Canadian law regardless of the fact that Canada has not incorporated that definition into
Canadian legislation.
b. Article 1(2)(ii)-(iii)
Federal Immigration Legislation
The exclusion provisions of Article 1(2)(ii)-(iii) parallel those from Articles 1E and 1F of the
1951 Refugee Convention, the latter of which are incorporated through section 98 of the IRPA.
Although section 98 only addresses exclusion for the purposes of the 1951 Refugee Convention,
a simple statutory amendment referencing Article 1(2)(ii)-(iii) could render the IRPA compatible
with the 1954 Convention.
Even though section 98 is not immediately compatible, some of the criminal elements for
exclusion under Article 1(2)(iii) of the 1954 Convention are mentioned elsewhere in the IRPA
through its “inadmissibility” provisions. “Inadmissibility” under the IRPA refers to reasons why
a foreign national is not admissible or able to enter Canada. Without assuming that the
inadmissibility provisions of IRPA would meet specific evidentiary and procedural exclusion
requirements under the 1954 Convention or international law, the inadmissibility provisions of
IRPA do allow Canada to find foreign nationals (including stateless persons) inadmissible to
Canada when there are reasonable grounds to believe that they have committed crimes on:
security grounds, human or international rights violations, serious criminality, criminality and
organized criminality grounds.32 In light of these provisions, the IRPA currently contains
language similar to Article 1(2)(iii) of the 1954 Convention and such inadmissibility provisions
currently apply to stateless persons as foreign nationals.
III.
Assessment
Although there is no explicit definition of a stateless person in the Canadian legal framework, the
definition of stateless persons in Article 1(1) of the 1954 Convention is likely part of the
Canadian law through the doctrine of adoption, jurisprudence and Canada’s obligations under the
1961 Convention. At the very least, policy documents also reflect the definition from Article
1(1). Therefore, it appears that Canada’s understanding of a “stateless person” conforms to the
definition in Article 1(1).
However, since Canada has no legislated definition of a “stateless person”, is not a State Party to
the 1954 Convention, and does not provide for a “stateless person status”, there continues to be a
lack of clarity on the extent of statelessness in Canada. By establishing a statelessness
determination procedure Canada could gain a better understanding of who is stateless in Canada,
as well as properly identify stateless persons and ensure stateless persons have a secure legal
status that grants them access to crucial protection rights under the 1954 Convention that they are
not otherwise afforded under Canadian law.33
32
33
11
IRPA, supra note 20 at ss. 34- 37.
Handbook on Stateless Persons, supra note 12 at para. 135 & 137.
11