Volunteer Research Entries

By Ali Alfakhri

[Version française à venir]

The Federal government has told the Supreme Court of Canada that there is no reason to review a decision that affirmed the constitutionality of a pact between Canada and the United States on asylum seekers.

The Safe Third Country Agreement, signed in 2004, Recognises that both Canada and the United States as safe countries for asylum seekers to seek refuge.

This allows Canada to turn away refugees that cross the land ports of entry along the Canada-U.S. border on the basis they must submit their claims in the U.S, given that it is deemed a safe country to do so.

Last year a federal judge said the refugee pact violated the constitutional guarantees of life, liberty and security.

Refugee activists successfully argued that claimants who get sent back to the United States get detained as a penalty, and are subject to other rights violations. Federal Court Justice Ann Marie McDonald concluded that the detentions and the consequences flowing from it are “inconsistent with the spirit and objective” of the refugee agreement and amount to a violation of the rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the charter.

However, the federal courts of appeal overturned the decision, prompting activists to pursue the matter in the Supreme Court of Canada. Stating that for the pact to violate the charter, the United States would have to engage in practices that “shock the concise” which the government argued has a high threshold. "Practices that have been found to violate that threshold include torture, stoning, mutilation and the death penalty," the government submission says.

Government lawyers argued that the federal court correctly interpreted the law, and that the appeal “does not raise any issue of public importance, nor does it raise any issue of law that ought to be decided by this Court."

The Supreme court is set to decide whether or not to hear the case in the upcoming weeks, a decision which could decide the fate of a 17-year old pact.