{"id":69245,"date":"2025-07-17T06:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T06:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/69245\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T06:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T06:54:10","slug":"carney-backs-public-safety-minister-over-letters-supporting-sri-lankans-immigration-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/69245\/","title":{"rendered":"Carney backs Public Safety Minister over letters supporting Sri Lankan\u2019s immigration case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Before he entered cabinet, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree supported an immigration application from a Sri Lankan whom federal officials had barred from entering the country.PATRICK DOYLE\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> has expressed confidence in Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree after a report that, before he became a minister, he supported an immigration application from a Sri Lankan whom federal officials had barred from entering Canada.<\/p>\n

While he was parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice, Mr. Anandasangaree wrote to the Canada Border Services Agency supporting an application to overturn a decision not to let Senthuran Selvakumaran, a constituent\u2019s husband, into the country. <\/p>\n

Canadian immigration officials had denied Mr. Selvakumaran entry after determining that he may have been affiliated with the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the Tamil Tigers. <\/p>\n

Mr. Anandasangaree asked the CBSA if it would review its decision to advise the public safety minister not to grant Mr. Selvakumaran permanent residence in Canada to enable him to join his wife and child who live in his riding. The Liberal MP wrote two letters in support of his case in 2016, as well as in 2023, when he was parliamentary secretary.<\/p>\n

Mr. Selvakumaran had previously told British immigration authorities that he had been involved with the Tamil Tigers, a proscribed terrorist organization in Britain and Canada, a claim he denied when he applied to come to Canada to join his wife in Toronto. <\/p>\n

His Canadian lawyer said that he had been advised by a British lawyer to falsely say that he had been linked to the militant group while making an asylum claim there. British authorities denied his asylum claim and he had to leave the country. <\/p>\n

In the July, 2023, letter to the CBSA, Mr. Anandasangaree said his constituent Nilushie had married Mr. Selvakumaran in 2005 but they had spent \u201cmost of their nearly 18 years of marriage separated from each other, relentlessly striving to be reunited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSenthuran\u2019s claims of affiliation to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was erroneously made when he sought asylum in the United Kingdom in 1998 to escape the growing conflicts in Sri Lanka. He was wrongfully counseled by his legal representative to lie,\u201d Mr. Anandasangaree\u2019s letter said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, his claims were found lacking credibility, and the UK Refugee Tribunal had established that Senthuran did not have any affiliations to the LTTE. This is consistent with Senthuran\u2019s position all along.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Mr. Anandasangaree said his office in Scarborough-Guildwood-Rouge Park \u201chandles hundreds of immigration matters annually, over 9,000 since I was elected in 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the nature of representing a diverse riding in the country\u2019s largest city. That a constituent, a Canadian citizen, with a Canadian child, would want to reunite her family in Canada is not unusual,\u201d he said. \u201cMPs from all parties provide letters of support for constituents as a routine matter, including in Ministerial Review cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Carney, asked at a press conference Wednesday about Mr. Anandasangaree\u2019s intervention in the immigration case, said he \u201cis being transparent about the details of that situation, and he has my confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Anandasangaree\u2019s intervention in the immigration case was first reported by Global News. <\/p>\n

Minister steering federal border bill consults Ethics Commissioner to rule out conflict of interest<\/a><\/p>\n

Toronto immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman, a member of Mr. Selvakumaran\u2019s legal team, said \u201cnumerous MPs\u201d write letters on behalf of their constituents on immigration cases and there was \u201cnothing unusual\u201d about Mr. Anandasangaree doing so. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he did, on the contrary, was trying to help a constituent who felt herself in a very difficult situation,\u201d Mr. Waldman said.<\/p>\n

After Mr. Selvakumaran was denied entry by the Immigration Department, his lawyers applied for the public safety minister at the time to review the decision, asking for him to be allowed to join his wife here through \u201cministerial relief.\u201d The minister upheld the decision to deny him entry to Canada. <\/p>\n

Mr. Selvakumaran then launched a court challenge of that decision but his case was dismissed in the Federal Court in a judgment earlier this month. <\/p>\n

Mr. Anandasangaree, who was born in Sri Lanka, was named Public Safety Minister in May by Mr. Carney, and the CBSA now reports to him. <\/p>\n

He has recused himself from dealing with matters relating to Sri Lanka, including about the Tamil Tigers, which fought in a protracted civil war against Sri Lankan government forces in a bid to create an independent state. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a Tamil Canadian, active for decades in my community, I have long faced innuendo and whisper campaigns that question my allegiance to Canada. Those are scurrilous and wrong. I am a proud Canadian and proud of my Tamil heritage. I denounce terrorism in all its forms,\u201d Mr. Anandasangaree said in an e-mail. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was appointed Minister of Public Safety, I decided one way to deal with these allegations was to recuse myself from any decisions related to the listing process under the Anti-Terrorism Act for the Tamil Tigers, or the World Tamil Organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that since becoming a minister he has not sent a letter seeking ministerial relief on an immigration matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was appointed minister in July 2023, I instructed my constituency staff to no longer provide such letters. The letters in question here date from before I entered cabinet,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Before he entered cabinet, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree supported an immigration application…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":69246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50,4741,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-69245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-pleasemod","11":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114867265106908513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}