Background
Adaeze Gladys Ezezue and her two dependent children arrived in Canada in December 2017. Their refugee claim and subsequent appeal were denied, as was an application for relief on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. After a removal order was issued, their first pre-removal risk assessment was also denied, and the Federal Court refused leave to review that decision.
The family submitted a second pre-removal risk assessment in March 2025, alleging a new risk arising from the principal applicant’s mental health. A senior immigration officer considered her medical and treatment history, including her detention from September to November 2024, but concluded that the applicants had not established a personal, objectively identifiable risk in Nigeria. The officer found insufficient evidence that she could not obtain medication, access mental-health programs or NGO assistance, or reintegrate into Nigerian society.
The applicants sought judicial review, arguing that the officer misapprehended or selectively relied on country-condition evidence, improperly focused on the adequacy of Nigerian mental-health care, and conflated the tests under sections 96 and 97 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
The Court’s Holding
The Federal Court dismissed the application, holding that the officer’s decision was reasonable. Chief Justice Diner found that the reasons demonstrated an intelligible, transparent and justified consideration of the evidence. Although a decision-maker must account for important evidence contradicting a conclusion, a pre-removal risk assessment officer is not required to mention every item in the record. The applicants’ challenge largely invited the Court to reweigh the country-condition evidence, which is not the reviewing court’s role.
The officer reasonably recognized that people with mental-health conditions may constitute a particular social group, depending on the country evidence, but found no serious possibility that these applicants would be persecuted because of the principal applicant’s condition. Evidence of possible discrimination did not establish persecution. The officer also properly addressed both sections 96 and 97 because the applicants’ own submissions had invoked both provisions; the Court therefore rejected the alleged conflation of the two analyses.
The Court concluded that the applicants had not shown any sufficiently central or significant defect rendering the assessment unreasonable. It dismissed the judicial-review application and certified no question.
Key Takeaways
- A pre-removal risk assessment officer need not expressly discuss every piece of country-condition evidence, although important evidence contradicting the officer’s conclusion must be accounted for.
- Evidence that a person with a mental-health condition may experience discrimination does not, without more, establish a serious possibility of persecution under section 96.
- An officer does not err by analyzing both sections 96 and 97 when an applicant’s submissions seek protection under both provisions.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the limits of reasonableness review in immigration cases: courts assess whether the administrative decision is justified in light of the record, but will not conduct a fresh weighing of country evidence. Applicants alleging mental-health-related persecution must connect general evidence about stigma, treatment conditions or systemic shortcomings to a serious possibility of persecution or another qualifying personal risk.
It also illustrates that defining people with mental-health conditions as a particular social group does not itself satisfy the refugee-protection test. The evidence must establish the required prospective risk for the particular applicants in the country of removal.