B.C.-based climate activist deported to Pakistan after protest charges

British Columbia-based environmental activist Zain Haq was aboard a plane in Toronto on Sunday afternoon, awaiting a nearly 14-hour flight to Pakistan, where he said he was looking forward to seeing his family and eating the food.

But Haq was not on the plane by choice. He was being deported following the expiry of a temporary residency permit and a failed bid by his Canadian wife to sponsor him to stay. The couple had been living together in Vancouver.

Still, Haq said he was “feeling at peace” with his fate.

“I’m looking forward to whatever the next years are (going to) look like,” he said, as other passengers boarded the flight to Karachi on Sunday.

Haq and his wife, Sophia Papp, had been hoping for a last-minute intervention by either the federal public safety minister or the immigration minister to stop his deportation, but a reprieve didn’t come.

Haq initially came to Canada on a student visa from Pakistan. He co-founded the activist group Save Old Growth and pleaded guilty to mischief charges in 2023 over his role in environmental protests that blocked Metro Vancouver roadways.

He was granted a temporary resident permit last spring, but it expired in October, and Haq’s challenge of his deportation in federal court was unsuccessful.

Public Safety Minister David McGuinty or Immigration Minister Marc Miller could have intervened to stop the deportation, but neither of them stepped in before Haq’s flight from Toronto to Karachi took off on Sunday.

Haq said his wife is planning to travel to Pakistan in the near future to join him.

The couple wants to return to Canada someday, and he said they intend to file an out-of-country spousal sponsorship application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, though the process can take years to get through.

Haq said he has no ill will toward those involved in the decision to deport him, but he believes it was “unethical” to have him removed from the country.

A spokeswoman for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said the department could not comment on specific cases due to privacy legislation.

Papp said she had been emotionally “oscillating” between desperation and hope they would get a call allowing her husband to stay, a “miracle” that never materialized.

“I’m kind of all over the place,” Papp said Sunday.

She said the Canadian government could still reverse the deportation order even after Haq is back in Pakistan, but she’s meeting with the couple’s lawyer on Monday and plans on trying to get her husband back “as quick as possible.”

“There was a lot of shady stuff that happened and things that were not very transparent,” she said of the deportation process.

Papp said she plans to apply for a visa to travel to Pakistan to join her husband, after the couple parted ways Saturday night in Vancouver as Haq followed an order to report to the Canada Border Services Agency.

Papp said she’s been grateful for the “endless” support they’ve received from friends and family, but she is disappointed the ministers didn’t intervene.

“I feel really let down by my home in Canada,” she said. “I also know that this is not necessarily personal. I do believe that both ministers are good people.”

Papp said her husband is “embedded in Canadian society,” and he was in Canada for the right reasons, with his commitment to a “progressive and constructive” future in the country.

Allowing Haq to live in Canada should not be a “huge ask,” she said.

“It just seemed really wrong to deport someone like that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press