This blog post is an excerpt from Bench Press in the January/February 2012 issue of LawNow magazine. To view the magazine and subscribe please go to www.lawnow.org.
A Federal Court of Canada judge recently ruled that Mark Stables, who has been a permanent resident of Canada since he came from Scotland as a seven-year-old child, and who has no criminal record, cannot stay in Canada.
Justice de Montigny ruled that the government has the right to expel him because he is a high-ranking member of the Hells Angels.
Mr. Stables argued that the Hells Angels is not a criminal organization, but the Judge stated that the evidence is overwhelming that the Hells Angels is “first and foremost” an organization dealing in drug trafficking, extortion, theft and murder.
He wrote: “This is not a case where the applicant did not know the nature of the organization until it was too late – either he did not care or chose to be willfully blind to its activities. Clearly, the framers of the Charter [of Rights] could not have intended that the applicant’s membership in the Hells Angels could be protected through his freedom of association and expression, despite the overwhelming criminal history of the organization.” The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows for a person to be barred from Canada for “organized criminality”.
Stables v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) 2011 FC 1319 (CanLII).