Ministers to Testify on Convicted Human Smuggler’s Reissued Canadian Passport

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller rises during Question Period, on Nov. 18, 2024 in Ottawa. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Cabinet ministers will testify before a House of Commons committee following a report that a human trafficker was issued a new passport after surrendering it under court-imposed release conditions.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc will appear before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration by Dec. 18. During a meeting on Nov. 16, MPs on the committee unanimously voted in favour of a motion to invite them to testify.

The motion follows a CBC report about Thesingarasan Rasiah, an admitted human trafficker, being reissued a passport after surrendering his original one as part of a court order. Rasiah, a Montreal resident, was charged in April 2021 for smuggling a Sri Lankan national from the United States into Canada. He pleaded guilty and surrendered his passport as a condition of his release.

“There are a lot of questions here to ask, primarily, how could Passport Canada issue a passport to a well-known criminal with an existing court order forbidding him from having a travel document?” Conservative MP and immigration critic Tom Kmiec asked. “How could he be issued a new passport?”

Kmiec introduced the motion to call the cabinet ministers to testify.

Rasiah’s new passport, issued in April 2023, was found at his residence two months later during an RCMP raid investigating an international human smuggling network he allegedly led. Police say the smuggling ring is linked to the drowning deaths of nine people in the St. Lawrence River in March 2023.

At the time of the raid, Rasiah was under house arrest while awaiting sentencing for a February 2023 guilty plea to breaching the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for his role in smuggling the Sri Lankan national.

In a June 6 press release, the RCMP announced the arrest of four individuals, saying warrants had been issued for four others involved in a “large-scale human smuggling ring.” Rasiah was among those charged. The ring allegedly trafficked hundreds of migrants along the St. Lawrence River into the United States, with each migrant reportedly charged thousands of dollars.

Concerns

Kmiec noted that after reviewing Canada’s passport application process, he found “multiple spots” where Rasiah could have avoided disclosing the court order forbidding him from possessing a travel document when applying for the new document. The MP also voiced concerns about Rasiah being held under house arrest instead of in jail.

“I don’t know why you would give house arrest to a human smuggler, especially in a case where his smuggling network is accused credibly of having caused the death of eight persons. I find that baffling to me,” Kmiec said. He added that Rasiah was sentenced to 15 months in jail in September 2023.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan raised concerns about whether the court had effectively communicated to the immigration department that Rasiah was prohibited from obtaining a travel document.

“There is a big question in my mind, Mr. Chair, and that is: once the court made that decision, how was it—or if it was, in fact—communicated to the relevant departments, which would be the passport department?” Kwan said. “Someone would have undertaken that responsibility, because you can’t expect IRCC or the passport office to know that there is this court order in place.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), under the portfolio of Immigration Minister Miller, is responsible for Canada’s passport services.