Canada (Attorney General) v. Siyam, 2007 ONCA 297

CITATION: Canada (Attorney General) v. Siyam, 2007 ONCA 297

DATE: 20070419

DOCKET: C44281

COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO

LASKIN, SIMMONS and LAFORME JJ.A.

BETWEEN:

MINISTER OF JUSTICE CANADA

Respondent

and

TANIA J. SIYAM

Applicant

John Norris for the applicant

Tom Lemon and Croft Michaelson for the Crown

Heard: April 17, 2007

On an application for judicial review of the decisions of the Minister of Justice to order the applicant’s surrender to the United States of America pursuant to s. 57 of the Extradition Act dated September 12, 2005 and December 12, 2006.

ENDORSEMENT

[1] The applicant applies for judicial review of the Minister’s surrender order on four grounds.

[2] First, the applicant submits that in determining whether surrendering her would violate her Charter rights, the Minister failed to take into account all relevant factors. In particular, the applicant contends that the Minister failed to balance the effect of surrender against the nature of the alleged offences. The applicant says that the offences with which she is charged are “regulatory” in nature, far removed from serious criminal law offences.

[3] We do not accept this submission. In fairness to the Minister, we note that this argument now advanced before us was not made clearly in written submissions to the Minister. More important, although one may characterize the offences as “regulatory”, we view them as serious offences. The allegation is that for pure commercial gain, the applicant violated legislation designed to protect our world’s endangered species. The nature of the offences does not militate against surrender.

[4] Second, the applicant submits that the Minister erred by holding that the position of the United States prosecutor was not relevant to the surrender decision. We disagree. This was not a case like United States of America v. Johnson (2002), 170 C.C.C. (3d) 538 (Ont. C.A.), where the person to be extradited had spent significant time in custody in Canada. Here, all the United States prosecutor in Ohio said was that a plea bargain would not be discussed until the applicant surrendered. The Minister properly said that he would not interfere with the prosecutor’s determination.

[5] Third, the applicant submits that in determining that her security of the person interests were not violated, the Minister applied the wrong test and then made an unreasonable factual finding. Again, we disagree.

[6] The Minister accurately applied the Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence under s. 7 in New Brunswick (Minister of Health and Community Services) v. G.(J.), [1999] 3 S.C.R. 46, and Winnipeg Child and Family Services v. K.L.W., 2000 SCC 48, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 519. His finding that the applicant’s stress and anxiety from the disruption of her relationship with her children was not a violation of her s. 7 Charter rights was reasonable.

[7] Fourth, the applicant submits that the Minister’s original reasons are inadequate because they amounted to a repetition nearly word for word of the Minister’s reasons in Canada (Minister of Justice) v. Thomson, [2005] O.J. No. 762, a case similar but not identical to the present case. We disagree. Although the reasons in this case follow the template in Thomson, read as a whole they were responsive to the arguments made by the applicant.

[8] Accordingly, the application for judicial review is dismissed.

“J.I. Laskin J.A.”

“J. Simmons J.A.”

“H.S. LaForme J.A.”