Twenty-seven years after he fled to Canada for asylum and became a permanent resident, Roman Slepcsik is seeking protection under the Charter from having his life uprooted and being separated from his two Canadian daughters.
The former refugee from the Czech Republic had his protected-person status stripped last year for submitting himself to his homeland’s protection after he twice renewed his Czech passport and visited family there at least seven times.
As a result, Slepcsik has also automatically lost his permanent residence in Canada. He is barred from applying to stay on a temporary basis, regain his status on humanitarian grounds and undergo a risk assessment to determine if the Czech Republic is safe for him. He is facing imminent removal back there.
“I always thought that having Permanent Resident meant that I was Canadian, and that my status was secure if I paid my taxes and fulfilled all of my duties as a Canadian,” the 56-year-old said in an affidavit. He’s challenging before the Federal Court the constitutionality of the law that imposes those conditions on recognized refugees whose protection has been ceased.
“It is difficult to express in words the psychological impact on me if I am forced to leave Canada. My life is in Canada. It is my home.”
In 2012, the then-Conservative government, looking to crack down on bogus refugees, changed the law to not only go after former refugees’ protected status but also their permanent residence. The automatic loss of permanent residence was meant to streamline the removal of those who go back to the country that’s supposedly the source of persecution.
Since then, the number of applications by border agents to revoke protection of people who have been granted asylum soared from an average of 40 a year to more than 150 in 2013 and about 350 a year between 2019 and 2022.
At a two-day hearing in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ this week, Slepcsik’s lawyers argued that the cessation of the man’s protected person status should be reconsidered not only because the decision was unfair and unreasonable, but the dire consequences that he is facing violate his right to security and guarantee against cruel and unusual treatment under the Charter.
“These deprivations of the security person are inconsistent with the principles of fundamental justice,” Prasanna Balasundaram, a co-counsel for Slepcsik, told the court.
“The provisions are overbroad. It affects people who have been in Canada for decades, who return home for compelling personal reasons with no record of fraud, bogusness or misrepresentation.”
In 1997, Slepcsik, a member of the Roma minority, fled persecution, discrimination and violence for protection in Canada. He was granted asylum the following year and became a permanent resident in 1999. He worked in construction for 24 years building homes and rising to a managerial role at the company until he was let go during the pandemic.
Since being a protected person, he visited his homeland numerous times: to help his then wife and two daughters move to Canada in 2001; care for his brother who was hospitalized after a work injury in 2006; attend an uncle’s and then his mother’s funerals in 2007 and 2011; care for his brother in 2013, and back again in 2014; and visit his sibling who was battling cancer in 2019 and 2020.
Slepcsik was flagged at Pearson airport when he re-entered Canada after his last visit. In May 2021, the Canada Border Services Agency applied to the refugee protection division tribunal to cease his protected person status because “Slepcsik had voluntarily re-availed himself of the protection of Czech Republic.”
In April 2023, the tribunal found Slepcsik had voluntarily returned using his Czech passport, re-availing himself of the protection of that country. By virtue of the 2012 changes to the law, he immediately lost his permanent residence and became inadmissible to Canada.
His other lawyer, Barbara Jackman, said people are deemed inadmissible and removed from Canada due to criminality or because they pose a security threat to the country, or their medical conditions could be a burden to the health-care system.
However, she said it’s “demeaning, dehumanizing and dismissive” of immigrants by deporting them for visiting ailing family members back home. Â
“Then all of a sudden, because they went back home, which is not an offence under anybody’s rule of law, it can lead to cessation of refugee status,” Jackman told the court. “But that has nothing to do with permanent residence.”
In requesting that the court dismiss the case, lawyers for the government argued that refugee protection only lasts as long as the individuals cannot return to their home country, in accordance with international refugee law.
Protected persons are exempted from certain requirements, such as having a certain amount of financial resources imposed on others who have applied for permanent residence as skilled immigrants or through family reunification, thus their situation is different, the court heard.
“The permanent residence status of refugees is not absolute,” Meva Motwani, co-counsel for the government, said in court. “The permanent resident status is predicated on the need to remain in Canada because of their refugee status.”
She said the current process has substantive procedural safeguards for the refugee facing cessation of their protection status, and officials have the onus to demonstrate the person’s return to the country of nationality was voluntary and represents actual “re-availment.” The severity of consequences and the reasons for the travel are among the factors considered.
Motwani said Slepcsik did use all available avenues to make his case before the refugee protection division tribunal and this court.
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