Mentally ill Edmonton man in deportation limbo could be sent to Montreal
Andrea Huncar | CBC News | Posted: November 4, 2016 11:00 AM | Last Updated: November 4, 2016
Alberta may not have suitable facilities to stabilize man before expulsion to Somalia
A mentally ill deportee stuck in an Edmonton jail may be sent to Quebec to get health services not available in Alberta.
But advocates for Abdikarim Gelle worry the plan being considered by authorities to send him to a Montreal facility will bring even more suffering on top of the months he's spent at the Edmonton Remand Centre.
"The question is why aren't they able to provide this service in Alberta," asked Ufuoma Odebala-Fregene, an immigration consultant with Black Lives Matter Edmonton who listened in at Gelle's latest detention review Monday.
"He needs his family," she added. "That's part of his healing."
Too dangerous to be released
Gelle, who fled-war-torn Somalia with his family as a child, has spent half his life and nearly his entire Canadian existence in and out of jail.
Now 31, he began showing signs of mental illness as a boy, according to his mother, who also lives in Edmonton.
He has been convicted of dozens of crimes but has remained in the remand centre after serving sentences because he is considered too dangerous to be released.
Authorities hope to deport him but the Somali government has said it won't accept mentally ill people being returned to that country.
At Monday's review, Sebastian Thibodeau, the hearings officer lawyer representing the government, said the goal is to stabilize Gelle so he can still be deported.
Officials and Gelle's lawyer repeated their intention to find a secure facility that could better address his mental health problems, which include schizoaffective disorder and possible brain damage.
The preference is to transfer Gelle to another secure facility in Alberta but it's not certain a suitable one for his condition exists, Thibodeau said.
But Gelle's lawyer, Ruth Williams, told officials she has found no local alternative to address the severity of Gelle's condition, which requires long-term treatment so he can be stabilized.
As a result, Canadian Border Services Agency officials say Gelle might have to be sent to Louis-Philippe Pinel Institute, a psychiatric facility in Montreal.
Montreal move would be tough on mother
Habiba Abdulle, an advocate with the Alberta Somali Community Centre, worries about the impact a move to Montreal would have on Gelle's mother, Asili, who has indicated she would follow her son.
"She's going to feel so lost again," said Abdulle, noting Asili, a single mother who speaks little English, has spent years watching her son going into and out of jail and being admitted to psychiatric hospitals.
Abdulle said Asili now has the support of local community members, as well as those who can help her navigate the health and justice system, which she would no longer have in Montreal.
"That's going to be taken away from her," said Abdulle. "It's going to be devastating."
Trent Cook, the adjudicator with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada who presided over Monday's detention review, asked whether Somalia would take Gelle back once he was stabilized.
But Thibodeau could not answer that question definitively.
"I think that's something that we need to know," said Cook, advising the government to look into it.