OTTAWA — Pressed on a Crown corporation’s decision to award a contract to a U.S.-based joint venture for the management of the country’s nuclear laboratories, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson suggested his government’s promise of “elbows up” can mean “lots of things.”

The National Post first revealed in June

that critics were sounding the alarm on the recent decision by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) to award a contract to sole bidder Nuclear Laboratory Partners of Canada Inc. (NLPC) — a joint venture led by U.S.-based BWXT — for the management and operation of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL).

CNL includes mainly Chalk River Laboratories, the birthplace of the CANDU reactor.

Critics raised national security concerns about giving access to Canada’s homegrown nuclear technology to companies involved with the U.S. Department of Defence at a time when Canada’s sovereignty was seemingly under attack by the Trump administration.

It appeared to be also contrary to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “elbows up” campaign promise, even though AECL awarded the contract independently from the government.

NLPC is spearheaded by Virginia-based BWXT — an important supplier to the U.S. Defence Department. The other partners are Amentum — also based in Virginia — and Kinectrics Inc. — a company based in Toronto but bought by BWXT earlier this year.

Its key subcontractor, Ohio-based Batelle Memorial Institute, is the world’s largest research and development organization and manages national laboratories, including for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The management contract is valued at $1.2 billion per year on average, for six years, but could be extended up to a total of 20 years based on performance indicators.

The contract was originally planned to start on Sept. 13, but after the National Post reported on the transaction,

a news release from AECL

announced that it was delayed to a further date pending an “outstanding regulatory review of the transition” to be completed by the Competition Bureau.

“The Bureau works to complete our merger reviews as quickly as possible. That said, we must complete a thorough examination of the facts of a transaction before reaching an evidence-based conclusion,” said John Power, a spokesman for the Competition Bureau.

“As such, it would be inappropriate to speculate as to when the Bureau will reach its conclusion.”

A spokesman for AECL, Jeremy Latta, could not provide an exact date as to when the transition would occur. He would also not say if AECL would wait for the Competition Bureau to complete its investigation before proceeding with the hand-off to NLPC.

In the meantime, Canadian National Energy Alliance (CNEA), a consortium led by AtkinsRéalis, is continuing to manage CNL, as it has been doing for the past decade.

Hodgson, who was appearing at the House of Commons natural resources committee on Monday, had a testy exchange with Conservative MP Corey Tochor in explaining AECL’s decision to award a contract to a U.S.-led venture for Canada’s nuclear laboratories.

Hodgson reiterated that NLPC management is based in Canada — a contractual obligation for all members, including the CEO — and that every CNL employee is in Canada. He has also previously said that 95 per cent of the money involved will be spent in Canada.

“Are you against any American company operating in Canada?” the minister asked Tochor, adding that he does not think that view is “consistent” with Conservative thinking.

Tochor shot back: “I think it’s consistent with the ‘elbows up’ campaign you just ran.”

Hodgson replied that “‘elbows up’ means lots of things.”

“Elbows up means negotiating with all of the countries in the world, doubling our exports, creating alternatives to Americans. That’s what we’re doing,” he said.

Tochor also mentioned that the Competition Bureau announced last week it has

expanded its investigation into BWXT’s acquisition of Kinetrics

in determining whether the transaction is likely to prevent competition in Canada’s live-saving medical isotopes.

Hodgson said the Competition Bureau is an “independent entity” and is not in his department but said he does not see anything wrong with the process taking place.

“Look, I was in the investment banking world for my entire life. It is normal for transactions to be reviewed. Because a transaction is being reviewed, it in no way implies there’s anything wrong. It’s a normal process,” he said.

Latta, spokesman for AECL, has said this review process by the Competition Bureau concerns a “separate transaction” than NLPC’s acquisition of CNL shares.

Later in the committee meeting, Conservative MP Jonathan Rowe tabled a motion — initially put on notice by his colleague Shannon Stubbs, who is currently on medical leave — to study AECL’s decision to award a contract to a U.S.-based joint venture.

The motion proposed to invite Hodgson, as well as representatives from AECL, Natural Resources Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat and any other witnesses the committee deems appropriate, as well as the production of documents relevant to this decision.

Liberal MPs on the committee, however, said that the study would interfere with the Competition Bureau’s investigation and shut down debate on the motion.

National Post

calevesque@postmedia.com

• Critics are sounding the alarm on U.S. management of Canada’s nuclear labs. Here’s why
• ‘The worst is behind us’: Canada’s economy is defying some of the grim forecasts about Trump’s tariffs

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.

The

Canada Border Services Agency

has issued a set of tips to travellers from the United States intending to cross into Canada during the upcoming U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend.

Ranking high on the CBSA list are reminders not to bring cannabis, firearms or homemade food containing turkey.

“Be sure to review current

restrictions on poultry and birds from the United States

before bringing these products across the border,” the agency says in a Nov. 25 press release. “Homemade food or leftovers containing poultry (including turkey) cannot be brought into Canada.”

The agency also says travellers from the U.S. should “leave (their) firearms and weapons at home. You are encouraged not to travel with firearms.”

For cannabis users, the CBSA warning is clear: “Don’t bring it in.”

While cannabis is legal in Canada, notes the CBSA, “bringing it across the border in any form, including oils, without a permit or exemption

authorized by Health Canada

is a serious criminal offence subject to arrest and prosecution.”

Moreover, says the CBSA, a medical prescription from a doctor does not count toward a Health Canada authorization.

The CBSA says it is “always watching for missing children,” so travellers with children who are not their own, or for whom they don’t have full legal custody, a consent letter from the parent or legal guardian authorizing travel with the child is recommended.

For land-border crossers the CBSA aims to help with wait times and suggests travellers check border wait times available on the

list of every crossing

provided by the agency.

“Early mornings are the best time to cross the border to avoid wait times,” says the CBSA. “The Monday of holiday long weekends tend to be the busiest. Consider an alternative port of entry with shorter wait times or less traffic.”

Travellers can also check a specific port of entry’s hours of operation on the official

CBSA Directory of Offices and Services

.

Otherwise, the CBSA suggests travellers have their

travel documents

readily available to present to a CBSA officer when coming into Canada.

“U.S. citizens must carry proper identification to enter Canada such as a valid passport or NEXUS card when travelling by land or air. This will speed up processing times at the border.”

The CBSA urges travellers to be “prepared to declare” everything they bring with them, including gifts and food. The agency notes that people arriving by land are responsible for everything inside their vehicles. It suggests that travellers who are not sure what to declare, call the CBSA at 1-800-461-9999.

For travellers flying into Canada, it is recommended that they use the

advance declaration

, which can be done up to 72 hours in advance of arrival.

• Border bitterness is devastating cross-border tourism. But one Canadian city is bucking the trend
• Why is Canada setting up first-ever border preclearance site in the U.S.?

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

OTTAWA — A human rights group and a band of MPs issued a “wake-up call” Tuesday to Canada and other countries to help stop the genocide in Darfur, warning that the worst of the atrocities may still be ahead.

Irwin Cotler, a former Liberal MP and cabinet minister and now a human rights advocate, said Canada and its international allies need to do more to pursue peace in the western Sudanese region, help citizens evade the war zones through safe corridors, and provide other forms of humanitarian assistance.

Cotler, a key member of a “Save Darfur” coalition of MPs that was founded 22 years ago during the previous crisis, said it’s “tragic and painful” that the region is facing another genocide. The MPs told reporters that another all-party parliamentary coalition has been re-established to address the situation.

The human disaster was foreseeable, said Cotler, who is also the founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR). “It’s not as if the compelling horrors were not known,” he said during a press conference in Ottawa. “It’s that they were not acted upon.”

Mutasim Ali, a legal advisor at the Wallenberg centre, said the terror in Darfur puts pretty much everybody in the region of 7.5-million people at risk.

Darfur, an independent region until 1874, has been facing a humanitarian crisis for most of the last 22 years due largely to a battle for political power and rivalries between domestic religious and ethnic groups.

Cotler also highlighted the findings of the centre’s recent independent inquiry on the atrocities in Sudan. The inquiry, which focused largely on the child victims, found that what began more than two years ago as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has escalated into one of the world’s worst crises. The atrocities include mass starvation, forced displacement, deliberate attacks on the young and vulnerable, sexual violence, enslavement and of course mass murder.

The report, titled A War on Children, A World Complicit, found substantial evidence that RSF and its allied militias are committing genocide and ethnic cleansing against non-Arab populations in Darfur, particularly around the western Sudanese city of El Fasher.

The report also pointed the finger at the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kenya and Chad for supporting or enabling the atrocities. There is also strong evidence, the report says, that China, Russia, and the UAE have supplied arms to the two sides.

The struggle for power has hit children particularly hard, the group found. Despite the scale of the atrocities, UNICEF and some other non-governmental organizations are struggling to provide for the local population, including life-saving assistance for 15 million children.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine are distracting the world’s attention from the genocide and atrocities in Darfur.

National Post

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.

Some Canadian companies and political parties appear to be “based” in the United States on X, even though they are Canadian. The information appeared on X accounts after the platform launched a new feature over the weekend, intended to show users where in the world an account is located.

It is supposed to help “users to verify the authenticity of the content they see on X,”

according to X head of product Nikita Bier

; however, the About This Account feature has also led to some confusion.

“If any data is incorrect, it will be updated periodically based on best available information. This happens on a delayed and randomized schedule to preserve privacy,” Bier

said

.

After the feature was launched, users on X started pointing out that the accounts for the Liberal Party and the NDP are listed as “based in United States.” Canadian companies like Tim Hortons and Lululemon, to name a few, are also listed as “based in the United States.”

However, the Liberal Party’s spokesperson Matteo Rossi confirmed to National Post in an emailed statement that all of its social accounts “are of course run from Canada.” Similarly, NDP spokesperson Aaron Zerfas said the party’s account on X was “created and is maintained in Canada.”

A spokesperson for Tim Hortons said its X account is run from Toronto, Ont. Lululemon did not immediately respond to National Post in time for publication.

Here’s what to know about X’s new location feature and some accounts’ misleading locations.

How can organizations in Canada appear to be located in the U.S. online?

Although a social media account might be “based” in the U.S., it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was set up abroad or is being run outside of Canada, Courtney Gibson told National Post. Gibson is a computer engineering professor at the University of Toronto and the the Chief Technology Officer at medical company MedixSafe.

Each device that connects to the internet has a unique identifying number assigned to it,

called an IP address

. There are several reasons why an IP address might not accurately display a location, said Gibson.

“There are a whole bunch of things that can really frustrate people’s attempt to know where traffic is coming from,” including an address being misidentified or a server being moved temporarily. IP addresses “move around” and can make it hard to pinpoint a physical location.

Gibson likened it to area codes and phone numbers.

“It used to be that 416 numbers were all Toronto phone numbers, and for a combination of convenience and competition, people now can move their phone numbers,” he said.

“I know people with 416 phone numbers who now live in Ottawa or Vancouver or Montreal, and they have taken their phone number with them as they’ve moved. The area code no longer really corresponds to geography. And the same thing happens with computer addresses.”

He said there are a lot of components in place to ensure the internet runs smoothly from a business perspective, but that can mean less clarity for internet users who want more information.

Another scenario that could lead to a Canadian organization appearing to be based in the U.S. could be if an internet service provider assigns

blocks of IP addresses

to customers.

If some addresses are not in use, the provider can sell them. It’s possible that the address used when a customer subscribed to a social media platform, such as X, belonged to the Canadian provider at the time, but was then sold to another provider in the United States, said Gibson.

“It may now be owned by a different organization, reported in a different location,” said Gibson. “It can be really hard to tell.”

Why do some Canadian X accounts say ‘based’ in the U.S.?

Gibson said he would be surprised if such accounts are really being run through a “physical server sitting in a room somewhere” in the United States.

“It’s far more likely that they are running it from (Amazon Web Services) or a Microsoft Azure service somewhere and that it is simply being routed,” he said.

“To the same extent, I could send you a package by FedEx, and if I was sending it from Saskatchewan to Toronto, it probably will travel through the United States at some point, just because that’s a more direct route. It doesn’t mean that the sender isn’t Canadian, or the recipient isn’t Canadian. It just happened to travel through some roadway that crossed the border.”

He added: “The internet was originally built without a lot of geography in mind.”

The Canadian companies and political parties that appear to be “based” in the U.S. on X include a warning from the platform.

It says: “One of our partners has indicated that this account may have used a proxy — such as a VPN, which may change the country or region that is displayed on their profile. This data may not be accurate. Some internet providers may use proxies automatically without action by the user.”

What should internet users know about trusting sources online?

Much of the information online is automatically trusted, said Gibson, despite there being “no authority anywhere to validate” it. That includes the location of IP addresses.

“I think it’s a matter of understanding what you can trust. So many of the protocols that we rely on, on the internet, were written in the days when it was an academic network, back in the 1980s,” said Gibson.

“There are some services that will point you to the organization that is plugged into the internet and hosting those addresses, and that may help lead you to where it is. But again, the source of the website or the source of the data may be a customer of theirs, as opposed to the company themselves. It’s complicated, and it lets the internet function, but it also can be abused by people who are trying to hide.”

• Social media videos cause a host of mental problems, with one notable exception: study
• Nearly 40 per cent of Canadian teens victimized online say it happened on Snapchat, new report says

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

A 14-year dispute over tennis that veered into a bizarre feud between a wealthy Canadian businessman and an American billionaire — both reclusive, fierce personalities — has reached some conclusion with a jury in Florida delivering a US$50 million blow to the Canadian.

Toronto businessman Harold Peerenboom, 78, and U.S. billionaire Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, 82, the former CEO of Marvel Entertainment, have been scrapping in court for a decade, and, within their shared ocean-front community in Florida, for years longer, but it took a jury less than four hours on Friday to reach a verdict in a hotly fought civil suit.

The Palm Beach County jury sided with the Perlmutters, awarding $16,011 in damages to Isaac Perlmutter and $50,016,011 to his wife, Laura Perlmutter.

By the time of the verdict it was no longer about tennis.

It had twisted and morphed, grown and festered into harsh claims and counterclaims over prolific hate-mail campaigns and “an international conspiracy” to take, analyze and share the Florida couple’s DNA, court heard.

“It was a petty dispute” at the start, Joshua Dubin, lawyer for the Perlmutters, said in an interview. “I think that Mr. Peerenboom picked a fight with the wrong people. And he took it too far.”

For his part, Peerenboom’s lawyer, Jordan Cohen, suggested the verdict might be appealed.

Both characters at the forefront of this drama are unusual and dramatic in their own way. Both have vast self-made wealth and are described as strong-willed. Their dispute has been called cartoonish, an easy go-to, especially when Perlmutter oversaw Marvel, the comic book giant — X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, and so on — properties that became box office gold through blockbuster movies.

Perlmutter is known as reclusive. Hollywood Reporter said it hired an illustrator in 2016 to sketch what he “might look like” because he seemed “pathologically private” to the point of secretly attending the 2008 movie premiere of Iron Man in disguise.

Perlmutter sold Marvel to Disney in 2009 for $4 billion. He left the company, and sold his substantial Disney shares, in 2023.

Perlmutter’s public shyness seems to have relaxed. He is friends with U.S. President Donald Trump and recently was photographed sitting next to him at Trump’s Halloween dinner party at Mar-a-Lago. He was also photographed next to Elon Musk at Trump’s January inauguration, and later in the Oval Office.

Peerenboom is a self-made millionaire who was born and raised in what is now Thunder Bay, Ont. He went by the anglicized name Harold Perry in his early years, after moving to Toronto to make his fortune. He was brash and driven and started a Canadian version of a headhunting firm, Mandrake, that became a successful executive search firm and gave him contacts in top-tier offices across the country.

Peerenboom had early splashes in the press and a colourful presence in politics in Toronto, where he was nicknamed “Scary Harry Perry.” He became known for fighting points of principle and pet peeves to extraordinary lengths.

Peerenboom turned publicity shy in recent years. For a feature on him in 2017, CBC was forced to use an old headshot photo scraped from his firm’s website.

In 2010, Peerenboom and the Perlmutters became neighbours when the Canadian bought a lavish townhome at Sloan’s Curve, a ritzy condominium complex on a narrow spit in Palm Beach with water views on both sides. It is down the road from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club with residences.

The clash of the titans started with a dispute over the gated community’s tennis instructor.

The two disagreed on retaining the pro, who had been there for years. The disagreement became a legal battle, with the tennis pro suing Peerenboom and others, with Perlmutter funding her case.

That’s when poison-pen letters started arriving at homes around Sloan’s Curve, anonymously mailed and making false and

scurrilous

allegations about Peerenboom. They kept coming. Some 2,000 letters over more than three years. Some allegations were outrageous — including sex assault and murders.

Even Perlmutters’ lawyer said the letters were dreadful.

“It was awful, and it was a horrific thing against Mr. Peerenboom,” Dubin said. “He quickly suspected that the Perlmutters were behind it, simply because he had that tennis dispute with them,” he said.

It was during the legal dispute with the tennis pro, when Peerenboom suspected the Perlmutters were behind the letters, that the DNA incident occurred, court heard.

A plan was hatched to link the couple to the hate mail by comparing their DNA to DNA found on letters, court heard. According to the statement of claim from the Perlmutters, they were subpoenaed to give evidence in depositions in the tennis case.

Court heard a crime scene technician was flown in to secretly collect the Perlmutters’ DNA when they came to answer questions in 2013, and that the tech treated sheets of paper to facilitate the collection of genetic material when touched. Both the paper and bottles of water were surreptitiously taken and sent to testing labs by Peerenboom’s team, court heard.

The testing excluded the Perlmutters as suspects, court heard. Despite that, court heard, Peerenboom pressed ahead with allegations against them, including publicly to the New York Times and the Globe and Mail in 2016, court heard.

Both businessmen were now suing each other and as the colourful and alarming feud meandered for a decade through Florida courts there was a riot of media coverage, with neighbours, socialites and business associates watching in dismay.

The first blow to Peerenboom came in 2021 when his lawsuits against the Perlmutters were dismissed by a court. Florida headlines declared their feud over. It wasn’t.

Both of the Perlmutters testified at a three-week trial this month into their counterclaims. Afterwards, the jury accepted their claims of civil conspiracy to steal DNA, abuse of process and defamation, and awarded additional damages for loss of enjoyment of life and humiliation. The verdict was against both Peerenboom and a lawyer for an insurance agency linked to the DNA plot.

It didn’t look good for them when, after an hour and a half of deliberating, the jury asked the judge to send in a calculator.

The verdict was welcomed as vindication by Dubin.

“Laura Perlmutter spent her whole life with a sterling reputation. She was known for philanthropy. She was known for giving to her community and those in need,” he said.

“All she had was her name. And I think that the facts were very clear that being accused of a crime you didn’t commit, being accused of being involved in this awful hate-mail campaign is about as devastating as it gets. And I think that the damages were perfectly appropriate.”

Cohen, Peerenboom’s lawyer, suggested the case still might not be over.

“While we continue to have the utmost faith in the jury system, we take issue with their verdict on the defamation claim where they were invited into error and rendered a verdict unsupported by the evidence presented at trial,” Cohen said in a statement to the Post.

“We do not litigate matters in the press and will reserve our post-verdict and appellate arguments for the courts.”

Lawyers said both men still own their property at Sloan’s Curve.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys

• Strange twist in bitter feud between rich Canadian and richer American unfolds in Toronto courtroom
• He grew up rich and joined the hottest media empire. Then came the cocaine mules

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.

OTTAWA

— A new report has found that nearly 40 per cent of Canadian teens who say they have been sexually victimized online say it happened on the private messaging platform Snapchat. 

The findings, released by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection on Tuesday, were collected through a survey based on responses from nearly 1,300 teens themselves.

It comes as calls grow from child safety advocates for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to present new legislation to better protect children online, including by introducing new regulations for tech platforms.

The report from the child protection centre, a national charity which runs a tip line for child sex abuse and exploitation online, calls on platforms to enhance their safety regimes, particularly when it comes to private messaging, citing that it has been where a majority of the teens surveyed reported experiencing some form of online sexual violence.

“If the guiding principles of an online safety regime are to safeguard children and prevent harm, then it must devote significant attention to the outsized role private communication services and functions play in the facilitation of online sexual victimization of teens in Canada,” it read.

The Liberals’ last attempt to regulate tech platforms failed to pass Parliament before the spring federal election was called.

Known as the Online Harms Act, the former bill proposed establishing a new digital safety regulator and compelling platforms to develop safety plans outlining how they would reduce users’ exposure to harmful content online.

The former bill did not apply to private messages, which the centre, in its latest report, suggests the Carney government ought to consider to address what it called “the gaps” of the previous attempts to legislate for better online safety under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, as well as look to lessons learned in other jurisdictions.

Its survey, which was done in collaboration with the polling firm Leger, began by asking teens aged 13 to 17 whether they had experienced some form of non-consensual and inappropriate sexual behaviour online, from being threatened to have a naked photo of themselves circulated without their consent, including a fake one, to someone making sexualized comments to them.

Among the most common types of harm that teen respondents reported, the report found 79 per cent said they had experienced someone attempting to have them talk about sex, followed by 59 per cent who said they had been sent an unsolicited image or video depicting a sex act or genitals.

It also reported that of the nearly 1,300 teens who said they had experienced at least one form of sexual victimization online, 39 per cent named Snapchat as the platform where it happened, followed by 20 per cent who said Facebook and another 20 per cent who said Instagram, both owned by Meta.

Snapchat, a wildly popular private messaging platform, particularly among teens, allows users to send photos and other private messages to one another, which are set to automatically delete after a certain time.

In recent years, law enforcement in different countries, including the RCMP, have issued warnings about the frequency with which they encounter sextortion cases involving teens who have been manipulated into sending nude photos of themselves by perpetrators, who then threaten to release them publicly unless their demands are met.

The platform, which has committed to cracking down on those who use it for harm or extortion, reported that from July to December 2024, it made nearly three million enforcements related to sexual content and took action against another 960,000 instances of child exploitation.

The centre’s report also found that 17 per cent of teen respondents said they had experienced someone creating a naked image of them without their consent, a phenomenon that has increased since the expansion of generative AI leading to increasing concern about the distribution of images known as “deepfakes.”

Carney campaigned on the promise to criminalize the non-consensual sharing of these images as well as increase the penalties for the

non-consensual distribution of intimate images. 

The measures, which have yet to be tabled, have landed on the desk of Justice Minister Sean Fraser to include in an upcoming bill dedicated to tackling online crimes against minors, which he has committed to bringing forward.

Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Minister Evan Solomon, who is developing his own privacy bill, also told National Post in an interview last month that he has been considering different measures to deal with issues surrounding “deepfakes,” including a possible “right to deletion.” 

“One option is that you would say that you have the right to demand that that deep fake is deleted from social media,” Solomon said, adding that options could include looking to the federal privacy commissioner or seeing fines levied.

— National Post

• Calls mount for Carney government to revive Trudeau-era online harms legislation
• Mother of Amanda Todd says Carney government’s scaled down online safety effort is ‘not enough’

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.

A Somali woman barred from Canada for five years for giving false names and birth dates for herself and her two children while applying for refugee status here, dodging the fact that she had entered into a polygamous marriage with a Canadian-Somali man, has won another chance at staying in this country.

Fadumo Yusuf Mohamed Abdille came to Canada in 2012 and was granted refugee status, but that was vacated in 2023 due to misrepresentation on her refugee claim, according to a recent Federal Court decision out of Toronto.

In 2002, Abdille, who is also a citizen of the Netherlands, met her future husband in Holland, through a mutual uncle.

Abdille’s “future husband was already married in Canada, and the applicant was aware of that fact,” said the decision.

“However, as they are both of the Muslim faith, (Abdille) understood that men are permitted to have multiple wives. Accordingly, they celebrated their Islamic marriage on October 26, 2002.”

Abdille’s husband travelled frequently to the Netherlands and they had two children in the decade between 2002 and 2012, the court heard.

“Seeking to reunite with her husband and the father of her children in Canada, (Abdille) came to Canada from the Netherlands with their children unannounced on July 31, 2012,” said the decision, dated Nov. 19.

She “obtained refugee status for herself and their two children under false names, false birth dates, as citizens of Somalia, and seeking protection from persecution in Somalia,” it said.

“Despite being married under Islam since 2002, (Abdille) could not be sponsored in Canada by her husband, because polygamous marriages are not legally recognized under Canadian law. Moreover, given that her husband was married and had a child with his first wife, (Abdille) lived separately from her husband in Canada.”

She and her husband had their third child in March 2014.

“In 2018, the husband’s first wife passed away following an illness. Sensitive to the circumstances and their impact on (Abdille’s) husband’s child from his first marriage, (she) and her husband continued to live separately, while progressively integrating each other’s lives,” said the decision.

They moved in together in early 2022 and celebrated a civil marriage that fall.

That same year, Canada’s immigration minister asked for a reassessment of Abdille’s refugee status.

“In a decision dated March 9, 2023, (her) refugee status was vacated because she misrepresented material facts in her original claim,” said the decision.

Abdille “admitted to having provided false information on her refugee claim for the sole reason of reuniting with her husband, and for her children to be close to their father.”

Abdille applied for permanent residency in Canada in May 2023 under her husband’s sponsorship.

“Similarly, the children are currently in the process of obtaining citizenship as their father is a Canadian citizen,” said the decision.

But an immigration officer rejected Abdille’s two applications for permanent residency, one made based on her husband’s sponsorship and another made on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, in September 2024.

“The officer rejected (Abdille’s) applications on the basis that her marriage with her spouse was not genuine, because the officer found that the evidence was insufficient to establish that they lived together. Moreover, (Abdille) did not demonstrate sufficient (humanitarian and compassionate) grounds to allow her to overcome her inadmissibility as a result of her misrepresentation on her refugee claim,” said the decision.

The officer found Abdille’s “misrepresentation in her original refugee claim was a serious violation of Canadian immigration law. The officer noted that many of (Abdille’s) documents contained inconsistent information relating to her and her husband’s living arrangements; notably many documents continued to be sent to her previous address, such that the officer concluded that the marriage was not genuine.”

While the officer noted that the best interest of Abdille’s children was considered, “the hardship that may be caused by her removal did not outweigh the serious nature of her misrepresentation.”

Abdille argued successfully that the officer’s decision was unreasonable.

Abdille pointed out that the officer who decided her case “was silent” on evidence establishing “the genuineness of her relationship with her husband, including the children’s DNA Testing Report,” and her husband’s letters supporting her sponsorship demonstrating that she lived with him.

The officer found Abdille had a lack of documentary “evidence proving that their lives were intertwined physically or financially in a manner typically associated with married couples,” said the decision. “Precisely, the officer found that many documents continued to indicate that (Abdille) remained at her old address and that the banking information submitted did not demonstrate sufficient financial family transactions; therefore, the evidence showed that (Abdille) and her husband led separate lives.”

Lawyers for the immigration minister argued the officer “reasonably assessed the evidence as a whole in determining that (Abdille) had failed to demonstrate that she met the criteria of the spouse or common-law partner in Canada Class, and reasonably determined that (Abdille) had not demonstrated sufficient (humanitarian and compassionate) grounds to warrant an exemption from the statutory five-year bar on immigration to Canada due to her misrepresentation,” said the decision.

“Notably, (Abdille’s) proven fraud on the immigration system had an impact on the credibility of the documents she submitted which included inconsistent documentary evidence of a genuine marital relationship; and her cynical manipulation of the refugee determination system for the purpose of family reunification does not warrant exempting her from the five-year inadmissibility she faces as a result of her own conduct.”

Justice Guy Régimbald agreed with Abdille.

The immigration officer didn’t consider DNA evidence that proved Abdille’s husband fathered her three children when evaluating “the genuineness of their marriage,” said the judge, noting that “undermines the reasonableness” of the officer’s decision.

“Concerning the lack of evidence demonstrating that (Abdille’s) life with her husband was physically and financially interconnected, the absence of a joint bank account or the lack of both names on certain utility bills does not necessarily negate the bona fide nature of their marriage,” Régimbald said.

When Abdille provided explanations for inconsistencies, the “officer failed to weigh this evidence, despite the explanations provided, and instead put great emphasis on (Abdille’s) previous misrepresentation,” said the judge.

“Most importantly, the officer failed to explain why the evidence was not sufficient to allow (Abdille) to discharge her burden.”

The officer should have given Abdille and her husband the opportunity to address inconsistencies in her story, Régimbald said.

“While an interview is not always necessary and depends on the facts of each particular case, I find that in this case, the failure does constitute a breach of (Abdille’s) right to procedural fairness and to be able to answer the case to be met with a full and fair chance to respond,” said the judge.

“In light of these findings, the decision is not justified, transparent or intelligible … and must be sent back for redetermination.”

• Immigrant ordered deported for role in McMaster student’s death wins chance to stay in Canada
• Cold War KGB agent who recruited over 30 informants wins another shot at staying in Canada

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.