Immigration Marc Miller claims that Guilnave Lapaix is inadmissible to Canada on security grounds
A former Haitian soldier Canada’s immigration minister believes was involved in an attempted coup on the troubled Caribbean island has won another chance to stay here as a refugee.
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Immigration Minister Marc Miller claims that Guilnave Lapaix is inadmissible to Canada on security grounds, according to a recent Federal Court decision out of Moncton, N.B., arguing that he was involved in a coup almost 36 years ago.
“More specifically, he alleges that Mr. Lapaix was a member of an organization within the Haitian Armed Forces that there are reasonable grounds to believe engaged in or instigated the subversion by force of a government, namely the Corps des Léopards,” Justice Guy Régimbald wrote in his decision dated Jan. 20.
In April 1989, officers in the Haitian military attempted to stage a coup against then-president Prosper Avril, who was a member of former president Jean-Claude Duvalier’s inner circle, and who then became president after leading a coup himself against a 1988 transitional military government. The 1989 coup attempt was suppressed, Avril having been rescued from the rebels by members of his presidential guard, as he was taken to the airport to be deported, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1989.
Lapaix had voluntarily disclosed to Canadian authorities that he was a member of the Corps des Léopards. However, he denied any knowledge or involvement with the attempted coup, arguing instead that there was division within the battalion.
“The applicant’s line of argument concedes membership in the group, but warns against attributing the acts of certain soldiers to the Léopards as a whole,” Régimbald wrote.
Lapaix joined the Léopards two years before the attempted coup, at which point the unit was disbanded. He held the rank of private. Following that, he joined other military units before his career came to an end when the Haitian Armed Forces were demobilized in late 1994 and early 1995.
Lapaix claimed refugee status in Canada eight years ago, saying that he and his family were facing persecution and feared for their lives. On June 28, 2022, the Immigration Division concluded that Lapaix was inadmissible to Canada, dismissing the argument that “only some officers from the Léopards were involved in the coup d’état and not the entire battalion.”
That decision, Régimbald noted, meant that Lapaix could “not disassociate himself from the (coup) attempt by raising his disagreement with or non‑complicity in it” and his “conceded membership” in the group made him inadmissible to Canada. It ordered him deported.
In his bid to stay in Canada, Lapaix said that while the leadership of the Léopards attempted to carry out the coup, he remained behind at camp with other soldiers.
” He said he did not know anything about the attempted coup beforehand and only learned of it when some of the soldiers involved began to return to the camp,” Régimbald wrote. “(Lapaix) also alleges that he disagreed with the coup attempt to overthrow the government by force, since the few people who participated in the event showed that they were acting against the Léopards’ organizational mission, which was precisely the opposite, to prevent coup attempt.”
Lapaix asked the Federal Court to review that decision, arguing that it had not given thorough enough consideration to the central argument that there was an “internal division among the Léopards.”
“In his view, the principles of justification and transparency require a more thorough analysis of this issue, especially considering the severe repercussions he could encounter should he be deported from Canada to Haiti,” Régimbald wrote.
Haiti has been rocked in recent years by gang-related violence, with the death toll topping 5,000 people in 2024. Le Monde reported Wednesday that more than 700,000 people have been internally displaced by the violence, half of them children. The government has also been in a constant state of flux. Since the devastating 2010 earthquake, Haiti has had multiple prime ministers and presidents; one of them, president Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in 2021.
Régimbald sided with Lapaix, agreeing that Lapaix’s core argument of internal divisions within the Léopards, had not been considered adequately.
Régimbald sent the case back to the Immigration Division “for reconsideration.”
“A culture of justification requires that an administrative decision maker’s reasons meaningfully consider the central concerns raised by the parties,” Régimbald said.
“The decision under review failed to consider one such concern, which undermines this court’s confidence in the result obtained by the (Immigration Division).”
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