ARE WE TAKEN FOR FOOLS?
Immigration lies mean little: Bramham
It took six years before Canadian immigration officials realized in 2008 that they had given convicted killer Darshan Singh Sidhu, his wife and 23-year-old son permanent resident status.
It was another decade before the Federal Court decided last week that the family’s pathway to citizenship was all “predicated on a lie.” The judge determined that the son, Barinder Singh Sidhu, shouldn’t be allowed to remain in Canada even though he has a job, a wife and two Canadian-born children. (Of course, it may be years before he leaves since his lawyer indicated that Barinder might re-apply on compassionate and humanitarian grounds.)
It was the father, Darshan, who lied, not the son. He answered “No” to the question of whether he had ever been the subject of any criminal investigation. Not only had he been investigated, Darshan had been convicted for arranging the murder of a Maple Ridge woman in India and was, supposedly, serving a life sentence in prison.
The brazenness of the lie is somewhat breathtaking. Judge Richard Mosley wrote in the decision that it “appears” the immigration application was made and approved while Darshan was out on bail, either pending an appeal or during one of the periodic leaves he was given to help bring in the crops at his farm in the Punjab.
Yet it was only in 2014 that Canada’s immigration folks figured out there might be a problem. During an interview with a visa officer in the Canadian consulate in Chandigarh, Barinder said he had never been asked about his father. He said he believed his father was innocent and would ultimately be absolved, noting that whenever his father was let out of jail, he never had travel restrictions placed on him and never had his passport taken from him.
Should the sin of the father’s lie be visited upon the son? The judge said yes. There is a duty of candour even if nobody double-checks the answers of one family member with others whose names might be on the application.
But here is something at least as troubling. When Darshan lied, the judge said it “foreclosed an avenue of investigation for immigration officials regarding the family’s application for admission. In such an investigation, Darshan Singh Sidhu’s murder conviction would undoubtedly be a material fact.”
No one fact-checks applications? This seems abnormally trusting when what’s at stake are the full rights of Canadian citizenship.
Even a quick Google search would have turned up Darshan’s name because the murder that he was investigated and jailed for involved a Canadian and what was euphemistically described as an honour killing.
It was widely reported in B.C. when it happened. Later, it was the subject of three documentaries and a book by former Province reporter Fabian Dawson.
In 2000, Jaswinder (Jassi) Kaur Sidhu of Maple Ridge was raped and tortured before her throat was slit and her body dumped in a ditch in rural India.
Jassi’s mother, Malkit Kaur Sidhu, and her uncle, Surjit Singh Badesha (a wealthy blueberry farmer and the family’s patriarch), didn’t like the husband who Jassi had secretly married in India.
Jassi’s mother and uncle were charged in India with arranging the murder. But they have never been tried because closing the circle in this case is the fact that Canada has yet to extradite them.
In December, only hours before they were finally to have been on a plane to India, the B.C. Court of Appeal stopped the removal and agreed to hear their application to have the extradition permanently stayed. That case was to have been heard in April. But it has now been set back to a later date because of delays in filing disclosure documents.
If there is a theme that runs through this story of a brutal, senseless, transnational murder, it’s how difficult it is for our system to cope with all of this.
How is it that even after living in Canada for 30 years, a mother and an uncle would even consider arranging the murder, let alone that of a daughter and niece who had grown up here believing that all people are free to make their own choices?
How gullible are we as a society that something as precious as citizenship is premised on a system that relies on the shaky proposition that everyone who fills out a form and signs it is telling the truth?
Immigration is an important and, some argue, even necessary feature of Canada. But we need to get it right. That means ensuring that practices and prejudices that are antithetical to our laws — and often to those of immigrants’ homelands — are not imported here. It also likely means being tougher to be fairer.
Canadians are prepared to welcome newcomers, but they deserve to know that applications are vetted carefully. So, too, do the hundreds of thousands of honest applicants waiting patiently in the queue.