Major development today: the Federal Court of Appeal has reversed the lower court decision ordering the government to repatriate four men detained in Syria. The FCA ruled that the s.6 Charter right to enter Canada does not extend to obligating the federal government to facilitate a return to Canada where the government was not responsible for a person being out of country or detained.
Bringing 'Em Back or Not? (I.D.'ed Cdn ISIS fighters, families, kids?)
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Decision attached ....
Damn dude, that is a BLUNT court opinion. Been a while since I’be seen an appellate court slap down a lower court that hard.
lenaitch
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No kidding; and it's not like it was directed at court that is several layers down. The Federal Court is essentially one step down. They also took a swipe at previous SC benches.
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That is as close to a nuclear weapon as I have ever seen a court use…they were not even polite about it.
I’ll be really curious to see if SCC grants leave to appeal. There’s no appeal as of right for a unanimous decision, and it’s a clear enough case that it may simply be allowed to stand. The very strong pronouncements about interpreting the Charter may sway them to take a look at it if the applicants can make a compelling case of a justiciable issue.
OldSolduer
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If I may say so this is exactly what these people deserve. You are an enemy of Canada and despite you being Canadian citizens you are traitors.
Maxman1
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They fucked around, they deserve to find out.
Update: the Canadian government has determined that a Canadian detained in Syria with her six children will not be repatriated. The kids can come; she cannot due to the ongoing security threat she poses.
Any Canadian who makes it to Canada is entitled to enter and remain in Canada, but it appears the government is willing in at least some cases to use the discretion the Federal Court of Appeal recently reaffirmed.
globalnews.ca
Any Canadian who makes it to Canada is entitled to enter and remain in Canada, but it appears the government is willing in at least some cases to use the discretion the Federal Court of Appeal recently reaffirmed.
Montreal woman held in Syria deemed security threat, refused government help returning to Canada | Globalnews.ca
The government said the mother of six could 'act in a violent manner' if she returned to Canada.
globalnews.ca
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Latest on Jack Letts ...
Archived link here
On this, from the latest Canadian Press article linked above:
CountDC
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amend things.
Any Canadian Citizen that joins a terrorist organization or foreign military is deemed to have surrendered their Canadian Citizenship along with all rights associated with it. All Canadian documentation will immediately become null and void.
The lawyers can all fix it up but the end goal is that you go join them you are no longer one of us. Get hurt, taken prisoner or whatever cry to them and don't expect Canada to bail you out.
Any Canadian Citizen that joins a terrorist organization or foreign military is deemed to have surrendered their Canadian Citizenship along with all rights associated with it. All Canadian documentation will immediately become null and void.
The lawyers can all fix it up but the end goal is that you go join them you are no longer one of us. Get hurt, taken prisoner or whatever cry to them and don't expect Canada to bail you out.
Charter breach. That would be struck down; citizenship rights are inviolable if citizenship was legitimately acquired (I.E., not through misrepresentation). This has come up before. It would turn into an embarrassing flop for whichever government enacted it. We already have legal tools for prosecuting terrorism, and legislative reform to make it easier to use security intelligence as evidence could make that considerably more viable as an approach.
Haggis
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Trudeau campaigned against Harper on exactly this. Not a chance his government will amend anything to restrict the repatriation of "returning foreign travelers"
If the person is Canadian born, Brihard has it nailed. If they are dual or naturalized, revocation is possible.
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Jack Letts is a British born Canadian who was born in Oxford to a Canadian father and British mother. While he has British citizenship by birth, his holding Canadian citizenship provides the Home Secretary the opportunity to strip him of his British citizenship. It appears this may have happened, but the Home Office does not disclose this information. It may be that Mr Letts is now only a Canadian, and now stuck in Syria given the recent Supreme Court decision.
For those wanting more on his story: Jack Letts - Wikipedia
For those wanting more on his story: Jack Letts - Wikipedia
Halifax Tar
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I absolutely hate, down to the marrow in my bones, that you are right.
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Yup (as of 2019, date of article)
Jack Letts stripped of British citizenship
Canada accuses UK of ‘offloading responsibilities’ over dual-national Isis recruit
www.theguardian.com
My understanding is that The Supremes have yet to hear (or decide whether to hear) the appeal of the Federal Court of Appeal decision - although I defer to those who know way more on this one.
You’re correct. Not sure if the SCC will hear the appeal, but I would guess they would given the seriousness.Yup (as of 2019, date of article)
Jack Letts stripped of British citizenship
Canada accuses UK of ‘offloading responsibilities’ over dual-national Isis recruit
My understanding is that The Supremes have yet to hear (or decide whether to hear) the appeal of the Federal Court of Appeal decision - although I defer to those who know way more on this one.
Oldgateboatdriver
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Citizenship is not a protected right under the Charter of Rights, it is not even mentioned in it, unless you broadly (and I mean very very broadly) interpret the right to non discrimination based on nationality. Even then, you could pass a law that would spell out conditions under which the government must take away a Canadian's citizenship, those conditions under which it could be taken away, including factors that the government then has to consider in good faith, and that would automatically create equality of treatment under the law and thus be in conformity with that section of the Charter.
Citizenship, however is protected under an international treaty to which just about everyone on the planet is party, aimed at eliminating or greatly reducing the number of stateless people in the world. Under that treaty , to which Canada and the UK are party, signatories have agreed that they will not strip someone of their citizenship if the result is that they become stateless people. That BTW is why the UK, which was faster than Canada in the matter, could strip Letts of his British citizenship - because he remained someone with citizenship after their action: he was still Canadian. A law adopted as described in my paragraph above would still have to meet all the requirements of that international treaty since it has been incorporated into Canadian law by Parliament.
S.15 protections are exactly what a number of pretty knowledgeable lawyers were hanging their opinions on when this was discussed at the time of the short-lived move to strip Canadian citizenship from convicted terrorists under the Harper government. And frankly I don’t see it as much of a stretch, or more importantly, that our courts would.
I also believe in handling our own trash. Stripping citizenship is an abrogation of our responsibilities to our own, both good and bad.
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