Citizenship versus 'Persona non Grata'

Life can be so unfair when you're not wanted.  There may be reasons why someone presents as persona non grata, but even the most hardened criminals don't like to be rejected.  Everyone wants acceptance of some kind from some source.  In the case of Jamaican born non-Canadian-citizen John McLeod, the Government of Canada views him as a foreign presence contaminated by having committed a fairly heinous murder.

He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2001.  He reacted in a psychotic rage when his girlfriend, Brendaly Figueroa informed him she was intent on leaving him.  Perhaps his penchant for violence convinced her that would be in her best interests.  Except that realization came a little too late for the young woman.  Instead of leaving him, she left the land of the living.  He slit her throat and stuffed her body into a suitcase.  And then left the suitcase with Brendaly Figueroa's mortal remains by the side of Highway 401.

His sentence was life in prison.  That kind of sentence that is so often meted out to murderers, and which often comes with the proviso of no eligibility of parole for twelve years.  Twelve years for taking a human life in the most miserable of all conceivable ways, at the bloodlust-obsessed hands of an incensed bully, someone who is supposed to love you.  Since the man was not a Canadian citizen a deportation order was given to be acted upon at his release from prison.

Mr. McLeod, however is supremely disinterested in returning to his native land.  He prefers to remain in Canada.  Preferring even to remain incarcerated to forestall the inevitability of being returned to Jamaica.  Imagine, so many Canadians look forward to exotic trips to Jamaica to enjoy the sun and the sand, the clement weather and the luxury of resort comfort, and this native-born Jamaican prefers to stay in the land of snow and sleet.  Just no accounting for personal values.

Mr. McLeod is contesting the move to deport him, invoking his constitutional rights he claims are being breached, airing accusations of discrimination against foreign nationals.  Those two items of contentious complaint obviously contradict one another.  But this is the lawsuit he has taken to the Federal Court of Canada.  Mr. McLeod's suit refers to the Immigration and Refugee Act where a foreign national who commits a seriously criminal act is subject to removal once their prison sentence has been completed.

Which appears on casual reading and hopeful analysis on his part, to conflict with the Corrections and Conditional Release Act which states a sentence for a non-citizen may not be considered complete - even when released on parole - until the given sentence has expired.  And this is the argument that Federal Court Justice Donald Rennie considered in fairness to the plaintiff, before dismissing the claims.

"Parliament has the right to prescribe the conditions under which foreign nationals who are convicted in Canada will be removed from Canada.  As the applicant has no right to remain in Canada, he has no right to access Canadian society under terms and conditions that are available to Canadian citizens; hence no Charter issue arises.
"[Deportation] does not deprive him of anything he has not, by his own conduct, already lost.
"Since the applicant has no right to remain in Canada there can be no differential treatment.  A Canadian citizen has a right to remain in Canada.  Therefore, a foreign national and a national are not [the same]."