Federal officials should intervene to halt the imminent deportation of climate activist Zain Haq from Canada, federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said on Monday.
“It’s globally precedent-setting,” May told The Narwhal. “No climate activist has been deported for so-called crimes that amount to non-violent civil disobedience in defence of the climate.”
Haq, a 24-year-old Pakistani national, has been arrested about a dozen times in British Columbia since 2020 for participating in non-violent acts of civil disobedience, including protesting fossil fuel subsidies and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
The Canada Border Services Agency revoked Haq’s student permit in 2022, making him inadmissible to Canada, alleging he wasn’t making progress on his degree at Simon Fraser University. (Haq has said the university supported him and that he was on track to complete his studies.) The border agency’s initial intervention happened before Haq pleaded guilty in 2023 to five counts of mischief, criminal convictions that Haq said were later included as part of the deportation order.
A spokesperson with the Canada Border Services Agency told The Narwhal the agency can’t comment on Haq’s case, citing privacy reasons. The spokesperson noted foreign nationals must comply with study permit conditions, adding that “being engaged in lawful protest activities would not, in and of itself, render an individual inadmissible to Canada.”
Haq was set to be deported on April 22, 2024 — on Earth Day — when a federal judge denied his deportation appeal. Following community pressure, and more than 2,600 signatures on a petition urging the government to let Haq stay in the country, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller stepped in to cancel Haq’s deportation.
May urged the minister to again intervene before Haq is forced to leave the country on Jan. 25. “Zain Haq is a wonderful human being and I would trust him with my life,” May said, noting her own arrest for a similar protest against the Trans Mountain pipeline in 2018.
May joined Haq, his lawyer and his wife Sophia Papp for a press conference in Vancouver on Monday, at which they also called on Miller and Public Safety Minister David McGuinty to act before it’s too late.
“Let’s stand up for justice, for human rights, for democracy, and for climate justice,” May said at the press conference.
Haq and Papp, a Canadian citizen, are awaiting a decision by the immigration department on a May 2023 spousal application they made for Haq’s permanent residency. Haq said he has a ticket booked for Jan. 25, from Toronto to Karachi, Pakistan, but remains hopeful he won’t have to use it if Miller intervenes again.
“The thing that the government has to decide on is that if my deportation goes through, the kind of message that sends to my generation,” Haq told The Narwhal. He said it would signal “a lack of realization that the government can be convinced to take action on climate change.”
Neither Miller’s office nor the immigration department responded to questions by publication time.
Who is Haq, why is he being deported and how did he get where he is today? Read on.
Who is Zain Haq, and why is he being deported?
Haq, a Pakistani national and former university student, co-founded Save Old Growth, a campaign calling for B.C. to end old-growth forest logging. He has been arrested for actions including blocking a road in 2021 to the Vancouver International Airport, with the environmental group Extinction Rebellion, to protest government fossil fuel subsidies. He pleaded guilty to five counts of mischief, served a seven-day jail sentence and was under house arrest for 30 days in 2023. (Papp told The Narwhal she also was arrested for similar actions, but the stakes weren’t as high for her: “I got off with a slap on the wrist and paying a fine, and no criminal record.”)
Haq also went on a hunger strike in 2021 to support protests against old-growth forest logging in the Fairy Creek watershed on southwest Vancouver Island, becoming part of the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. He also made headlines when he went on another hunger strike to support ultimately successful efforts to persuade Simon Fraser University to divest from fossil fuels.
Haq said his actions are no different than those of Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who was arrested in 2001 and charged with mischief for scaling Toronto’s CN Tower to raise awareness about climate change.
“I mean, there’s a sitting cabinet minister, the minister of environment, who was charged and jailed for the same criminal offenses as I have been,” Haq said.
Speaking to The Narwhal, May said Canada could be the first country to deport an individual for climate activism — which would also spell bad news for the environment. “So far Canada’s record, especially in this province of British Columbia, is not good,” she said.
“Holding on to Zain Haq … is an essential message to young people, climate activists and land defenders everywhere.”
Haq’s status in Canada has been in limbo
Haq and Papp married in the spring of 2023, and applied for a spousal sponsorship in May 2023. If the application is successful, Haq will become a permanent resident — but he needs to be in Canada to see it through.
When Miller stopped Haq’s deportation last year, he gave Haq a temporary resident permit. Haq has applied to extend the permit, which expired last October, so he can complete the spousal application process. In early January, the federal immigration department interviewed Haq and Papp about their spousal application, giving Haq hope. But then the immigration department couldn’t locate his temporary resident permit, and the border agency told him it would proceed with the initial deportation order.
If Haq is deported, his application for permanent residency under spousal sponsorship will be cancelled — meaning he will have to apply from Pakistan, a process he says could take three to five years.
Randall Cohn, Haq’s lawyer, told The Narwhal he’s requested a deferral multiple times — “just asking for time to figure out what’s going on with the missing application” — which the border agency denied.
“I think that if it weren’t for the political context, this is exactly the sort of circumstance where [Canada Border Services Agency] would not bother to act,” Cohn said.
Cohn said there’s a strong precedent for foreign nationals who become inadmissible to Canada but who are living in the country with their spouses to request permanent residency under humanitarian considerations — which is what Haq has done.
Both Haq’s sentencing judge and a Canadian Border Services Agency officer said they don’t have any concerns that Haq poses a risk to public safety, Cohn said. “The idea that we have to get the minister, for the second time, to pay attention to this one person and give an order, especially when obviously he’s got other things to deal with, you know is, I think, unfortunate.”
Speaking to the press on Monday, May called Haq’s situation “a miscarriage of justice that looks to me like a pile of bureaucratic errors that allowed a deportation order to be revived at all.”
What’s next for Zain Haq?
Haq said he understands the debate about acceptable actions in the context of the climate crisis — but ultimately believes his activism was in line with Canadian values to protect the natural world. Pointing to the raging wildfires in Los Angeles and southern California, he said, “We can all agree that we are in a state of emergency.”
“And I think if we were deporting climate activists, despite their establishment and assembly in Canada, I think the message we’re sending is that it doesn’t matter how bad things get, we’re going to do what we’re going to do, and we don’t care how the world changes,” he said.
May said she’s confident Miller and McGuinty will step in and stop Haq’s deportation again.
“I know and respect David McGuinty and Marc Miller and I love them,” May said at the press conference. “They are good men of integrity.”
“For God’s sake, Marc and David, stop this deportation,” she said. “I beg you.”
