Borderlines

R v. Wong is a 2018 Supreme Court of Canada decision in which the Supreme Court of Canada had to determine whether a person could withdraw a guilty plea if they they did not know that their pleading guilty would lead to deportation. Erica Olmstead is an Associate at Edelmann & Co. She and Peter Edelmann represented the accused at the Supreme Court. Lobat Sadrehashemi represented one of the inverve...

Darryl Larson practiced immigration law in Vancouver, British Columbia for almost thirty years. He was a former Chair of the Canadian Bar Association of British Columbia's Immigration Section, counsel to both individuals and corporations, at one point represented China's most wanted fugitive, and successfully implemented a succession plan when he retired in 2018.In this episode Peter, Steven, Dean...

Deanna and Erin Roth discuss issues in Canadian medical inadmissibility law.  When can someone be inadmissible to Canada because they have a serious medical condition?  How does one confront such an allegation? What changes are upcomming? Erin Roth is a Lawyer with Edelmann & Co. Her work involves court proceedings regarding Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance requests from foreign states and...

Amanda Lord is a lawyer in the Criminal Law and International Assistance group at the Department of Justice of Canada. Her work involves court proceedings regarding Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance requests from foreign states and civil litigation on behalf of government agencies. In this episode we discuss Extradition and the State of Law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more in...

The Supreme Court of Canada in October issued its decision in R v. Tran, a case which Peter litigated. Deanna, Peter and Steve discuss the issues that the Supreme Court addressed in this landmark decision, including whether conditional sentences are terms of imprisonment for the purposes of deportation and retrospectivity in law. This was the first of two Supreme Court cases that Peter arguedin Ot...

The Liberal Government of Canada has introduced legislation that will expand the use of preclearance facilities by United States border officials in Canada, and authorize Canada to set up such facilities in the United States. Michael Greene, Q.C. is an immigration lawyer in Calgary. He served as the National Chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Citizenship & Immigration Section in 2000-2001. He...

In this episode we discuss the history of the immigration consultant profession in Vancouver and current issues that the profession faces from a regulatory and governance perspective. Ron McKay is a past Chair of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council's Board of Directors. He is a former Immigration Officer who spent ten years at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. He is also a...

Xun (Sunny) Wang was a ghost consultant who is estimated to have made $10 million by filing fraudulent immigration applications for clients of his two firms, New Can Consulting and Well Long Enterprises. Mr. Wang, who is currently serving an eight year jail sentence, and his staff, apparently put fake passport stamps in peoples' passports in order to lie about having spent sufficient time in Canad...

In this episode we discuss how to overcome systemic barriers in LGBTQ asylum claims. Much of this episode is dedicated to establishing how LGBTQ asylum claimants must prove their sexual identity during their refugee claim. How does someone from a country where being gay is illegal and who has been a closeted homosexual for their entire life prove that they are gay? What do Immigration and Refugee...

The Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States requires that persons seeking refugee protection must make a claim in the first country they arrive in unless they qualify for an exception to the Agreement. In other words, an asylum seeker who wishes to seek refugee status in Canada will typically be denied the ability to do so if they attempt to enter Canada by land from the...

The Honourable Alan S. Diner is a judge with the Federal Court of Canada. Prior to his appointment, Justice Diner headed Baker & McKenzie LLP’s immigration practice. He was also involved with managing the establishment and implementation of Ontario’s Provincial Nominee Program for the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. We are grateful to Justice Diner for the time that he took in preparing f...

We discuss three topics. The first is the oversight of police, CBSA, and immigration officers in Canada. How do we ensure that there is political oversight and accountability without politicizing the day to day operations of individual officers? The second topic is a discussion of Charter rights and Charter values in the immigration context. Finally, we talk about whether it is OK that in Canada i...

This episode contains an overview of the history of national security law in Canada, starting with the MacDonald Commission and the October Crisis of 1970, the formation of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, the Air India bombing, the Arar Inquiry, 9/11, and Bill C-51.We also discuss the roles of CSIS, the Communication Security Establishment, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and th...

Garth Barriere and Eric Purtzki joins Peter Edelmann and Steven Meurrens to discuss the constitutionality of laws that are retroactive or retrospective. Garth and Eric are both criminal defence attorneys in Vancouver. Both have appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada on numerous occasions. Peter and Steven also discuss the recent election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United Sta...

Lobat Sadrehashemi joins Peter Edelmann, Deanna Okun-Nachoff and Steven Meurrens to discuss issues in Canada's citizenship revocation and refugee determination processes. The recent controversy around Maryam Monsef guides our discussion. Lobat Sadrehashemi is an Associate Counsel at Embarkation Law Corporation. She is also the Vice President of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers ("CARL")....

A discussion of the role of immigration on the Vancouver housing market. Tom Davidoff is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business. He is frequently cited in the Vancouver media as being an expert on Vancouver's housing market, and was part of a team of nine academics who created the B.C. Housing Affordability Fund proposal. He can be found on Twitter...

Dani Willetts joins Peter Edelmann and Steven Meurrens to discuss the decision making process at Canada's immigration department, her experience transitioning from a career working for CIC to being an immigration consultant, some recent cases impacting international graduates in particular with regards to the Post-Graduate Work Permit program, a recent Parliamentary report on the Temporary Foreign...

Marilyn Sanford joins Peter Edelmann and Steve Meurrens to discuss whether the Canada Border Services Agency can search people's electronic devices. In addition, we discussed the recent stay of proceedings in the Nuttall decision, a well publicised case in which two individuals were charged with attempting to blow up the BC legislature. Marilyn was counsel to Mr. Nuttall, and provided her insights...

Jenny Kwan is the Member of Parliament for Vancouver East and is the New Democratic Party of Canada’s Immigration Critic. Her Twitter is @JennyKwanBC 2:30 – 16:13 – We talk about Bill C-6, the Liberal Government of Canada’s reforms to Canada’s Citizenship Act. Ms. Kwan both talked about what she likes and dislikes about Bill C-6. A specific concern that she has includes the procedural fairness aff...

Raj Sharma joins Peter Edelmann and Steven Meurrens to discuss marriage fraud. Raj Sharma is the managing partner of Stewart Sharma Harsanyi. He is a well known commentator on immigration law. In addition to his active blog and numerous presentations that he has given at immigration conferences and seminars, he has written numerous op-eds on immigration, diversity and multi-culturalism that have b...

Jennifer Bond joins Peter Edelmann and Steven Meurrens to discuss refugee resettlement and ensuring that legislation is Charter compliant. Jennifer is a professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, and is also a Special Advisor to Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship. Jennifer sat on the founding national executive of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL) and...

In this introductory episode the three of us discuss recent developments in Canadian immigration law, as well as some recent news items and a specific case. 00:30 – 8:39 – We discuss how immigration policy in general has changed under the Liberal government, with a specific emphasis on the Liberal’s repealing the portions of Bill C-24 which revoked the Canadian citizenship of certain individuals c...