Ottawa, Ontario, the 30th day of August 2005
PRESENT: THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE SHORE
BETWEEN:
Applicant
and
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
INTRODUCTION
[1] "The Board's conclusion that the appellant's evidence was not credible or trustworthy is based upon the appellant's demeanour, the conflict between the Personal Information Form and his oral testimony and a series of inconsistencies and implausibilities in his oral testimony. Such credibility findings are beyond the review of this Court." Mostajelin v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration).[1]
NATURE OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDING
[2] This is an application for judicial review, filed in accordance with subsection 72(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act[2] (Act), of a decision of the Refugee Protection Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (Board), dated January 11, 2005, that the applicant is not a Convention refugee under section 96 or a person in need of protection under section 97 of the Act.
FACTS
[3] A citizen of Lebanon, the applicant, Jihad Ezzeddine, claims that he has a well-founded fear of persecution because of perceived political opinion.
[4] The facts alleged are as follows, as described in Mr. Ezzeddine's Personal Information Form (PIF). In 1992, the applicant lived in Yater, a town in Bint Jbeil, South Lebanon, and was forced to join the South Lebanon Army (SLA). He had to use his school bus to transport SLA soldiers and act as a janitor and security guard at an SLA rest home.
[5] In November 1999, Mr. Ezzeddine was arrested by members of the Hezbollah, who accused him of being an agent of the Israelis and SLA. Mr. Ezzeddine was interrogated and threatened. After four days of detention, he was released and started a new life in Beirut, where he became a baker. One day, two men got out of an unmarked car and told him he had 48 hours to leave the region because he was in Hezbollah-controlled territory. Mr. Ezzeddine found a job elsewhere as a driver for a car rental agency. In June 2001, he was beaten by Hezbollah members and his wrist was broken.
[6] Mr. Ezzeddine left his country in August 2001 for Mexico. He then went to the United States. He came to Canada on May 13, 2003, and made a claim for refugee protection.
IMPUGNED DECISION
[7] The Board rejected the refugee claim owing to Mr. Ezzeddine's lack of credibility, demonstrated through many examples in the decision.
ISSUE
[8] Was the Board's finding that the applicant lacked credibility patently unreasonable?
ANALYSIS
[9] It is well established that, with regard to credibility issues such as those in this case, the Board's error must be patently unreasonable for the Court to intervene (Aguebor v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) (F.C.A.),[3] Pissareva v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration),[4] Singh v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)[5]].
[10] The Board noticed many elements that undermined Mr. Ezzeddine's credibility. First, his testimony was laborious; he did not answer questions or dodged them in his answers. Second, Mr. Ezzeddine said he had been compelled to work for the SLA and had not been paid for the work. Later in the hearing, however, he said he had been paid about US$150 a month to transport SLA soldiers. Third, Mr. Ezzeddine wrote in his PIF and repeated at the hearing that he had been arrested by the Hezbollah in November 1999 and that he had to leave for this reason and move to Beirut, while in his PIF he indicated that he had stopped working in his village as a school bus driver in May 2000. Fourth, Mr. Ezzeddine was threatened by two members of Hezbollah who got out of an unmarked car. The "unmarked" car bore the Hezbollah symbol. Fifth, the Board noted major contradictions in Mr. Ezzeddine's timeline in 1998 and 1999: according to his PIF, he worked as a bus driver in Yater from September 1991 to June 1998 and as a baker in Beirut from December 1999 to March 2002, whereas his IMM-5474 form indicates that he worked as a baker in Beirut from April 1996 to April 1998 and as a driver in Beirut from April 1998 to July 2001. Lastly, the Board found that Mr. Ezzeddine neglected to mention in his PIF the many trips he made to Syria between 1993 and 2001 and that he could have taken advantage of those opportunities to flee Lebanon if he really had been harassed and hounded by Hezbollah.
[11] As a specialized tribunal, the Board was responsible for assessing Mr. Ezzeddine's testimony and credibility within the context of the evidence as a whole. That is what the Board did, and the Court cannot find that it committed a patently unreasonable error as part of the assessment.
CONCLUSION
[12] For these reasons, the Court would answer the question at issue in the negative. Consequently, the application for judicial review is dismissed.
ORDER
THE COURT ORDERS that
1. The application for judicial review be dismissed;
2. No question be certified.
JUDGE
Certified true translation
Jason Oettel
SOLICITORS OF RECORD
STYLE OF CAUSE: JIHAD EZZEDDINE
v.
THE MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
PLACE OF HEARING: MONTRÉAL, QUEBEC
DATE OF HEARING: AUGUST 24, 2005
REASONS FOR ORDER
AND ORDER BY : THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE SHORE
DATED : AUGUST 30, 2005
APPEARANCES:
Jacques Beauchemin FOR THE APPLICANT
Caroline Cloutier FOR THE RESPONDENT
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
ALAIN JOFFE FOR THE APPLICANT
Montréal, Quebec
JOHN H. SIMS, Q.C. FOR THE RESPONDENT
Deputy Attorney General of Canada