the reasons described below, I find that the RPD’s decision is
unreasonable for two reasons.
[2]
The evidence supporting the Applicant’s claim
for protection is based on her husband’s experience in Mexico beginning in 2009 and thereafter. On this issue, the RPD made the following key
findings:
In summary you fear persecution on grounds
of your membership in a particular social group as the family member of a
person targeted by the Zetas for his perceived political opinion, specifically
anti-gang and anti-crime advocacy, and you also fear risks from criminal
organizations as described in section 97(1) of the Act.
The determinative issue in this claim is the
credibility of your allegation that you will be targeted by the Zetas or other
criminal organizations in Mexico owing to your husband's high profile anti-gang
message and/or the perception that you have grown rich while overseas.
Your identity as a national of Mexico is
accepted on the basis of your testimony and your passport.
Earlier in the hearing I explained to you the
definition of a Convention refugee and the need to demonstrate that your risk
has a link to one of five grounds listed in the Convention. That linkage is
known as a nexus.
I find that there is a nexus between your
allegations and one of the five Convention grounds as you allege that your
husband's anti-gang stance would be viewed by criminal organizations as, in
effect a political opposition to their agenda and so your claim is eligible to
be assessed under both section 96 and subsection 97(1).
[Emphasis added] (Decision, p.2)
[3]
The RPD accepted the Applicant’s claim for
protection as a member of a social group being her husband’s family. Indeed, in
the decision presently under review, the RPD found that the Applicant’s husband
and his family are at risk, but, nevertheless, voiced the opinion that the
Applicant had to establish more:
The panel accepts your husband’s 2012
statement that he and his family have been threatened but finds that is [sic] insufficient to establish, that you have
been targeted by the Zetas or that you face a forward looking risk of
persecution on grounds of your relationship to him or, on a balance of
probabilities, that you face a risk to your life, a risk of torture or a risk
of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.
[Emphasis added] (Decision, p. 6)
I find that this
fundamentally important conclusion to the Applicant’s claim is unintelligible
because it is internally inconsistent. As a result, I find that it renders the
decision unreasonable.
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