Article content

OTTAWA — A law that leaves refugees forever at risk of losing their permanent residency must continue to be tested before the courts, says a B.C. lawyer who fell short Thursday in his efforts to have the Supreme Court examine the issue.

The top court declined to hear lawyer Douglas Cannon’s case, which involved a refugee hoping to obtain Canadian citizenship but would have touched on a much larger debate about the principles underpinning Canada’s asylum system.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or No Supreme Court appeal for refugee living in B.C. who sought Canadian citizenship Back to video

A refugee’s status can be revoked, but until 2012, such a development wouldn’t have impacted their permanent resident status and so the process, known as cessation, was rarely used.

But that year, the Conservative government of the day changed the law and turned the revocation of permanent residency into a consequence of cessation, saying the intent was to go after immigration fraud.

One thing that would prompt a second look at a file would be a trip to the person’s home country — a journey some do take for any number of reasons — but the government argued was a sign that maybe the person didn’t need refugee status in Canada.