thestar.com
“If there is any antipathy, the panel finds, then it would most likely be against the father for risking a long-standing marriage by having an affair in his middle age or later,” says immigration appeal adjudicator Michael Sterlin
The Federal Court has slammed an immigration tribunal adjudicator for acting as “moral police” in denying an HIV-positive man permission to reunite with his daughters in Canada, blaming him for contracting the virus from an affair.
In chastising Michael Sterlin, the decision-maker at the immigration appeal division (IAD) tribunal, the court said that how the 62-year-old immigration applicant got HIV had nothing to do with the sponsorship case. To protect the man’s privacy, he was only randomly identified by court as A.B.
“The circumstances under which Mr. A.B. contracted HIV are wholly irrelevant to the issue before the IAD, as are any issues related to the applicant’s father’s moral character,” said Justice Shirzad Ahmed in a recent decision to send the case back to the tribunal for a new assessment.
“The IAD appears to make judgments against Mr. A.B.’s moral character, and in doing so, the IAD acts as moral police.”
In 2009, one of A.B.’s two daughters — who are both Canadian citizens living in Ottawa — applied to sponsor him and his wife to come to Canada under family reunification.
During the course of A.B.’s medical exam, a routine requirement in the immigration process, it was discovered that he is HIV-positive. In 2013, immigration officials informed the family that his health condition would cause “excessive demand” on Canadian health services and his sponsorship application would probably be denied.
Although the family was willing and able to cover the cost of A.B.’s anti-retroviral medications and requested humanitarian and compassionate relief, Immigration Canada refused the application in 2014. The family subsequently appealed to the tribunal.
Last year, the tribunal upheld the immigration decision, concluding that there were “insufficient humanitarian and compassionate considerations to grant special relief.”