Background
Arkanglo Salviu Anny, a South Sudanese national, entered Canada in 2005 at age 17 as a Convention refugee, included as a dependent on his sister’s successful refugee claim. His family had fled conflict in Sudan and lived in Egypt before resettling in Canada. Over the following years, Anny accumulated more than 50 criminal convictions spanning from 2006 to 2019, including assault, assault with a weapon, domestic violence, possession and trafficking of firearms and controlled substances, home invasion, and repeated failures to comply with court orders and recognizance conditions. These convictions led to a deportation order in 2010 and the loss of his permanent resident status.
In December 2015, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) initiated proceedings for a ministerial danger opinion under section 115(2)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Anny continued to accrue convictions after those proceedings began. He completed his sentence in March 2022, was transferred to immigration detention, and was later released on a bond. On February 2, 2024, the Minister’s Delegate (MD) issued a danger opinion finding that Anny constituted a present and future danger to the public, that his personal circumstances (including the best interests of his eight-year-old Canadian child) did not outweigh the public safety interest, and that his removal to South Sudan would not violate section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Anny applied for judicial review.
At the June 3, 2026 hearing in Calgary, Anny appeared self-represented and approximately 15 minutes late, after counsel for the Minister had already begun submissions. He made multiple requests for adjournment — to retain new counsel, on account of an unsubstantiated recent medical procedure, and to resume the hearing later that day or the following day — all of which Justice Blackhawk denied given the file’s protracted history, the Court’s fixed-hearing-date system, and the lack of evidence supporting the medical claim.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Blackhawk dismissed the application for judicial review. The Court held that the MD applied the correct legal test at each step of the Ragupathy framework: confirming inadmissibility for serious criminality, finding a present and future danger to the public, and conducting the required balancing exercise between the risk of removal and the danger the applicant posed to Canadian society. Because Anny did not challenge the findings on serious criminality, dangerousness, or the humanitarian and compassionate factors (including the best interests of his child), the dispositive question was whether the MD erred in the risk-of-removal analysis.
The Court rejected Anny’s argument that the MD improperly imported the “personalized risk” framework from sections 96 and 97 of the IRPA into the section 7 Charter analysis. Relying on Galvez Padilla v Canada, 2013 FC 247, and Suresh v Canada, 2002 SCC 1, the Court confirmed that even in the danger-opinion context — where an applicant need not show risk greater than the general population — the applicant must still demonstrate a substantial personal risk to life, liberty, or security on a balance of probabilities. The MD acknowledged that conditions in South Sudan were harsh and that adjustment would be difficult, but found that the risks Anny identified were general conditions shared by the entire population, not individualized risks. Anny had failed to provide evidence of a personalized prospective risk, and the MD’s conclusions were transparent, intelligible, and justified.
The Court further held that the MD was not required to explain why each piece of general country-condition evidence did not personally affect Anny; the onus lay on the applicant to adduce evidence of personal risk, which he did not meet. The decision was upheld as reasonable under the standard articulated in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, and the Court declined to certify any question for appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A Convention refugee subject to a danger opinion under section 115(2)(a) of the IRPA must, in the section 7 Charter risk analysis, demonstrate a substantial personal risk to life, liberty, or security upon removal — general country-condition evidence of hardship shared by the broader population is insufficient.
- The MD is not required to reference every piece of country-condition evidence submitted, nor to explain why generalized risks do not individually affect the applicant; the evidentiary burden rests on the applicant to establish personalized risk.
- Last-minute adjournment requests by self-represented litigants will be denied where the file has a lengthy history of delays, no timely motion was brought, and no credible evidentiary basis supports the request; the Federal Court’s fixed-hearing-date system affords no special exemption.
- Unchallenged findings on serious criminality, public dangerousness, and humanitarian and compassionate factors (including best interests of the child) are binding on judicial review; a court will not re-weigh those factors absent a specific legal error.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the high evidentiary bar facing Convention refugees who seek to resist removal on section 7 Charter grounds after a valid danger opinion has been issued. It clarifies that the personalized-risk requirement — long established in Suresh and Galvez Padilla — applies fully in the danger-opinion balancing exercise, meaning that even dire general country conditions in the destination state will not, standing alone, bar removal of an individual found to be a present and future danger to the public.
The decision also serves as a practical reminder of procedural discipline in Federal Court immigration proceedings. The Court’s detailed account of the adjournment history underscores that self-represented litigants bear the same obligations as counsel to comply with procedural rules, respond to scheduling communications, and bring timely adjournment motions — and that the Court’s fixed-date system will not be displaced by unsubstantiated personal circumstances raised at the eleventh hour.