The decision in Mohammed v. MCI 2022 FC 1 has already played a role in the granting of an appeal against a removal order by the IAD (coincidentally, by the same Board Member that initially denied relief to Ms. Mohammed). This was discussed in a recent Borderlines podcast (#69) and may be of assistance beyond those that worked in the front lines of the pandemic.
This topic also came up during my chat with Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan -the Official Critic for Immigration:
Raj Sharma: There's so many. I think the most recent is my first-reported decision, and the first-reported federal court decision of the year. It involved someone that was working in long-term care who was providing end stage service and assistance, and she was short of the residency obligation. Because she was short on the residency obligation, they tried to remove her from Canada, and she had good reasons why she couldn't comply with the residency obligation. When we ran the appeal, they gave short shrift to her assistance in a long-term care facility. There was multiple COVID outbreaks, there was deaths in the facility. She's literally risking her life, and this is in the decision, risking her life for the welfare of Canadians, with no expectations that her appeal would be accepted. That was given short shrift, at the appeal we lost. We took that to the federal court. Luckily we had Justice Ahmed, this former immigration lawyer, a human rights award winner, a former refugee. He said in his decision that the moral debt that we owe racialized individuals, particularly women, racialized women, took the brunt of the pandemic.
Jasraj S. Hallan: Absolutely.
Raj Sharma: The hit of the pandemic. If you look the numbers of COVID-positive cases in Ontario, the racialized LTC workers from Nigeria, from India, from Philippines, it was disproportionately high. Justice Ahmed recognized that, we succeeded on the judicial review. It's going back for redetermination, I have high hopes for that case. I then disclosed on another long-term care worker who needed to do an appeal, I think it'll come in handy. My year started off very nicely with that decision, and I hope that there's more. But it's important to avoid... Winning these cases is great, but why don't we get justice at the first instance?
Jasraj S. Hallan: That's right.
Raj Sharma: Correcting injustice, obviously it's a high. You have validation as a lawyer that I am an advocate, I am good, and that's great. But how about we get justice at the first instance? These stories will keep coming, but just off the top of my mind, I think that's how I started off my January. I hope that individuals like my client, and others, don't have to go through what she had to, to get that reported decision. ...
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