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2 episodes with ribic
2 episodes with ribic
2 episodes with ribic
2 episodes with ribic
2 episodes with ribic
2 episodes with ribic
Chaîne de Hisokaparker: https://www.youtube.com/@hisokaparker3090Chaîne de Wrestling Klinik: https://www.youtube.com/@WrestlingKlinik=======================================Réseaux de la chaîneDiscord: https://discord.gg/6jWpVxPrnrSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZwxEAU13PoVLua0JdIYJh?si=23eb9d545b224601Deezer: https://deezer.page.link/QynphwNFRNGQSG9d9Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.fr/podcasts/0964898a-c810-48ff-97ab-f0a6e9e66fa5/d'encre-et-de-bullesApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/dencre-et-de-bulles/id1733018809Instagram de Mindphobia: https://www.instagram.com/mindphobia.comics/=======================================Aujourd'hui on vous parle de blockbuster avec Alien VS Avengers par Hickman & Ribic, de la sortie française de Bat-Man The First Knight, de Hellboy in Love et de White Sand mais aussi de Convert, Life, Terra Obscura et Hello Darkness !=======================================Time Code00:00 Générique + Introduction 23:00 Aliens VS Avengers #1 par Hickman & Ribic (Adas)48:07 Hello Darkness #2 chez Boom Studios (Bunny)1:12:19 Convert #1 par John Arcudi et Savannah Finley chez Image Comics (Mindphobia)1:28:51 Life #1 par Azzarello, Phillips et Danijel Zezelj1:4340 Stop ou Encore (The Deviant #7, Drawing Blood #5, Absolute Power #2, Redcoat #5, Geiger #5 et Ultimate X-Men #6)2:28:29 White Sand par Brandon Sanderson chez Graph Zeppelin (Adas)2:48:23 Terra Obscura par Alan Moore & Yannick Paquette chez Urban Comics (Bunny)3:09:07 Hellboy in Love par Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden et Matt Smith chez Delcourt (Mindphobia)3:22:57 The Bat-Man: First Knight par Dan Jurgens et Mike Perkins chez Urban Comics (Hisokaparker)=======================================#alien #xenomorph #avengers #jonathanhickman #esadribic #marvel #marvelcomics #20thcenturystudios #convert #johnarcudi #savannahfinley #imagecomics #indiecomics #Life #brianazzarello #stephaniephillips #dstrly #hellodarkness #anthologie #boomstudios #batman #urbancomics #dccomics #danjurgens #mikeperkins #hellboy #mikemignola #delcourt #darkhorse #whitesand #briansanderson #terraobscura #alanmoore #dencreetdebulles #Batman #danjurgens #mikeperkins Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.
L'émission Front Page est une revue d'actualité qui s'intéresse à tout ce qui touche le monde de la bande dessinée américaine (comics) du côté des Etats-Unis comme de la France, ainsi qu'à ses adaptations tous médias confondus. Le podcast est une série régulière chez First Print et revient au rythme de trois épisodes par mois, hors contenus spéciaux. Ce Front Page est le second podcast consacré à l'actualité comics du mois d'avril 2024.Le podcast est sponsorisé par Pulps et on vous propose un "Focus Pulps" chaque mois ! Découvrez une sélection de comics VO à prix de lancement !Le Focus Pulps d'avril 2024 : Profane #1 / Precious Metal #1/ Zatanna : Bring Down the House #1Si vous appréciez le travail fourni par l'équipe et que vous souhaitez soutenir le podcast, vous pouvez partager les émissions sur les réseaux sociaux et vous abonner à nos différents comptes, laisser des notes sur les différentes plateformes d'écoute, ou encore nous soutenir via notre page Tipeee. Très bonne écoute à vous, et à bientôt pour le prochain podcast !Le ProgrammeCOMICS - 04:06Le point sur le FCBD 2024 (Comics Zone, Album, Central Comics, etc)es campagnes en cours : Ménage à trois chez KI, le Panthéon en indépendantLe programme de la nouvelle vague Urban NomadScalped, 100 Bullets, Deadly Class et Southern Bastards en intégrales “Urban”Jeff Lemire prépare une “longue” ongoing en solo chez Boom! StudiosWe Called Them Giants, les retrouvailles de Kieron Gillen et Stéphanie HansChip Zdarsky reprend Public Domain et y ajoute un spin-offWitchblade sera (enfin) relaunché/rebooté à l'été chez Top CowUne série Biker Mice from Mars annoncée chez Oni PressThe Nice House by the Sea de James Tynion IV et Alvaro Martinez démarre cet été !“Absolute” et “All-In”, les grosses rumeurs sur le devenir de DCMarvel développe son format “Red Band” avec Werewolf by NightUn crossover Aliens vs Avengers par Hickman et Ribic chez MarvelSpider-Man : Reign II de Kaare Andrews annoncé pour l'été 2024TV - 1:42:45Skybound lance le développement d'un jeu Invincible en crowdfuningUn trailer pour la dernière saison de Sweet ToothCINEMA - 1:53:10Une adaptation live action de TMNT : The Last Ronin est en développementLe nouveau trailer de Deadpool & Wolverine est arrivéSoutenez First Print - Podcast Comics de Référence sur TipeeeHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.
Jacob's Linktree - Jacob Licklider | Twitter, Instagram | Linktree Joey's Linktree - jomoblooddonut | Twitter | Linktree Buy the book on Amazon! - Amazon.com: Thor: God of Thunder, Vol. 1: The God Butcher: 9780785168423: Aaron, Jason, Ribic, Esad: Books Our next reading - Amazon.com: Thor: God of Thunder - Godbomb (Volume 2): 9780785166986: Aaron, Jason: Books
Comenzamos con una Crisis (en tierras infinitas), caemos en una Era (de Apocalipsis) para terminar en una Guerra Secreta como solo Hickman y Ribic podrían hacer. SECRET WARS: ¡Y YA NADA SERÁ IGUAL!
TIME STAMPS: 02:27 JUNIORS: Starting bodybuilding in HIGH SCHOOL! 04:03 How is DRUG TESTING enforced at the NPC NW Natural and Emerald Cup Natural? 07:20 What happens when someone FAILS the DRUG TEST? 09:04 How does a NATURAL ATHLETE become an IFBB PRO? 08:00 What is the HERO category? 12:12 Why DRUG-FREE ATHLETES often place very well at OPEN SHOWS. 17:20 NEVER THE SAME: What COMPETING does to your MENTALITY as an athlete! 18:16 OPEN NOVICE & other categories: how does one pick which to sign up for? 26:28 Trophies, Medals, & SWAG offered at NPC competitions! 30:08 Muckleshoot Casino: Best venue for a bodybuilding show!!! 32:31 Ivan's advice to ALL BODYBUILDING COMPETITORS concerning PLACING! ==== UPCOMING NPC COMPETITIONS ==== Night of Champions: October 14, 2023 / Spokane, WA Idaho Cup Championships: October 21, 2023 / Boise, ID Northwest Natural: November 4, 2023 / Auburn, WA Northwest Championships: November 5, 2023 / Auburn, WA Big Sky Championships: April 13, 2024 / Missoula, MT Empire Classic: April 20, 2024 / Spokane, WA FX Supps Emerald Cup: April 26-28, 2024 / Bellevue, WA Show Website with Competitor & Spectator Info: https://ribicproductions.com/
Today we discuss Issues 5-8 of House of M from 2005. It's a great story that surely influenced WandaVision and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. We will cover the next installment of Alex and Drew Rank The MCU with Spider-Man: Homecoming in the next episode. Rank the MCU with us! (Make a copy of this Google sheet and fill in your scores as you watch.) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13QobaRsQnR27LFMHqgOdRipqNh4WVKLMFRXbxf8xIpE/edit?usp=sharing You won't be able to interact with the file until you make a copy. Check out the "Backlog Busters" YouTube channel! And tell 'em 2 man sent ya! https://www.youtube.com/@backlogbusters Join the discord if you'd like to see the cover from "The Adventures of Captain 166 & Nostrildomus" written, drawn/traced/colored by Drew Morris. We'd love for you to join our Discord! https://discord.gg/mbMw2mxtUu It is a great place to submit stories you'd like us to cover, trivia questions for us to ask on the show, and just be nerds about comic books! Join The Club!! Is there a comic series you would like us to cover on the show, or a topic you would like us to discuss? There are several ways for you to reach out to us! We're working on a Patreon as well. When it does go live it will be at https://patreon.com/2mancomicbookclub We love making these shows and we have ideas for new segments and videos. With your help we'll be able to make the 2 Man Comic Book Club even better! If you would like to find us on social media, we would love to hear from you! Find us on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/2mancomicbook, Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/2mancomicbookclub, Facebook @ 2-Man-Comic-Book-Club, or email us at 2mancomicbookclub@gmail.com. If you ever spend any time on Youtube, swing by Alex's channel too! (and give him a sub as well!) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa4dU37x5mgYo1ymBEdYYAw Here's a link to Drew's Youtube channel too. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJPcZY2A7H7PAm5Dv63-mA (And drop him a sub.... it's free) Read more comics!
Today we discuss Issues 1-4 of House of M from 2005. It's a great story that surely influenced WandaVision and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. We will cover the next installment of Alex and Drew Rank The MCU with Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in the next episode. Rank the MCU with us! (Make a copy of this Google sheet and fill in your scores as you watch.) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13QobaRsQnR27LFMHqgOdRipqNh4WVKLMFRXbxf8xIpE/edit?usp=sharing You won't be able to interact with the file until you make a copy. Join the discord if you'd like to see the cover from "The Adventures of Captain 166 & Nostrildomus" written, drawn/traced/colored by Drew Morris. We'd love for you to join our Discord! https://discord.gg/mbMw2mxtUu It is a great place to submit stories you'd like us to cover, trivia questions for us to ask on the show, and just be nerds about comic books! Join The Club!! Is there a comic series you would like us to cover on the show, or a topic you would like us to discuss? There are several ways for you to reach out to us! We're working on a Patreon as well. When it does go live it will be at https://patreon.com/2mancomicbookclub We love making these shows and we have ideas for new segments and videos. With your help we'll be able to make the 2 Man Comic Book Club even better! If you would like to find us on social media, we would love to hear from you! Find us on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/2mancomicbook, Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/2mancomicbookclub, Facebook @ 2-Man-Comic-Book-Club, or email us at 2mancomicbookclub@gmail.com. If you ever spend any time on Youtube, swing by Alex's channel too! (and give him a sub as well!) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa4dU37x5mgYo1ymBEdYYAw Here's a link to Drew's Youtube channel too. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQJPcZY2A7H7PAm5Dv63-mA (And drop him a sub.... it's free) Read more comics!
Before serving in his current role as Technology Director of America Makes, Brandon Ribic worked at Los Alamos and Rolls Royce. In this episode of the 3DPOD, Brandon takes us through what America Makes is up to, how to spread additive around the U.S., and what is holding back the 3D printing industry. From training to capacity building, we're told what could and does help. Great conversation that has a lot to offer, particularly for listeners who want to move additive from the sketch pad to production.
Welcome to Panels Podcast. On our first issue we will be covering the 2004 four issue series of Loki by Rodi & Ribic. Join the comic book veteran Ben and the noob Victor as they discuss this epic series.Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/panelspod)
This is it! After years of coverage, Sean and Dr. G have reached the end of Secret Wars...for now. Join us as we talk about the redemption of Reed Richards, the deconstruction of Dr. Doom, and the best ending in comics' even history!
This is it! After years of coverage, Sean and Dr. G have reached the end of Secret Wars....for now. Join us as we talk about th redemption of Reed Richards, a deconstructed Dr. Doom, and the best ending in comics' event history!
It's time to pull up a chair and pull out your spine! Sean, Dr. G, and special guest Jon from Married Watching Cartoons read the action-packed penultimate issue of Secret Wars, Vol. 3!
Stephanie and Craig are back with the latest discussion of key court decisions affecting national security law. Here, we take a quick look at the thorny issue of disclosure of information by the government in criminal cases, governed by several key section 7 cases. We discuss Stinchcombe and O'Connor. And then segue into how national security confidentiality privileges under section 38 of the Canada Evdence Act feed into the discussion. Here, we chat about Ribic and Ahmad. Once again, Craig has prepared a “Charter Short” providing a video primer on section 7 and criminal law disclosure. You may want to view this first. For a deeper dive on the “intelligence to evidence” issues this system of disclosure raises, see this article by Leah West and this article by Craig Forcese.
Good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you maybe and welcome to a very special Extra interview of Final Cut. And my guest today is starring in the netflix series zero chill. So ladies and gentlemen please welcome Tanja Ribic
Chieu v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2002 SCC 3 was a landmark Supreme Court of Canada which affirmed the use of the Ribic factors in the H&C assessment. We discuss these factors and how they are used in immigration appeals. 1:00 How the assessment of Humanitarian & Compassionate considerations has become somewhat nebulus. 4:00 A case study of Chieu v. Canada 10:00 What is an example of a negative country condition in someone’s country of citizenship? 13:00 The decision and principles in Chieu. 15:00 The Federal Court of Canada in Zhang v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2020 FC 927, which seems to limit Chieu. 16:00 The Ribic factors and the types of immigration appeals. 20:00 How much weight each factor should get. 25:00 Stories about our appeals. 32:00 The remorse factor and flexibility. 45:00 The counter arguments to considering country of citizenship conditions. 50:00 Consents on appeal.
TechCentral — In this episode of the podcast, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod is joined by Alen Ribic, co-founder - with his wife, Aisha Pandor - of SweepSouth, the on-demand home cleaning company that last year raised R30-million in a funding round from Naspers. Ribic talks about the challenges of starting and running a business with a spouse, how SweepSouth coped with the lockdown, which prevented its on-demand cleaners from working, and the fund that was created to support cleaners during this time. The fund has already raised more than R9-million and backers include Dell founder Michael Dell and his wife Susan. The conversation then turns to what SweepSouth has done since the Naspers investment, including expansion into Kenya and the recent launch of SweepSouth Connect, a new marketplace that connects vetted professionals to people needing those services in their local area. It's a great discussion with the co-founder of one of South Africa's most successful start-ups - don't miss it!
Milos Ribic helps helps https://greensportsblog.com/news-notes-adidas-ioc/ (Adidas) identify and invest in companies that will appeal to GenZ and beyond. Like us on https://facebook.com/greensportsblog (Facebook) And feel free to email us at lew@greensportsblog.com with any feedback, questions, recommendations and/or ideas for future GreenSportsPod topics.
Primer programa del año y quizás… el último? Nos asola una pandemia, pero como somos unos descerebrados, preferimos hablar de cómics y para hacer más llevadero nuestro encierro, porque #YoMeQuedoEnCasaLeyendo, os vamos a comentar las actuales “moderneces” de Marvel, unas recomendaciones monetiles y daremos algo de caña a la actualidad, a los crowdfunding que no nos gustan y otras cosillas relacionadas con el fandom comiquero. Y además, los resultados de los variados sorteos que anunciamos en el programa anterior. [00:04:21] Comenzamos a dar un repaso a las colecciones de Marvel más recientes y que creemos han revitalizado a la editorial. Ya sean colecciones nuevas, miniseries o nuevas etapas de franquicias viejunas y que han supuesto un soplo de aire fresco para Marvel. Dotando a ésta de una calidad y energía que echábamos de menos. Hablaremos del Daredevil de Zdarsky, el ya “clásico” Inmortal Hulk de Ewing, que sigue siendo un obligado para todos, Aaron y Ribic con su Rey Thor demostrando que hoy por hoy se puede fidelizar a los lectores, el pepinaco que es Estela plateada: Negro de Donny Cates y Tradd Moore, El Spidey de J.J. Abrams e hijo y sin duda de la revolución mutante que nos ha traído Hickman con su HOCUS, POCUS, digo HOX, POX, como dicen los entendidos del mundillo. [01:11:00] Momento para la solemne celebración de los diversos sorteos anunciados el programa anterior. Escuchad el programa o ved el video en nuestro canal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMH-CkpSyNQ) y descubriréis si sois alguno de los afortunados. Si el ganador no reclama su premio antes de que grabemos el siguiente programa, lo resortearemos. Contactadnos por cualquiera de los medios disponibles y cuyos enlaces tenéis más al final. Por cierto, os recomiendo suscribiros a nuestro canal, que estamos subiendo reseñas para aliviar el encierro. [01:16:00] Recomendaciones monetiles. Debido a la cuarentena, ahora nos toca pasar más tiempo en casa, así que a bajar la pila de lectura. Que todos sabemos tiene un tamaño por encima de nuestras posibilidades. Y, por si fuera poco os ansiaremos con las recomendaciones de cada #monete. Además, hablaremos de los hitos comiqueros más comentados en las últimas semanas: Saldos de Medusa, Crowdfunding de la Legión de Superhéroes de ECC. Esperamos vuestros comentarios y opiniones, podéis encontrarnos en : Twitter: http://twitter.com/AnsiaVivaComics Página FB: https://www.facebook.com/AnsiaVivaComicsGroup Grupo FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/152025455181805/ Blog: https://ansiavivacomics100290953.wordpress.com/ Correo electrónico: ansiaviva00@gmail.com
Chris and Casey embark on another grand adventure filled to the brim with sights and sounds the likes of which you'd never comprehend. Join them as they are pitted against a mysterious figure who is rubbing out Gotham City's most dangerous criminals, and who many believe is the epitome of their consciousness's combined! Intro Marvel TV & Movies Dark Phoenix lowest opening ever Creators of X-Men: TAS went to Disney to relaunch series Elizabeth Hurley cast as Morgan Lefay on Runaways Jessica Jones S3 starts today D23 will let us know Phase 4 of movies Rumors F4 rumored2022 Mindy Kaling wants to take on Ms. Marvel Blade series rumored for Hulu Norman Osborn coming to MCU? Casting callseems to indicate so! DC TV & Movies Jaume Collet-Serra to direct Black Adam Lobo spin-off coming to SYFY Skipping Hall H Pennyworth full trailer Natalie Gumede cast as Mercy Graves on Titans Swamp Thing canceled Comics DC shutting down vertigo? The Phantasm appearing in King’s Batman/Catwoman series Snyder taking on JSA BMS doing Legion of Super-Heroes ongoing Harley and Ivy 6 part series by Jody Houser Marvel Young Guns Lineup coming Aaron and Ribic reunite for King Thor 4-part series INFERI COMMERCIAL TV Geena Davis guest star on Glow s3 Dune: the sisterhoodWB streaming Denis Villeneuve will direct pilot Spielberg writing horror series“Spielberg’s After Dark” working title Fast & Furious: Spy Racers animated series to Netflix Movies Bill and Ted’s daughters cast Uncharted movie set for 2020 Murray, Weaver and Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson returning for Ghostbusters sequel Netflix: Tom Clancy's The Divisionstarring Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal is back on Robert Kirkman’s Oblivion Song p/u by Universal Black Christmas reboot Dr Sleep trailer Gaming Stadia detailsand preorder “Founders” Night Blue controller Chromecast Ultra 3 months of Stadia Pro 3 months of Pro for a friend Destiny 2: The Collection Founder’s Stadia Name E3 New Xbox Fall 2020 - Project Scarlett Avengers square enix Keanu Reeves Cyberpu
Chris and Casey embark on another grand adventure filled to the brim with sights and sounds the likes of which you'd never comprehend. Join them as they are pitted against a mysterious figure who is rubbing out Gotham City's most dangerous criminals, and who many believe is the epitome of their consciousness's combined! Intro Marvel TV & Movies Dark Phoenix lowest opening ever Creators of X-Men: TAS went to Disney to relaunch series Elizabeth Hurley cast as Morgan Lefay on Runaways Jessica Jones S3 starts today D23 will let us know Phase 4 of movies Rumors F4 rumored2022 Mindy Kaling wants to take on Ms. Marvel Blade series rumored for Hulu Norman Osborn coming to MCU? Casting callseems to indicate so! DC TV & Movies Jaume Collet-Serra to direct Black Adam Lobo spin-off coming to SYFY Skipping Hall H Pennyworth full trailer Natalie Gumede cast as Mercy Graves on Titans Swamp Thing canceled Comics DC shutting down vertigo? The Phantasm appearing in King’s Batman/Catwoman series Snyder taking on JSA BMS doing Legion of Super-Heroes ongoing Harley and Ivy 6 part series by Jody Houser Marvel Young Guns Lineup coming Aaron and Ribic reunite for King Thor 4-part series INFERI COMMERCIAL TV Geena Davis guest star on Glow s3 Dune: the sisterhoodWB streaming Denis Villeneuve will direct pilot Spielberg writing horror series“Spielberg’s After Dark” working title Fast & Furious: Spy Racers animated series to Netflix Movies Bill and Ted’s daughters cast Uncharted movie set for 2020 Murray, Weaver and Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson returning for Ghostbusters sequel Netflix: Tom Clancy's The Divisionstarring Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal is back on Robert Kirkman’s Oblivion Song p/u by Universal Black Christmas reboot Dr Sleep trailer Gaming Stadia detailsand preorder “Founders” Night Blue controller Chromecast Ultra 3 months of Stadia Pro 3 months of Pro for a friend Destiny 2: The Collection Founder’s Stadia Name E3 New Xbox Fall 2020 - Project Scarlett Avengers square enix Keanu Reeves Cyberpunk 2077 Breath of wild 2 FFVII Remake Gods & Monsters Borderlands 2 DLC - prequel to BLANDS3 Arcade1Up Launching Turtles, Star Wars and Marvel Super Heroes For Their Arcade Cabinet Line http://dlvr.it/R6M8s0 SW First full look at Jedi: Fallen Order gets comic prequel SW Celebration tickets on sale June 21st for next August 27-30th POP JP LEGOT-Rex and Gate Revoltech Harley Quinn SCARLET SPIDER HOT TOY Con exclusive Real Ghostbusters statues Ultimate FVJ Jason Mattel SDCC DC Multiverse 80 years of Batman exclusive boxed set MOTU Mini-Comic 2-pack Mega Construx Battle Bones Closing We’re now available on RadioPublic, a fantastic service that’s going offer our listeners the best way to access the podcast and show notes! Each time you download the show on their app it gives us direct financial support every time you hear an episode. If you wanna interact with us you can follow @dfatowel on Twitter and Instagram.Thanks for listening and Don’t Forget a Towel!
Episode 447 - Listener Questions, eBay Presales, ASM 798 Red Goblin, DC Black Label, BatCat Wedding Preludes, New Gods Movie, February Sales, Sneak Peek Picks for Next Week w/Kyle, Eric & Drew. Visit our website - www.comicsfunprofit.com. Comics for Fun and Profit's March Spec Picks at Kowabunga Comics: Black Panther #1 1:100 Artgerm Virgin -$125 1:50 Coipel - $50 1:25 In Hyuk Lee - $20 Venom #1 1:25 Rivera $20 1:50 Campbell - $80 1:100 Stegman Virgin $85 1:500 McFarlane Remastered $500 1:1000 McFarlane Rem B&W - $1000 Avengers #1 1:50 Ribic - $50 1:100 McGuiness Virgin - $100 Avengers #2 1:25 Marquez - $20 1:100 McGuineess - $75 Amazing Spider-Man #800 1:1000 Remastered B&W- $1000 1:500 Remastered - $500 1:500 Ross Virgin - $500 1:200 Dell Otto - $400 1:25 Dell Otto - $70 All include free cover A If you want to secure one for your collection (or to make a tidy little profit) Contact Kowabunga via email orders@kowabungacomics.com or phone 262-569-9999 message https://www.facebook.com/Incredicow/ and tell em Drew & Kyle from Comics for Fun and Profit sent you. Email us at: Comicsforfunandprofit@gmail.com - questions, comments, gripes, we can't wait to hear what you have to say. Follow us on Twitter: @ComicsFunProfit Like us on Facebook: /ComicsForFunAndProfit. Subscribe, rate, review on itunes. We are on Stitcher and SoundCloud(kinda)-Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word about our little comic book podcast.
Episode 446 - More Variant Deals, Spec Wins, February Top Ten, Sneak Peek Picks for Next Week w/Kyle & Drew. Visit our website - www.comicsfunprofit.com Spec Picks For Next Week: Come Into Me #1 - Black Mask (Drew) & Infidel #1 - Image (Kyle). Comics for Fun and Profit's March Spec Picks at Kowabunga Comics: Black Panther #1 1:100 Artgerm Virgin -$125 1:50 Coipel - $50 1:25 In Hyuk Lee - $20 Venom #1 1:25 Rivera $20 1:50 Campbell - $80 1:100 Stegman Virgin $85 1:500 McFarlane Remastered $500 1:1000 McFarlane Rem B&W - $1000 Avengers #1 1:50 Ribic - $50 1:100 McGuiness Virgin - $100 Avengers #2 1:25 Marquez - $20 1:100 McGuineess - $75 Amazing Spider-Man #800 1:1000 Remastered B&W- $1000 1:500 Remastered - $500 1:500 Ross Virgin - $500 1:200 Dell Otto - $400 1:25 Dell Otto - $70 All include free cover A If you want to secure one for your collection (or to make a tidy little profit) Contact Kowabunga via email orders@kowabungacomics.com or phone 262-569-9999 message https://www.facebook.com/Incredicow/ and tell em Drew & Kyle from Comics for Fun and Profit sent you. Email us at: Comicsforfunandprofit@gmail.com - questions, comments, gripes, we can't wait to hear what you have to say. Follow us on Twitter: @ComicsFunProfit Like us on Facebook: /ComicsForFunAndProfit. Subscribe, rate, review on itunes. We are on Stitcher and SoundCloud(kinda)-Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word about our little comic book podcast.
Proti koncu leta 2016 so slovenski raziskovalci končali terensko delo triletne sistematične študije človeške ribice pri nas in že kmalu so ugotovili, da pri nas ne živi le ena vrsta tega endemita. A kot pravi profesor doktor Peter Trontelj z Oddelka za biologijo Biotehniške fakultete v Ljubljani, za zdaj še ne moremo govoriti o vrstah, pač pa o potencialnih vrstah. Vrsta namreč postane, ko je uradno opisana v znanstveni literaturi in ko se s tem strinjajo tudi drugi biologi. Lahko pa že povejo, da bo potencialnih vrst devet, od tega jih pet živi v Sloveniji. Razlikujejo se po genskih značilnostih, po ekologiji, razširjenosti pa tudi po vedenju. Nekatere od skupin prihajajo na površje, druge ne. Vrsta, ki na primer živi na območju Stične, ima drugačno barvo nog, istrska več zob. Posebnost je seveda tudi črna človeška ribica, ki živi samo v Beli krajini in še to v zelo omejenem delu, na le nekaj kvadratnih kilometrih.
Nous ne pouvions attendre plus longtemps. Après quelques semaines de repos, les Mystérieux étonnants sont de retour pour le premier d'une série d'épisodes enregistrés dans les limbes en attendant la construction de leur nouveau studio. Cette semaine, l'univers de Marvel Comics est sur le point de changer à jamais avec Secret Wars de Jonathan Hickman et Esad Ribic. Diffusion originale: 6 mars 2017 Site web: MysterieuxEtonnants.com © Les Mystérieux Étonnants. Tous droits réservés.
CanadianImmigrationPodcast.com Mark Holthe: I'm here with my good friend and colleague, Raj Sharma. Raj, thanks for joining me. Raj Sharma: My pleasure. Mark Holthe: We're testing this out with our digital recorder here. I usually do these interviews via Skype call, but I've got high hopes that the audio is going to be great regardless. Thanks for putting up with me, Raj, and happy to have you with us. Today, Raj has agreed to come in and talk a little bit about criminal inadmissibility and some of the consequences that can flow when people get themselves into trouble here in Canada, but before we get into that I want to take a moment to share a little bit of background on Raj, and where he's come from professionally, and where he's at. Raj Sharma's a lawyer and founding partner of Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, one of Western Canada's largest dedicated immigration law firms. He received his masters of law from Osgoode Hall and is a former refugee protection officer with the Immigration and Refugee Board. Now, I'll get to the question of how you got into immigration and I'm going to go out on a limb and think that that probably influenced it a little bit. Raj Sharma: That's right. Mark Holthe: With over a hundred reported decisions, Raj has indicated to me, he frequently appears before all divisions, as well as the Federal Court, the court of appeal, and has also appeared before every level of court in Alberta. Raj regularly speaks on immigration matters in the media, and he's been a panelist and speaker at the CBA National Immigration Conference in 2014 and '15. He also writes a lot on immigration, multiculturalism, and diversity. Recently he was the recipient of the Legal Aid of Alberta's Access to Justice award and has been recognized as well as one of Calgary's Top 40 Under 40. Raj is an extremely accomplished individual and I know that he won't plug himself, so I'll do that for him, but whenever I have a difficult case with respect to enforcement, or appeal work, or anything like that I send it to him and his firm. Once again, thanks for joining, Raj. Raj Sharma: Thanks, Mark. I'm East Indian, or as I like to describe ourselves as brown, so no matter how accomplished I am, obviously given that I'm not a doctor I'm probably a disappointment to my parents. Mark Holthe: Well, we'll have to get your parents on to come back and I'm almost positive with everything that you've done, at least within our industry and how you've distinguished yourself, that there wouldn't be a parent on this planet that wouldn't be proud of you. Enough of the feel good stuff, fill us in. How did you get into immigration? Raj Sharma: I never intended to get into immigration law. I did my JD at the University of Alberta. While I was there, I didn't take any immigration courses, immigration just wasn't even on my radar. I summered at a large law firm here in Calgary, Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer. I didn't like the large law firm milieu so to speak. Then I spent some time with Dennis Edney, who's now the lawyer for Omar Khadr. Then I also clerked up the Alberta Court of Appeal and ended up doing my articles with the federal department of justice. I think I had at that point an understanding that I would be somewhat closer to a barrister or a litigator than I would be in terms a solicitor. There was one case that I handled and my mentor at that time at the federal Department of Justice was Glennys Bembridge, who is now a Federal Court justice with a different last name, but there was one case and it involved a family, they're doctors, and their son had autism. I was the articling student, so I had to put together the affidavit and supporting the officer's finding of medical inadmissibility. I found that really, really interesting, but I kept saying to my mentor at that why can't we just consent on this file, the family's really deserving, and ultimately I think that the family did get relief. After that, I'd met my wife at Winnipeg at a wedding ... Mark Holthe: I'm going to jump in. Raj Sharma: Yes. Mark Holthe: You said, "Why can't we just consent to this?" What was his response? Raj Sharma: It was a strange response. The response was just like, "Oh, we just have to ..." Mark Holthe: Carry it through. Raj Sharma: It was more like it was like, "Oh, the client instructions ..." I'm like, "What client? We're the government." I was explained that different departments are actually clients of the department of justice. I found that very odd because I don't think that's true. I think that a client/solicitor relationship doesn't encapsulate departments of government being clients of each other. I found that odd. In any way, I'd met my wife in Winnipeg at a wedding, my cousin's wedding. She was in Calgary, born and raised in Calgary, so I needed a way to get to Calgary somehow, so I was applying for jobs in Calgary and I got this called up to do this test or examination at the Immigration Refugee Board. I was offered this position to become a refugee protection officer. That's where in fact I met my partner, Bjorn Harsanyi, so we both started off as refugee protection officers, hearings officers in 2002. Mark Holthe: Obviously that makes a pretty nice background for sliding over to the other side. It gives you an opportunity at least having worked on the other side to get a better understanding of how the government operates, how the department operates, a little bit more inside to the minds of what goes through a decision maker on that side. I have to assume that that helped you as you moved over to the other side with your advocacy on behalf of clients. Raj Sharma: I think so and I think that, and again there's this tradition of this entrepreneurial tradition within my community, and of course my second and third languages also helped, there was a burgeoning South Asian community in Calgary at that time. Really, it was timing, and so Calgary's just really good to me. I'd moved to Calgary at about the right time and I went into private practice at about the right time, right before Calgary took off, so to speak. 2004 I started my practice, late 2004 I started my practice. At that time, just trying to take whatever you can get, so again, I wasn't really centered in immigration. Then there was this legal aid file, this three hour legal aid file for criminal inadmissibility. It involved a foreign national in Canada accused or there was an allegation of weapons, and gun smuggling, and weapons trafficking. At that point I thought, "Well, this is a foregone conclusion." I looked at the IRPA and I said, "Well, this is just, there's no way out here," but my partner at that time pushed me a little bit and so I looked at it, I looked at it again. I put in far more hours than the three hours allotted to me, and low and behold I was able to succeed. I think that was the first time that I was in the media, that was the first time I was on TV or the newspapers, at least when it came to my legal practice. It was after that that my practice in immigration took off because it was after that that I joined Caron & Partners and then again after I left Caron & Partners there was another Vietnamese fellow, [another] fork in the road. There was another Vietnamese client, Jackie Tran, and that file I took on in 2009. Both of these cases probably had something to do with the direction of my practice. Mark Holthe: Yeah, that makes perfect sense because I think for most of us business immigration lawyers, I guess that's how I classify myself, when there's a sticky situation I get uncomfortable pretty quick. I have a tendency to try to take the path of easiest and least resistance with my clients. If there's push back from the government, I tend to try and say, "Do we need to refile? Do we need to rethink our strategy?" Sometimes it's faster to just accept the stupid decision that you get from an officer and then just try to satisfy whatever they want, and refile, and get it approved, but there's a number of situations where people get themselves into a corner where they really don't have a nice, easy solution other than taking the government on. Raj Sharma: I think .. it depends on what you're facing. Now, in your case you have to solve a sort of business problem. Prior to 2009, before Tran, I was actually doing hundreds of LMIA's, or LMO's that they were called at the time, so I was representing major corporations, I was getting fat, I was just doing pure solicitor work, and I think again timing came to my rescue because once I got into the Tran file, which necessitated three different Federal Court applications, [emergency] stay application, IAD, ID, and right about that same time the economy in Calgary sort of collapsed, so to speak. If you're a one trick pony, that is you're only doing one aspect of immigration, you could be susceptible to that sort of change. I was very lucky in the sense of I did quite a bit of solicitor business work, but given that strong litigation year we were able to just basically switch our practices over to a litigation aspect. In business [immigration], you're tasked with making sure that the business runs smoothly. Where it's an individual facing loss of status, it's a zero sum game. In business there may be not, it's not a zero sum game, but in someone facing removal or deportation to a country that they haven't been in since they were a kid, it's a zero sum game which is you win or you lose, so at that point you start bringing out all the arrows in your quiver and you're doing whatever you can for your client because it is, for them to some degree, it's life or death in the sense of it's a death of a relationship, it's a death of your relationship to Canada, and it's a death of your status in this country. Mark Holthe: Let's shift to the topic at hand. I think a lot of our listeners, this isn't something that they're very familiar with because I think genuinely people try to avoid committing crimes in Canada and getting themselves removed. Raj Sharma: Right, and we know for a fact that immigrants or first generation Canadians have a lower crime rate than native born Canadians, so you're absolutely right. Most of your listeners and our clients, most of them, the vast majority enjoy a lower criminal rate or criminality than Canadians would. Mark Holthe: Yes, absolutely. As those that are listening in here, as I introduced when I started the podcast here, the interview with Raj Sharma, I indicated that we're going to be talking a little bit about criminal inadmissibility, so Raj, can you give us a little bit of an introduction? When we talk about criminal inadmissibility, how does that play into this world of immigration? Raj Sharma: Immigration is about, and notwithstanding whatever we hear these days from Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton, there are no such thing as truly open borders. A country will always dictate who enters and who remains, so there was a case that went to the supreme court of Canada involving a woman actually -- most of the cases I deal with actually do involve men -- but Medovarski involved a woman and Medovarski reaffirmed that concept that non-citizens do not have an unqualified right to enter or remain inside of Canada. When we look at criminality, the threshold for removing non-citizens from Canada is spelled out in intricate detail in the Immigration Refugee Protection Act and there is a bifurcation, i.e., it's somewhat harder to remove permanent residents from Canada and quite a bit easier to remove foreign nationals from Canada. When we talk about foreign nationals, we're talking about students and those here on work permits or those that are visitors in Canada. When we talk about permanent residence, obviously those are individuals that have applied for permanent residency, they're not citizens yet, and so we have a paradigm, a very detailed framework that deals with non-citizens that get in trouble with the law. Mark Holthe: When we talk about getting in trouble with the law, does the Immigration Act or the government, do they view certain crimes more seriously than others? How is that distinction set up? Raj Sharma: No, and maybe they should. That would have been a proper starting point. Maybe you should have been involved in this sort of legislation of these laws, but unfortunately the distinction of the severity of a crime is based on the maximum term of imprisonment or the actual incarceral or term that's imposed. When we talk about prison or incarceral term, we're including conditional sentences or sentences to be served in the community, so the distinction is not between the type of offense, someone that's convicted of a white collar offense such as fraud could face removal just as easily or perhaps more easily than someone accused or charged with simple assault. Mark Holthe: Even if an offense, let's say it's a hybrid offense, so it could proceed summarily or via indictment, the person that is sentenced to ten years imprisonment for that offense versus someone that's sentenced to six months under the eyes of the lovely immigration authorities, it's irrelevant. Raj Sharma: That's right, and it also doesn't take into account your length of time in Canada, so you could be a permanent resident and you could be here since you were two or three, and you could be [here] thirty years, and you could have an issue. Of course, this is the fragility of the human condition, we all make mistakes, so it doesn't take into account the length of time that you're in Canada…, nor does it take into account the nature of the offense, whether it's violent or whether it's non-violent. It's a blunt instrument unfortunately, Section 36 in particularly. Mark Holthe: If you have an individual that's committed a crime in Canada it's pretty clear we know what the offense is, we know what the conviction was, there's not a lot of debate about it, but what happens if someone wants to enter Canada or comes to Canada and has a conviction that occurred over seas or in another country, how does Canada treat those? Raj Sharma: Those things get complicated really quickly because different countries have different legal systems and different countries have different standards in terms of the ... You could have a situation [if] you're from China. Now, China has a 99.9% conviction rate. Mark Holthe: Wow, maybe I won't ask too many questions as to how that justice system plays out for those people accused, but ... Raj Sharma: I mean, so when we start making equivalent, or making offenses, or acts that individuals have done outside of Canada, and we have to somehow try and make them equivalent to offenses in Canada, those things get tricky really, really quickly. That's one subset of what we do.[But] I just keep getting reminded, even this morning, had a client applied on the Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program, skilled individual, excellent English, everything's fantastic, no criminal record whatsoever, applied on the ANP, got the nomination, applied for the PR forms to [CPC] Sydney. We got the passport request two days ago, three days ago, problem. Last week after a birthday party or someone's party, one in the morning, [he's] charged with impaired driving. Those are the sort of simple, understandable criminality because I think some politicians paint criminals as this broad brush, but criminals are no different than [you or I], it's just there's one incorrect decision. I think impaired driving is like that, this is impaired driving, could result in no jail time whatsoever, probably will result in a fine if he ever gets convicted, and a driving suspension. Won't spend a day in jail, but that's a hybrid offense and that [a conviction] makes him [as a foreign national] inadmissible. That's where I feel a lot of sympathy because you're seeing literally in front of you the end of a dream and you're seeing a person that for all other purposes would be an ideal addition to Canada's multicultural fabric. It's not really the media, it's not my cases that hit the news or the front pages that really give a proper idea of my practice. It really is those guys that are within an inch of permanent residency and we wouldn't consider them to be criminals, but of course they've made a grievous and horrendous error by drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car. Mark Holthe: Let's carry that through, I think that would be interesting. An individual who is in that type of a situation, this happens to them. What can they expect? Raj Sharma: Number one, if they come to me my first response to them, and there may be some sort of false hope, or some sort of strange fever dream that they're existing under, or they may get some sort of strange advice from someone, or a friend, or a cousin, and there may be a suggestion as to just somehow let it ride out and CIC may not figure this out. My first advice to them is that if they want my assistance, that we will be disclosing the charge and the encounter with the police immediately. That's the first thing that should happen and once they agree to these sort of terms, then we can start figuring out a solution. Now, the solution of course, and I kind of outlined that earlier today in my speech here, which is now start looking into conviction options or post conviction options. These conviction options, number one, beat out the charge in trial, because the system is binary, because it's a zero sum game, we can't now ... I think criminal lawyers and immigration lawyers that dabble in criminal law, there's no options now. You actually have to go and try to beat this out, you got to find, even if your client is factually guilty, you got to find a way to make him legally not guilty because if he's not guilty, that doesn't lead to any criminal consequences. If it's an offense, a domestic violence type of situation, and a peace bond is in the offering, take a peace bond. A peace bond doesn't have any criminal consequences either. There may be possibilities for some offenses for absolute or conditional discharges, take it, take it. That bird in the hand, we can safeguard that immigration at that point. In terms of a DUI, we're really looking to these curative discharges now and that's one option as well. Mark Holthe: Maybe you can explain what that is. What is a curative discharge? Raj Sharma: Curative discharge involves a process by which there is a guilt or there is factual guilt and there's again…. A curative discharge we've used where there's indication of alcoholism [as a] medical condition. If we can establish that, then the judge may see fit to grant a curative discharge. If that happens, then there is no criminal record that could waylay an immigration application or application for permanent residence. That's not to say, by the way, that that won't lead to other issues, i.e., you may still need a waiver to get into the US, but the curative discharge is something that we explore for impaired driving, and conditional, and absolute where ever possible [for other offences]. Now, bear in mind there's a whole host of offenses that result in mandatory minimum sentences and so we can't do any number of these things for those types of offenses, but those are some of the arrows in our quiver in terms of post conviction. Where ever possible, if you are facing a charge, either you're a permanent resident or a foreign national, try to get immigration lawyer involved alongside your criminal lawyer. There may be options to get positive sentencing remarks or positive remarks that are spoken into the record. Those transcripts can come in handy. If you are convicted, if you are sentenced, it's important that the client demonstrate remorse, and rehabilitation, engage in programming, and try to turn that life around. If we can demonstrate that, there are some options, which is that that initiating document to establish criminal inadmissibility, the Section 44 report, there is a scope for the officer not to write that report. Again, when I started down this journey I didn't realize the scope of discretion that's in the act. There is significant discretion. An officer may choose not to write a report against a permanent resident or foreign national and that may be the first, and maybe the last, real line of defense for a lot of these individuals. We've seen that happen, we've seen permanent residents, I've represented permanent residents, young guys, a technical armed robbery, four years plus sentence ... Mark Holthe: A technical armed robbery. Raj Sharma: A technical armed robbery... Mark Holthe: I love this terminology, technical versus a real, is there any distinction there? Raj Sharma: Let me tell you and you tell me whether that terminology or that splitting of hairs is appropriate. A guy got fired from a job at a liquor store, was angry, young guy, and decides to rob the liquor store as some sort of payback, buys a gun that is not operational, just this old, rusted out gun. There's no bullets in it, it's inoperable. Goes into the store, people see the gun, so they flee, so he goes to the cashier, he tries to open the cash box, is unable to do so, and runs out without stealing anything. Misfortune added to his idiocy, there's an off duty police officer who immediately arrests him outside the liquor store, so this guy goes through this process and his criminal lawyer after wasting tens of thousands of dollars of his money, pleads him guilty to an offense that includes a mandatory minimum sentence. At that point, and I met the judge actually afterwards and the judge said, "Hey, I wonder why that lawyer did that because if the lawyer challenged that on a charter ground of cruel and unusual punishment, that that mandatory minimum sentence in this case offends the Charter, I would have granted it to him." This lawyer tells this guy and his family, "That's it, game over, you will be deported," but of course that's not actually the end of it. [So] I do stand by my characterization of that as a technical armed robbery because this guy, he's more of an idiot than he was a criminal. This family went through a lot, this family, his sister in fact, who lived with was married, [her] husband had some mental issues, and she was attacked actually. The police attended and in fact that man was actually brought down by the CPS, so the family went through a lot. We put all this together, put the sentencing transcripts in, the judge, they got a really compassionate judge who said a lot of things into that record. [The client] was out on bail for four years, and upgraded himself, and it really was an ill advised decision. Ultimately, we had an understanding officer. She ended up interviewing him over the telephone, I think, at the Remand institution, and [she ultimately] decided not to write the report. Mark Holthe: I guess that's the beauty of this is the discretion that's laced into the immigration process. Raj Sharma: They won't lightly do it, but if you've got the goods .. it can be done. We had another case, we had another individual originally from Hong Kong, came over as a kid, got into some gambling issues, and then got into selling drugs to pay off some of those debts. Served his time, was a model prisoner, and his entire family was here, we set out everything. In this case we asked the Report not to be written, it was written. We challenged the Report at the Federal Court, we received approval or leave on one, it went back, and ultimately a Minister's Delegate decided to issue a warning letter. That's drug trafficking [involving a “hard” drug] and that was again significant, so these things can be done for the right individual. You will have people that have turned their lives around and you can see, you can tell. There's no faking this because it's a year's long journey. If you've got it, you've got it, and thankfully our officers, what I've seen is that we have fair individuals, open minded individuals, and that's not to say that I haven't lost on something that I think I should have won, I have, but even that decision, at least that individual had an open mind. I think our [CBSA/CIC] officers by and large are open minded individuals. Again, this may be the last line of defense for a lot of these individuals because there may not be an appeal to the ID anymore because the atrociously entitled Fast Removal of Foreign Criminals Act has amended the IRPA, so permanent residents that have been sentenced to more than six months, including conditional sentences, don't have an appeal to the IAD anymore. Whatever they've got, they've got to address that Section 44 report, that procedural fairness process, maybe Federal Court, maybe a TRP, maybe an H&C, a humanitarian and compassion application, but without that IAD backup, options are limited. Mark Holthe: That's really interesting because like I said, from my perspective, someone who does not do a lot of that type of work, very little in fact, I see walls, absolute walls sometimes for people that I can't see past, whereas individuals such as yourself who have a little bit of a broader perspective, and have actually gone and looked behind the wall have realized that sometimes there's ways through. The message that I got, especially, and just to clarify for the listeners, Raj and I are just meeting at the Canadian Bar Association Office here in Calgary after Raj gave a presentation [to the CBA Immigration Subsection] on this similar topic. One of the messages that came through loud and clear is that maybe people give up too easy, especially counsel, us. I put us under the bus in many circumstances because sometimes we're just too willing to roll over. We need to take a serious look at what the possibilities, are and not be afraid to question and challenge an allegation that's being made against our clients. Even in circumstances where based on a clear reading of the law there's a certain outcome that's supposed to flow doesn't necessarily mean there isn't discretion to go around that and that there isn't some compassion laced into the system. Raj Sharma: I learned this relatively recently. I went to visit my eighty-five, ninety years old grandmother in Edmonton. I didn't learn until much later -- my grandfather died, so my grandmother came over with my youngest uncle to Canada to her children here. None of us kids actually knew that our uncle was actually her sister's son. Her sister had died, so she had taken my uncle in. I guess his dad wasn't interested in caring for him, so I learned this later that Uncle is not actually our uncle, he's actually my mom's cousin. …I knew that there was some immigration issues that he was going through early on when he came, so my grandmother explained it to me, because there was no adoption papers and because my grandmother I think is incapable of lying, she's very straight out that we have no adoption papers, but he has nowhere else to be other than with me. They battled for like three or four years to try and get my uncle to be here. Ultimately CIC indicated, "Well, he can't be here, there's no adoption papers, we have no consent from his guardian, or his biological father, or whatever the case may be." We're from this small mining town in BC and the family was helped by an immigration lawyer out of Vancouver. Ultimately my uncle got what was then called a minister's permit, which is now we call a TRP, a temporary resident permit. When I learned that I was, "Well, I guess that's what I do." So I [do] think people minimize or perhaps don't understand the scope of discretion that's available. There are roadblocks, there's hurdles, [but] there's very few problems without an absolute solution. That being said, if you are unmitigated, incorrigible criminal, no officer's going to give you the benefit of whatever doubt there may be, but there are these avenues that can be pursued and there is a sort of system. You got to work through that system, work with the criminal lawyers, put your client in the best possible light, take advantage of any little nook, cranny, any little shaft of light, and you might be able to widen that crack a little bit for your client to step through, but yes, very few things are foregone conclusions and it's our job as counsel to put the best possible foot forward for the client. Again, in my twelve years of practicing immigration law there's very few actual incorrigible [criminals]. I said this before … that hard cases make bad law and outliers shouldn't make the world a harder place for the vast majority of people that simply want to come to Canada and give their families a better life. These outliers don't reflect the vast majority of cases that we deal with. The vast majority of cases we deal with are human fragility, human error, understandable mistakes. Mark Holthe: You mentioned this concept of a TRP, a temporary resident permit, which is now the new version of a Minister's Permit. Raj Sharma: That's right. Mark Holthe: In some circumstances, individuals will have appeal rights when there is criminality involved and they're facing some harsh consequences, they have appeal rights and other times they don't. You had talked a little bit about the discretion that an officer has to write that report to refer it or not. Can you maybe clarify that just a little bit for counsel who maybe have individuals that are at the stage where the consequences could be pretty nasty? Maybe there is no appeal right and you indicated that sometimes an officer does have some discretion whether or not to write it. Raj Sharma: That's right. That Section 44 report, so let's say there's a conviction in Canada. Establishing that would be pretty straightforward, pretty easy. What counsel can do is respond to a procedural fairness letter, say, "Please don't write the Section 44 report and here's why," and these are going to be [modeled on] the typical Section 25 type of application or submission, so time in Canada, establishment in Canada, those ties here, the family ties here, hardship, or adverse conditions, or challenges upon return, children that are affected by the decision, the circumstances leading to the events, any indicia of remorse, rehabilitation, insight. All those should be placed squarely before the officer and you say to the officer, "Don't write this report, please. The guy's been here for a long time, this is a singular mistake, the criminal record is limited or none other than this lapse in judgment." If the officer writes the report, its then has to be referred under Section 44 sub 2 by a Minister's Delegate. If it's referred, for a permanent resident that means it goes to the immigration division. If it's criminality or serious criminality in Canada, that's Section 44 sub 2, that becomes a removal order for a foreign national. Again, there's less options for foreign nationals here. If it's referred to the immigration division, not much you can do if it's a conviction in Canada. The ID is not going to look beyond the certificate of conviction. If it's a conviction outside of Canada or an allegation that some offense has occurred outside of Canada, that would be equivalent to serious offenses inside of Canada. Then the immigration proceeding becomes a substantive proceeding. That's when it takes on some degree of significance. You are then going to start talking about foreign legal laws, standard of proof, burden of proof, and at that point you probably should be retaining a foreign legal expert. It gets complicated really quickly at that point. After a removal order is issued, post removal order options are limited. A TRP can overcome or allow you to remain in Canada notwithstanding a removal order. An H&C can do the same. One option might be to get a TRP pending record suspension for a conviction inside Canada, for example, if there's eligibility. Mark Holthe: If an officer chooses to write the report when you've made your submissions, can you challenge that part before it gets to the immigration division? Raj Sharma: Yes, you can challenge both the writing of a Report to the Federal Court and the referral of the report to the Federal Court. You probably won't do that if the person concerned is a permanent resident and has an appeal right to the IAD, there's no sense in that, but if you don't have that appeal, you're left with these limited options, so you're going to buy some more time. By going to the Federal Court either you buy some more time, it goes back, a different officer might come to a different conclusion, or you simply might need time for record suspension. Mark Holthe: Just buying the time, interesting. Raj Sharma: Might be one because you need strategic depth, so strategic depth is usually time, more time in Canada gives you more options. Mark Holthe: Define strategic depth for those who are not following. What are you talking about when you use that terminology? Raj Sharma: Strategic depth I was thinking more in terms of war. If you've got a country like Russia and you want to invade Russia, and Napoleon and Hitler both tried that. One of the problems is that Russia has a lot of depth, so you can invade, and invade, and keep invading, and the Russians will have time to mount a response. You can contrast that with, for example, Pakistan, which is thin wasted [country] geographically speaking, there's not a lot of strategic depth there. If we were to apply that terminology to immigration in Canada, then I would say strategic depth would be time. A lot of time, we don't have time, and so give me some time, give me enough time and I can do quite a bit. You need time to marshal resources, to file Federal Court obligations, to file TRP applications, to file H&C applications, to maybe get a rehabilitation application in, so time is our strategic depth and most of the time we don't have it. Mark Holthe: Yes, that is abundantly clear within our practice. I really appreciate that overview and the insight, it was awesome. Let's talk about some practice tips maybe. If counsel finds themselves in these types of positions dealing with an issue, a potential criminal inadmissibility, what are some of the things that go through your mind right away that you'd give in terms of advice, things that people want to make sure they do every single time, or little tips or strategies? You've already indicated here that you want to try to buy as much time as you can, that's obviously really important, but are there any specific things or pieces of advice that we haven't maybe talked about yet that you'd like to share with the listeners? Raj Sharma: I think definitely take a look at the IRCC or CIC policy manuals, Enforcement Manual 5, Enforcement Manual 6, take a look at the loose leaf publication by Mario Bellissimo and Genova, Immigration and Admissibility, they've got a handbook as well. You need to get an understanding of the facts and understand the law in a relatively quick fashion. Once you understand the context that you're in, so if the context is a permanent resident, and there's an offense, and you're looking at the loss of appeal rights, and you've got a procedural fairness letter, and the sentence has been served, what I would do immediately is probably do ATIP requests, access to information requests, and I would try to get and reconstruct the client's immigration history as much as possible. That's probably the first thing I would do is do an ATIP request. I would do FOIP requests for the correctional service documents, the institution documents, and see what's been going on over there and try to get access to those parole documents, take a look at their recidivism rankings. I would probably get the sentencing transcripts right away, I would get any pre-sentence reports that were filed or that were before the sentencing judge right away. After I looked at that I would see if I could update that pre-sentence report by a qualified forensic expert and reassess recidivism. Then I would probably put together these substantive submissions. Again, relying on maybe the IRB, IAD, Removal Order Appeals publication. Having regard to the sort of H&C factors and Ribic and Chieu factors. I would put all that together and get it into that officer probably as soon as possible. That's probably what I would do and that's probably what anyone should probably do with a PR facing removal where there's been a length of sentence greater than six months. If it was less than six months, then obviously maybe I'd just keep my powder dry to some degree, I'd still put in something, but I'd probably just keep my powder dry for the IAD. Mark Holthe: It's pretty much they're going to send it that way and choose not to make a decision at that stage. Raj Sharma: I would think as an officer, this is not in the manuals at all, but ... Mark Holthe: This is what we want, Raj, yes. Raj Sharma: As an officer, and I used to be an officer, but as an officer if I saw that a PR had a right of appeal, then really I would probably give short shrift to any sort of request for exercising my discretion at the 44 stage. I'd be like, "Look, let me just do my job, let me write this 44 report, and refer it, and let them make whatever submissions he needs to the IAD." I think the relationship to discretion and the loss of appeal rights is inverse, so if there's an appeal right, then I would narrow my own discretion. Then if there's no appeal rights, then I would probably take and expand my scope of discretion within, of course, the ambit of the law. Mark Holthe: That's awesome and it makes perfect sense. Officers, despite how some people feel, are human beings. When they feel like someone is trying to screw the system over, they're probably not going to give you a lot of help, but if they feel people are genuine and they've made a mistake, and there's a whole host of ... Raj Sharma: The system, maybe the system has been narrowed against, for example, any further request for relief. I think that they'll substantively consider. Mark Holthe: That's awesome. I really appreciate everything that you've shared here. Raj Sharma: Any time. Mark Holthe: This is fantastic. Now, as always when I have guests on, people are going to listen to this and they're going to say, "Hey, I've got a friend," or, "I know someone who's in this exact situation," and their counsel that they have right now is telling them that they might as well start singing 'Happy Trails,' and packing their bags, and they're saying to themselves, "There must be something else that I can do." They're going to listen to this and they're going to say, "Raj Sharma, how do I get a hold of this guy?" How do people track you down? What's the best way of getting in contact with you and engaging your services? Raj Sharma: For sure, Mark. Anyone can email us at info@sshlaw.ca, that's info@sshlaw.ca, number is 403-705-3398. I think we have a toll free number, but I'm not sure what it is. Mark Holthe: You can go to the website, right, too. Raj Sharma: Yes, you can definitely reach us and we'd be happy to help. It's something that we've developed for the last seven, eight years or so. Mark Holthe: Awesome, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Take care. Raj Sharma: Thanks a lot, Mark.
CanadianImmigrationPodcast.com Mark Holthe: I'm here with my good friend and colleague, Raj Sharma. Raj, thanks for joining me. Raj Sharma: My pleasure. Mark Holthe: We're testing this out with our digital recorder here. I usually do these interviews via Skype call, but I've got high hopes that the audio is going to be great regardless. Thanks for putting up with me, Raj, and happy to have you with us. Today, Raj has agreed to come in and talk a little bit about criminal inadmissibility and some of the consequences that can flow when people get themselves into trouble here in Canada, but before we get into that I want to take a moment to share a little bit of background on Raj, and where he's come from professionally, and where he's at. Raj Sharma's a lawyer and founding partner of Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, one of Western Canada's largest dedicated immigration law firms. He received his masters of law from Osgoode Hall and is a former refugee protection officer with the Immigration and Refugee Board. Now, I'll get to the question of how you got into immigration and I'm going to go out on a limb and think that that probably influenced it a little bit. Raj Sharma: That's right. Mark Holthe: With over a hundred reported decisions, Raj has indicated to me, he frequently appears before all divisions, as well as the Federal Court, the court of appeal, and has also appeared before every level of court in Alberta. Raj regularly speaks on immigration matters in the media, and he's been a panelist and speaker at the CBA National Immigration Conference in 2014 and '15. He also writes a lot on immigration, multiculturalism, and diversity. Recently he was the recipient of the Legal Aid of Alberta's Access to Justice award and has been recognized as well as one of Calgary's Top 40 Under 40. Raj is an extremely accomplished individual and I know that he won't plug himself, so I'll do that for him, but whenever I have a difficult case with respect to enforcement, or appeal work, or anything like that I send it to him and his firm. Once again, thanks for joining, Raj. Raj Sharma: Thanks, Mark. I'm East Indian, or as I like to describe ourselves as brown, so no matter how accomplished I am, obviously given that I'm not a doctor I'm probably a disappointment to my parents. Mark Holthe: Well, we'll have to get your parents on to come back and I'm almost positive with everything that you've done, at least within our industry and how you've distinguished yourself, that there wouldn't be a parent on this planet that wouldn't be proud of you. Enough of the feel good stuff, fill us in. How did you get into immigration? Raj Sharma: I never intended to get into immigration law. I did my JD at the University of Alberta. While I was there, I didn't take any immigration courses, immigration just wasn't even on my radar. I summered at a large law firm here in Calgary, Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer. I didn't like the large law firm milieu so to speak. Then I spent some time with Dennis Edney, who's now the lawyer for Omar Khadr. Then I also clerked up the Alberta Court of Appeal and ended up doing my articles with the federal department of justice. I think I had at that point an understanding that I would be somewhat closer to a barrister or a litigator than I would be in terms a solicitor. There was one case that I handled and my mentor at that time at the federal Department of Justice was Glennys Bembridge, who is now a Federal Court justice with a different last name, but there was one case and it involved a family, they're doctors, and their son had autism. I was the articling student, so I had to put together the affidavit and supporting the officer's finding of medical inadmissibility. I found that really, really interesting, but I kept saying to my mentor at that why can't we just consent on this file, the family's really deserving, and ultimately I think that the family did get relief. After that, I'd met my wife at Winnipeg at a wedding ... Mark Holthe: I'm going to jump in. Raj Sharma: Yes. Mark Holthe: You said, "Why can't we just consent to this?" What was his response? Raj Sharma: It was a strange response. The response was just like, "Oh, we just have to ..." Mark Holthe: Carry it through. Raj Sharma: It was more like it was like, "Oh, the client instructions ..." I'm like, "What client? We're the government." I was explained that different departments are actually clients of the department of justice. I found that very odd because I don't think that's true. I think that a client/solicitor relationship doesn't encapsulate departments of government being clients of each other. I found that odd. In any way, I'd met my wife in Winnipeg at a wedding, my cousin's wedding. She was in Calgary, born and raised in Calgary, so I needed a way to get to Calgary somehow, so I was applying for jobs in Calgary and I got this called up to do this test or examination at the Immigration Refugee Board. I was offered this position to become a refugee protection officer. That's where in fact I met my partner, Bjorn Harsanyi, so we both started off as refugee protection officers, hearings officers in 2002. Mark Holthe: Obviously that makes a pretty nice background for sliding over to the other side. It gives you an opportunity at least having worked on the other side to get a better understanding of how the government operates, how the department operates, a little bit more inside to the minds of what goes through a decision maker on that side. I have to assume that that helped you as you moved over to the other side with your advocacy on behalf of clients. Raj Sharma: I think so and I think that, and again there's this tradition of this entrepreneurial tradition within my community, and of course my second and third languages also helped, there was a burgeoning South Asian community in Calgary at that time. Really, it was timing, and so Calgary's just really good to me. I'd moved to Calgary at about the right time and I went into private practice at about the right time, right before Calgary took off, so to speak. 2004 I started my practice, late 2004 I started my practice. At that time, just trying to take whatever you can get, so again, I wasn't really centered in immigration. Then there was this legal aid file, this three hour legal aid file for criminal inadmissibility. It involved a foreign national in Canada accused or there was an allegation of weapons, and gun smuggling, and weapons trafficking. At that point I thought, "Well, this is a foregone conclusion." I looked at the IRPA and I said, "Well, this is just, there's no way out here," but my partner at that time pushed me a little bit and so I looked at it, I looked at it again. I put in far more hours than the three hours allotted to me, and low and behold I was able to succeed. I think that was the first time that I was in the media, that was the first time I was on TV or the newspapers, at least when it came to my legal practice. It was after that that my practice in immigration took off because it was after that that I joined Caron & Partners and then again after I left Caron & Partners there was another Vietnamese fellow, [another] fork in the road. There was another Vietnamese client, Jackie Tran, and that file I took on in 2009. Both of these cases probably had something to do with the direction of my practice. Mark Holthe: Yeah, that makes perfect sense because I think for most of us business immigration lawyers, I guess that's how I classify myself, when there's a sticky situation I get uncomfortable pretty quick. I have a tendency to try to take the path of easiest and least resistance with my clients. If there's push back from the government, I tend to try and say, "Do we need to refile? Do we need to rethink our strategy?" Sometimes it's faster to just accept the stupid decision that you get from an officer and then just try to satisfy whatever they want, and refile, and get it approved, but there's a number of situations where people get themselves into a corner where they really don't have a nice, easy solution other than taking the government on. Raj Sharma: I think .. it depends on what you're facing. Now, in your case you have to solve a sort of business problem. Prior to 2009, before Tran, I was actually doing hundreds of LMIA's, or LMO's that they were called at the time, so I was representing major corporations, I was getting fat, I was just doing pure solicitor work, and I think again timing came to my rescue because once I got into the Tran file, which necessitated three different Federal Court applications, [emergency] stay application, IAD, ID, and right about that same time the economy in Calgary sort of collapsed, so to speak. If you're a one trick pony, that is you're only doing one aspect of immigration, you could be susceptible to that sort of change. I was very lucky in the sense of I did quite a bit of solicitor business work, but given that strong litigation year we were able to just basically switch our practices over to a litigation aspect. In business [immigration], you're tasked with making sure that the business runs smoothly. Where it's an individual facing loss of status, it's a zero sum game. In business there may be not, it's not a zero sum game, but in someone facing removal or deportation to a country that they haven't been in since they were a kid, it's a zero sum game which is you win or you lose, so at that point you start bringing out all the arrows in your quiver and you're doing whatever you can for your client because it is, for them to some degree, it's life or death in the sense of it's a death of a relationship, it's a death of your relationship to Canada, and it's a death of your status in this country. Mark Holthe: Let's shift to the topic at hand. I think a lot of our listeners, this isn't something that they're very familiar with because I think genuinely people try to avoid committing crimes in Canada and getting themselves removed. Raj Sharma: Right, and we know for a fact that immigrants or first generation Canadians have a lower crime rate than native born Canadians, so you're absolutely right. Most of your listeners and our clients, most of them, the vast majority enjoy a lower criminal rate or criminality than Canadians would. Mark Holthe: Yes, absolutely. As those that are listening in here, as I introduced when I started the podcast here, the interview with Raj Sharma, I indicated that we're going to be talking a little bit about criminal inadmissibility, so Raj, can you give us a little bit of an introduction? When we talk about criminal inadmissibility, how does that play into this world of immigration? Raj Sharma: Immigration is about, and notwithstanding whatever we hear these days from Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton, there are no such thing as truly open borders. A country will always dictate who enters and who remains, so there was a case that went to the supreme court of Canada involving a woman actually -- most of the cases I deal with actually do involve men -- but Medovarski involved a woman and Medovarski reaffirmed that concept that non-citizens do not have an unqualified right to enter or remain inside of Canada. When we look at criminality, the threshold for removing non-citizens from Canada is spelled out in intricate detail in the Immigration Refugee Protection Act and there is a bifurcation, i.e., it's somewhat harder to remove permanent residents from Canada and quite a bit easier to remove foreign nationals from Canada. When we talk about foreign nationals, we're talking about students and those here on work permits or those that are visitors in Canada. When we talk about permanent residence, obviously those are individuals that have applied for permanent residency, they're not citizens yet, and so we have a paradigm, a very detailed framework that deals with non-citizens that get in trouble with the law. Mark Holthe: When we talk about getting in trouble with the law, does the Immigration Act or the government, do they view certain crimes more seriously than others? How is that distinction set up? Raj Sharma: No, and maybe they should. That would have been a proper starting point. Maybe you should have been involved in this sort of legislation of these laws, but unfortunately the distinction of the severity of a crime is based on the maximum term of imprisonment or the actual incarceral or term that's imposed. When we talk about prison or incarceral term, we're including conditional sentences or sentences to be served in the community, so the distinction is not between the type of offense, someone that's convicted of a white collar offense such as fraud could face removal just as easily or perhaps more easily than someone accused or charged with simple assault. Mark Holthe: Even if an offense, let's say it's a hybrid offense, so it could proceed summarily or via indictment, the person that is sentenced to ten years imprisonment for that offense versus someone that's sentenced to six months under the eyes of the lovely immigration authorities, it's irrelevant. Raj Sharma: That's right, and it also doesn't take into account your length of time in Canada, so you could be a permanent resident and you could be here since you were two or three, and you could be [here] thirty years, and you could have an issue. Of course, this is the fragility of the human condition, we all make mistakes, so it doesn't take into account the length of time that you're in Canada…, nor does it take into account the nature of the offense, whether it's violent or whether it's non-violent. It's a blunt instrument unfortunately, Section 36 in particularly. Mark Holthe: If you have an individual that's committed a crime in Canada it's pretty clear we know what the offense is, we know what the conviction was, there's not a lot of debate about it, but what happens if someone wants to enter Canada or comes to Canada and has a conviction that occurred over seas or in another country, how does Canada treat those? Raj Sharma: Those things get complicated really quickly because different countries have different legal systems and different countries have different standards in terms of the ... You could have a situation [if] you're from China. Now, China has a 99.9% conviction rate. Mark Holthe: Wow, maybe I won't ask too many questions as to how that justice system plays out for those people accused, but ... Raj Sharma: I mean, so when we start making equivalent, or making offenses, or acts that individuals have done outside of Canada, and we have to somehow try and make them equivalent to offenses in Canada, those things get tricky really, really quickly. That's one subset of what we do.[But] I just keep getting reminded, even this morning, had a client applied on the Alberta Immigrant Nominee Program, skilled individual, excellent English, everything's fantastic, no criminal record whatsoever, applied on the ANP, got the nomination, applied for the PR forms to [CPC] Sydney. We got the passport request two days ago, three days ago, problem. Last week after a birthday party or someone's party, one in the morning, [he’s] charged with impaired driving. Those are the sort of simple, understandable criminality because I think some politicians paint criminals as this broad brush, but criminals are no different than [you or I], it's just there's one incorrect decision. I think impaired driving is like that, this is impaired driving, could result in no jail time whatsoever, probably will result in a fine if he ever gets convicted, and a driving suspension. Won't spend a day in jail, but that's a hybrid offense and that [a conviction] makes him [as a foreign national] inadmissible. That's where I feel a lot of sympathy because you're seeing literally in front of you the end of a dream and you're seeing a person that for all other purposes would be an ideal addition to Canada's multicultural fabric. It's not really the media, it's not my cases that hit the news or the front pages that really give a proper idea of my practice. It really is those guys that are within an inch of permanent residency and we wouldn't consider them to be criminals, but of course they've made a grievous and horrendous error by drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car. Mark Holthe: Let's carry that through, I think that would be interesting. An individual who is in that type of a situation, this happens to them. What can they expect? Raj Sharma: Number one, if they come to me my first response to them, and there may be some sort of false hope, or some sort of strange fever dream that they're existing under, or they may get some sort of strange advice from someone, or a friend, or a cousin, and there may be a suggestion as to just somehow let it ride out and CIC may not figure this out. My first advice to them is that if they want my assistance, that we will be disclosing the charge and the encounter with the police immediately. That's the first thing that should happen and once they agree to these sort of terms, then we can start figuring out a solution. Now, the solution of course, and I kind of outlined that earlier today in my speech here, which is now start looking into conviction options or post conviction options. These conviction options, number one, beat out the charge in trial, because the system is binary, because it's a zero sum game, we can't now ... I think criminal lawyers and immigration lawyers that dabble in criminal law, there's no options now. You actually have to go and try to beat this out, you got to find, even if your client is factually guilty, you got to find a way to make him legally not guilty because if he's not guilty, that doesn't lead to any criminal consequences. If it's an offense, a domestic violence type of situation, and a peace bond is in the offering, take a peace bond. A peace bond doesn't have any criminal consequences either. There may be possibilities for some offenses for absolute or conditional discharges, take it, take it. That bird in the hand, we can safeguard that immigration at that point. In terms of a DUI, we're really looking to these curative discharges now and that's one option as well. Mark Holthe: Maybe you can explain what that is. What is a curative discharge? Raj Sharma: Curative discharge involves a process by which there is a guilt or there is factual guilt and there's again…. A curative discharge we've used where there's indication of alcoholism [as a] medical condition. If we can establish that, then the judge may see fit to grant a curative discharge. If that happens, then there is no criminal record that could waylay an immigration application or application for permanent residence. That's not to say, by the way, that that won't lead to other issues, i.e., you may still need a waiver to get into the US, but the curative discharge is something that we explore for impaired driving, and conditional, and absolute where ever possible [for other offences]. Now, bear in mind there's a whole host of offenses that result in mandatory minimum sentences and so we can't do any number of these things for those types of offenses, but those are some of the arrows in our quiver in terms of post conviction. Where ever possible, if you are facing a charge, either you're a permanent resident or a foreign national, try to get immigration lawyer involved alongside your criminal lawyer. There may be options to get positive sentencing remarks or positive remarks that are spoken into the record. Those transcripts can come in handy. If you are convicted, if you are sentenced, it's important that the client demonstrate remorse, and rehabilitation, engage in programming, and try to turn that life around. If we can demonstrate that, there are some options, which is that that initiating document to establish criminal inadmissibility, the Section 44 report, there is a scope for the officer not to write that report. Again, when I started down this journey I didn't realize the scope of discretion that's in the act. There is significant discretion. An officer may choose not to write a report against a permanent resident or foreign national and that may be the first, and maybe the last, real line of defense for a lot of these individuals. We've seen that happen, we've seen permanent residents, I've represented permanent residents, young guys, a technical armed robbery, four years plus sentence ... Mark Holthe: A technical armed robbery. Raj Sharma: A technical armed robbery... Mark Holthe: I love this terminology, technical versus a real, is there any distinction there? Raj Sharma: Let me tell you and you tell me whether that terminology or that splitting of hairs is appropriate. A guy got fired from a job at a liquor store, was angry, young guy, and decides to rob the liquor store as some sort of payback, buys a gun that is not operational, just this old, rusted out gun. There's no bullets in it, it's inoperable. Goes into the store, people see the gun, so they flee, so he goes to the cashier, he tries to open the cash box, is unable to do so, and runs out without stealing anything. Misfortune added to his idiocy, there's an off duty police officer who immediately arrests him outside the liquor store, so this guy goes through this process and his criminal lawyer after wasting tens of thousands of dollars of his money, pleads him guilty to an offense that includes a mandatory minimum sentence. At that point, and I met the judge actually afterwards and the judge said, "Hey, I wonder why that lawyer did that because if the lawyer challenged that on a charter ground of cruel and unusual punishment, that that mandatory minimum sentence in this case offends the Charter, I would have granted it to him." This lawyer tells this guy and his family, "That's it, game over, you will be deported," but of course that's not actually the end of it. [So] I do stand by my characterization of that as a technical armed robbery because this guy, he's more of an idiot than he was a criminal. This family went through a lot, this family, his sister in fact, who lived with was married, [her] husband had some mental issues, and she was attacked actually. The police attended and in fact that man was actually brought down by the CPS, so the family went through a lot. We put all this together, put the sentencing transcripts in, the judge, they got a really compassionate judge who said a lot of things into that record. [The client] was out on bail for four years, and upgraded himself, and it really was an ill advised decision. Ultimately, we had an understanding officer. She ended up interviewing him over the telephone, I think, at the Remand institution, and [she ultimately] decided not to write the report. Mark Holthe: I guess that's the beauty of this is the discretion that's laced into the immigration process. Raj Sharma: They won't lightly do it, but if you've got the goods .. it can be done. We had another case, we had another individual originally from Hong Kong, came over as a kid, got into some gambling issues, and then got into selling drugs to pay off some of those debts. Served his time, was a model prisoner, and his entire family was here, we set out everything. In this case we asked the Report not to be written, it was written. We challenged the Report at the Federal Court, we received approval or leave on one, it went back, and ultimately a Minister’s Delegate decided to issue a warning letter. That's drug trafficking [involving a “hard” drug] and that was again significant, so these things can be done for the right individual. You will have people that have turned their lives around and you can see, you can tell. There's no faking this because it's a year's long journey. If you've got it, you've got it, and thankfully our officers, what I've seen is that we have fair individuals, open minded individuals, and that's not to say that I haven't lost on something that I think I should have won, I have, but even that decision, at least that individual had an open mind. I think our [CBSA/CIC] officers by and large are open minded individuals. Again, this may be the last line of defense for a lot of these individuals because there may not be an appeal to the ID anymore because the atrociously entitled Fast Removal of Foreign Criminals Act has amended the IRPA, so permanent residents that have been sentenced to more than six months, including conditional sentences, don't have an appeal to the IAD anymore. Whatever they've got, they've got to address that Section 44 report, that procedural fairness process, maybe Federal Court, maybe a TRP, maybe an H&C, a humanitarian and compassion application, but without that IAD backup, options are limited. Mark Holthe: That's really interesting because like I said, from my perspective, someone who does not do a lot of that type of work, very little in fact, I see walls, absolute walls sometimes for people that I can't see past, whereas individuals such as yourself who have a little bit of a broader perspective, and have actually gone and looked behind the wall have realized that sometimes there's ways through. The message that I got, especially, and just to clarify for the listeners, Raj and I are just meeting at the Canadian Bar Association Office here in Calgary after Raj gave a presentation [to the CBA Immigration Subsection] on this similar topic. One of the messages that came through loud and clear is that maybe people give up too easy, especially counsel, us. I put us under the bus in many circumstances because sometimes we're just too willing to roll over. We need to take a serious look at what the possibilities, are and not be afraid to question and challenge an allegation that's being made against our clients. Even in circumstances where based on a clear reading of the law there's a certain outcome that's supposed to flow doesn't necessarily mean there isn't discretion to go around that and that there isn't some compassion laced into the system. Raj Sharma: I learned this relatively recently. I went to visit my eighty-five, ninety years old grandmother in Edmonton. I didn't learn until much later -- my grandfather died, so my grandmother came over with my youngest uncle to Canada to her children here. None of us kids actually knew that our uncle was actually her sister's son. Her sister had died, so she had taken my uncle in. I guess his dad wasn't interested in caring for him, so I learned this later that Uncle is not actually our uncle, he's actually my mom's cousin. …I knew that there was some immigration issues that he was going through early on when he came, so my grandmother explained it to me, because there was no adoption papers and because my grandmother I think is incapable of lying, she's very straight out that we have no adoption papers, but he has nowhere else to be other than with me. They battled for like three or four years to try and get my uncle to be here. Ultimately CIC indicated, "Well, he can't be here, there's no adoption papers, we have no consent from his guardian, or his biological father, or whatever the case may be." We're from this small mining town in BC and the family was helped by an immigration lawyer out of Vancouver. Ultimately my uncle got what was then called a minister's permit, which is now we call a TRP, a temporary resident permit. When I learned that I was, "Well, I guess that's what I do." So I [do] think people minimize or perhaps don't understand the scope of discretion that's available. There are roadblocks, there's hurdles, [but] there's very few problems without an absolute solution. That being said, if you are unmitigated, incorrigible criminal, no officer's going to give you the benefit of whatever doubt there may be, but there are these avenues that can be pursued and there is a sort of system. You got to work through that system, work with the criminal lawyers, put your client in the best possible light, take advantage of any little nook, cranny, any little shaft of light, and you might be able to widen that crack a little bit for your client to step through, but yes, very few things are foregone conclusions and it's our job as counsel to put the best possible foot forward for the client. Again, in my twelve years of practicing immigration law there's very few actual incorrigible [criminals]. I said this before … that hard cases make bad law and outliers shouldn't make the world a harder place for the vast majority of people that simply want to come to Canada and give their families a better life. These outliers don't reflect the vast majority of cases that we deal with. The vast majority of cases we deal with are human fragility, human error, understandable mistakes. Mark Holthe: You mentioned this concept of a TRP, a temporary resident permit, which is now the new version of a Minister’s Permit. Raj Sharma: That's right. Mark Holthe: In some circumstances, individuals will have appeal rights when there is criminality involved and they're facing some harsh consequences, they have appeal rights and other times they don't. You had talked a little bit about the discretion that an officer has to write that report to refer it or not. Can you maybe clarify that just a little bit for counsel who maybe have individuals that are at the stage where the consequences could be pretty nasty? Maybe there is no appeal right and you indicated that sometimes an officer does have some discretion whether or not to write it. Raj Sharma: That's right. That Section 44 report, so let's say there's a conviction in Canada. Establishing that would be pretty straightforward, pretty easy. What counsel can do is respond to a procedural fairness letter, say, "Please don't write the Section 44 report and here's why," and these are going to be [modeled on] the typical Section 25 type of application or submission, so time in Canada, establishment in Canada, those ties here, the family ties here, hardship, or adverse conditions, or challenges upon return, children that are affected by the decision, the circumstances leading to the events, any indicia of remorse, rehabilitation, insight. All those should be placed squarely before the officer and you say to the officer, "Don't write this report, please. The guy's been here for a long time, this is a singular mistake, the criminal record is limited or none other than this lapse in judgment." If the officer writes the report, its then has to be referred under Section 44 sub 2 by a Minister’s Delegate. If it's referred, for a permanent resident that means it goes to the immigration division. If it's criminality or serious criminality in Canada, that's Section 44 sub 2, that becomes a removal order for a foreign national. Again, there's less options for foreign nationals here. If it's referred to the immigration division, not much you can do if it's a conviction in Canada. The ID is not going to look beyond the certificate of conviction. If it's a conviction outside of Canada or an allegation that some offense has occurred outside of Canada, that would be equivalent to serious offenses inside of Canada. Then the immigration proceeding becomes a substantive proceeding. That's when it takes on some degree of significance. You are then going to start talking about foreign legal laws, standard of proof, burden of proof, and at that point you probably should be retaining a foreign legal expert. It gets complicated really quickly at that point. After a removal order is issued, post removal order options are limited. A TRP can overcome or allow you to remain in Canada notwithstanding a removal order. An H&C can do the same. One option might be to get a TRP pending record suspension for a conviction inside Canada, for example, if there's eligibility. Mark Holthe: If an officer chooses to write the report when you've made your submissions, can you challenge that part before it gets to the immigration division? Raj Sharma: Yes, you can challenge both the writing of a Report to the Federal Court and the referral of the report to the Federal Court. You probably won't do that if the person concerned is a permanent resident and has an appeal right to the IAD, there's no sense in that, but if you don't have that appeal, you're left with these limited options, so you're going to buy some more time. By going to the Federal Court either you buy some more time, it goes back, a different officer might come to a different conclusion, or you simply might need time for record suspension. Mark Holthe: Just buying the time, interesting. Raj Sharma: Might be one because you need strategic depth, so strategic depth is usually time, more time in Canada gives you more options. Mark Holthe: Define strategic depth for those who are not following. What are you talking about when you use that terminology? Raj Sharma: Strategic depth I was thinking more in terms of war. If you've got a country like Russia and you want to invade Russia, and Napoleon and Hitler both tried that. One of the problems is that Russia has a lot of depth, so you can invade, and invade, and keep invading, and the Russians will have time to mount a response. You can contrast that with, for example, Pakistan, which is thin wasted [country] geographically speaking, there's not a lot of strategic depth there. If we were to apply that terminology to immigration in Canada, then I would say strategic depth would be time. A lot of time, we don't have time, and so give me some time, give me enough time and I can do quite a bit. You need time to marshal resources, to file Federal Court obligations, to file TRP applications, to file H&C applications, to maybe get a rehabilitation application in, so time is our strategic depth and most of the time we don't have it. Mark Holthe: Yes, that is abundantly clear within our practice. I really appreciate that overview and the insight, it was awesome. Let's talk about some practice tips maybe. If counsel finds themselves in these types of positions dealing with an issue, a potential criminal inadmissibility, what are some of the things that go through your mind right away that you'd give in terms of advice, things that people want to make sure they do every single time, or little tips or strategies? You've already indicated here that you want to try to buy as much time as you can, that's obviously really important, but are there any specific things or pieces of advice that we haven't maybe talked about yet that you'd like to share with the listeners? Raj Sharma: I think definitely take a look at the IRCC or CIC policy manuals, Enforcement Manual 5, Enforcement Manual 6, take a look at the loose leaf publication by Mario Bellissimo and Genova, Immigration and Admissibility, they've got a handbook as well. You need to get an understanding of the facts and understand the law in a relatively quick fashion. Once you understand the context that you're in, so if the context is a permanent resident, and there's an offense, and you're looking at the loss of appeal rights, and you've got a procedural fairness letter, and the sentence has been served, what I would do immediately is probably do ATIP requests, access to information requests, and I would try to get and reconstruct the client's immigration history as much as possible. That's probably the first thing I would do is do an ATIP request. I would do FOIP requests for the correctional service documents, the institution documents, and see what's been going on over there and try to get access to those parole documents, take a look at their recidivism rankings. I would probably get the sentencing transcripts right away, I would get any pre-sentence reports that were filed or that were before the sentencing judge right away. After I looked at that I would see if I could update that pre-sentence report by a qualified forensic expert and reassess recidivism. Then I would probably put together these substantive submissions. Again, relying on maybe the IRB, IAD, Removal Order Appeals publication. Having regard to the sort of H&C factors and Ribic and Chieu factors. I would put all that together and get it into that officer probably as soon as possible. That's probably what I would do and that's probably what anyone should probably do with a PR facing removal where there's been a length of sentence greater than six months. If it was less than six months, then obviously maybe I'd just keep my powder dry to some degree, I'd still put in something, but I'd probably just keep my powder dry for the IAD. Mark Holthe: It's pretty much they're going to send it that way and choose not to make a decision at that stage. Raj Sharma: I would think as an officer, this is not in the manuals at all, but ... Mark Holthe: This is what we want, Raj, yes. Raj Sharma: As an officer, and I used to be an officer, but as an officer if I saw that a PR had a right of appeal, then really I would probably give short shrift to any sort of request for exercising my discretion at the 44 stage. I'd be like, "Look, let me just do my job, let me write this 44 report, and refer it, and let them make whatever submissions he needs to the IAD." I think the relationship to discretion and the loss of appeal rights is inverse, so if there's an appeal right, then I would narrow my own discretion. Then if there's no appeal rights, then I would probably take and expand my scope of discretion within, of course, the ambit of the law. Mark Holthe: That's awesome and it makes perfect sense. Officers, despite how some people feel, are human beings. When they feel like someone is trying to screw the system over, they're probably not going to give you a lot of help, but if they feel people are genuine and they've made a mistake, and there's a whole host of ... Raj Sharma: The system, maybe the system has been narrowed against, for example, any further request for relief. I think that they'll substantively consider. Mark Holthe: That's awesome. I really appreciate everything that you've shared here. Raj Sharma: Any time. Mark Holthe: This is fantastic. Now, as always when I have guests on, people are going to listen to this and they're going to say, "Hey, I've got a friend," or, "I know someone who's in this exact situation," and their counsel that they have right now is telling them that they might as well start singing 'Happy Trails,' and packing their bags, and they're saying to themselves, "There must be something else that I can do." They're going to listen to this and they're going to say, "Raj Sharma, how do I get a hold of this guy?" How do people track you down? What's the best way of getting in contact with you and engaging your services? Raj Sharma: For sure, Mark. Anyone can email us at info@sshlaw.ca, that's info@sshlaw.ca, number is 403-705-3398. I think we have a toll free number, but I'm not sure what it is. Mark Holthe: You can go to the website, right, too. Raj Sharma: Yes, you can definitely reach us and we'd be happy to help. It's something that we've developed for the last seven, eight years or so. Mark Holthe: Awesome, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Take care. Raj Sharma: Thanks a lot, Mark.
Bienvenidos a La Comicofonía. La Comicófonía consiste en una hora en directo a micro abierto donde podréis conocernos mejor, escucharnos de forma más distendida y lo más importante, podréis participar todos en directo con nosotros. Después de cada programa, tras unos minutos comenzará la Comicofonía. Durante esa hora nos oiréis charlar sobre diversos temas o futuros experimentos que haremos más adelante. Lo más importante es que podréis hacer seguimiento a través del hashtag #Comicofonia en Twitter o los hilos que crearemos en nuestro grupo de Facebook, Agentes de Hydra. En esta sección, queremos que participéis con nosotros con vuestros comentarios, preguntas y hasta podréis entrar por teléfono. Será una hora desenfadada llena de humor e improvisación. La Comicofonía será en directo a través de cvbradio.es aproximadamente de 20:30 a 21:30 todos los viernes. Os esperamos!!
Bienvenidos a La Comicofonía. La Comicófonía consiste en una hora en directo a micro abierto donde podréis conocernos mejor, escucharnos de forma más distendida y lo más importante, podréis participar todos en directo con nosotros. Después de cada programa, tras unos minutos comenzará la Comicofonía. Durante esa hora nos oiréis charlar sobre diversos temas o futuros experimentos que haremos más adelante. Lo más importante es que podréis hacer seguimiento a través del hashtag #Comicofonia en Twitter o los hilos que crearemos en nuestro grupo de Facebook, Agentes de Hydra. En esta sección, queremos que participéis con nosotros con vuestros comentarios, preguntas y hasta podréis entrar por teléfono. Será una hora desenfadada llena de humor e improvisación. La Comicofonía será en directo a través de cvbradio.es aproximadamente de 20:30 a 21:30 todos los viernes. Os esperamos!!
Nuevo episodio del podcast de ¡Es la hora de las tortas! en el que diseccionamos pormenorizadamente y durante muchas horas el evento más grande de la historia del tebeo norteamericano: Las nuevas Secret Wars. Además en esta ocasión sorteamos un lote de tebeos Marvel cortesía de Panini Cómics. El plazo para participar en el concurso de este podcast termina el 25 de abril a medianoche. ¡No dudéis en participar y suerte! Laintxo, Don Antonio, Enrique Acebes, Alejandro, Ángel, Álvaro y Mario dan buena cuenta de la serie principal así como de todos y cada uno de los tie-ins laterales del crossover. Bloques en los que se encuentra dividido el programa. 00:00:00 - Introducción y bases del concurso. 00:04:00 - La serie principal de Hickman y Ribic. 01:29:00 - Todos los tie-ins del evento. Este es el trigésimo tercer experimento en el mundo del podcasting de nuestra veterana web, en el que batimos todos los récords de duración. ¡Esperamos que os guste! ;)
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