A refugee who pleaded guilty to trafficking large amounts of methamphetamine and fentanyl and committing sexual assault has convinced an Alberta judge to give him more time to appeal his convictions by arguing he was misled into believing he would not get deported for serious criminality.
Mahir Yahya Sharif, who has served three years for his drug and sex crimes, is facing deportation to Somalia after the Department of Immigration declared him a danger to Canada.
Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Kevin Feth has granted Sharif more time, ruling that to deny him the chance to appeal “means he will suffer the ‘unduly punitive effect’ of removal from Canada based on guilty pleas that would not have been entered had he been properly informed, and deportation to a dangerous country he does not know and that does not want him.”
Sharif was a permanent resident at the time of his convictions in 2022, having been admitted into Canada through the refugee settlement program in 2019 at the age of 19.
“He and his family were declared Convention refugees by the United Nations in 2013 based on race-based attacks in Somalia, where his parents were born,” Feth noted in a July 27 decision out of Calgary. At the time, Sharif and his family were living in a refugee camp in Egypt.
Sharif was born in Saudi Arabia in 1999, after his parents fled there from Somalia. His first language is Arabic. He does not speak Somali.
He has a history of schizophrenia, aggravated by substance use that apparently started after coming to Canada, the judge said in his decision.
“Immigration proceedings leading to deportation were initiated against the applicant in 2024 because of his convictions, and he has since been found inadmissible to remain in Canada on grounds of serious criminality.”
After Sharif breached his parole conditions, he was “returned to custody in late 2024 and ultimately placed in the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatchewan,” said Feth’s decision.
“In early 2025, he was visited by an immigration officer twice and provided with voluminous immigration documents, all in English, but ‘did not understand what the immigration proceedings were.’ He was told to respond by April 2025,” Feth said.
In May 2025, a delegate of Immigration Minister Lena Diab determined Sharif was inadmissible in Canada. “Mr. Sharif’s criminal activities were both serious and dangerous to the public, in addition to the lack of evidence of rehabilitation and the difficulty following rules, I have reasonable ground to believe that Mr. Sharif represents a present and future danger to the Canadian public, whose presence in Canada poses an unacceptable risk,” said the delegate in a report.
The delegate “found a ‘less than reasonable chance’ that the applicant would be at risk if returned to Somalia, and that any humanitarian and compassionate considerations for his continued residency in Canada were outweighed by the danger he posed to the public.”
Sharif lost his residency and was transferred to Ontario into the custody of Canada Border Services to await deportation on June 30, 2025. He was told that Somalia had informed Canadian officials that he would not be accepted into the country, so he was to be deported to Nairobi, Kenya, where he would be left to make his own way to Somalia, Feth said.
This past May, the Federal Court dismissed Sharif’s application for a judicial review of the ministerial delegate’s report that led to his removal order.
“At the same time, the applicant filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Committee which requested that Canada suspend his removal pending consideration of the complaint.”
When Diab refused, Sharif applied for a judicial review of her decision, but a judge dismissed his application.
Last month, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed Sharif’s appeal of that decision.
Meanwhile Sharif applied to the Alberta Court of Appeal asking for more time to appeal his convictions.
“The primary argument is that at time of his guilty pleas, the applicant did not understand the collateral consequences of those pleas, including that his convictions and sentence would make him inadmissible in Canada and lead to his deportation with no ability to appeal,” said Feth.
Sharif said his lawyer had told him that if he didn’t plead guilty and tried to defend himself, he would spend more time behind bars.
“My lawyer also told me that I likely would not be deported after pleading guilty because the charges were not serious.”
“When I pled guilty to the charges, I did not know that a conviction for sexual assault or a sentence of more than six months would make me inadmissible in Canada and subject to deportation. I also did not know that if I was ordered removed by immigration officials, I would not be able to appeal that decision because I was a permanent resident and not a citizen.”
Sharif argued he wouldn’t have pleaded guilty if he knew that could lead to deportation. “At the time I pled guilty, I was terrified of being sent to Somalia. I believed I would be imprisoned in Somalia because I am unable to speak Somali and have no connections in that country. I believed I would be killed in Somalia due to my clan. I still believe this is the case.”
Feth heard that Sharif’s convictions involved serious offences, including trafficking large amounts of methamphetamine and fentanyl to undercover police officers.
“The sexual assault involved digital penetration of the complainant’s vagina for a period of 10 minutes, while both the applicant and the complainant were patients in a psychiatric care facility,” Feth said in his ruling.
Sharif also pleaded guilty at the same time to taxi fraud, theft under $5,000 and mischief.
The Immigration Department delegate who determined he posed a danger didn’t address “the seriousness of Mr. Sharif’s mental health condition and how those with mental health issues are treated in Somalia,” Feth said.
The delegate also didn’t explore “whether Somalia would allow his re-entry as (Canada Border Services Agency) internal notes indicate that Somalia does not allow for the return of anyone with a diagnosed mental health issue.”
Diab’s delegate failed to touch on “Somalia’s corresponding refusal to issue him travel documents … the CBSA’s decision not to accompany him to Somalia, contrary to CBSA policy, and … evidence about Al-Shabaab posing a significant and growing security risk in Mogadishu contrary to the author’s conclusion that the group has not had a presence in Mogadishu in over a decade and poses minimal risk.”
The delegate also didn’t consider that Sharif failed to respond to the Danger Opinion because he “was involuntarily held in a mental health institution, had no legal counsel, and did not speak English well enough to respond.”
Even though it dismissed his appeal, “the Ontario Court of Appeal remained concerned about the applicant’s deportation,” said Feth, who noted Sharif plans to apply for leave to appeal the outcome of that case to the Supreme Court of Canada.
“The decision to remove Mr. Sharif given his mental health condition and concomitant needs is harsh,” Feth said.
“There is no dispute that Mr. Sharif was an involuntary patient in a mental hospital at the time he committed the index (sexual assault) offence. No evidence was proffered as to the circumstances surrounding his decision to plead guilty. Moreover, he is seriously ill and will require significant long-term care.”
Somalia has refused to issue him travel documents, Feth said.
“The CBSA will not accompany him to Somalia, contrary to CBSA policy, and there is some evidence that the Al-Shabaab militia has considered that people deported from Western countries may be spies and sometimes execute them based on this suspicion. His removal may well result in serious risks to his safety,” said the judge.
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