Romo v MCI 2006 FC 543 contradictions between port of entry notes and PIF not fatal

The Court set aside a negative credibility finding based on alleged contradictions between the PIF and port of entry notes: The contradiction referred to by the IRB is a contradiction between the version of the facts that the applicants gave to the immigration officer at the port of entry and the one contained in their Per-sonal Information Form (PIF). At the port of entry, the applicants claimed that the death threats di-rected at the applicant were made by "strangers", while they specified in their PIFs that they feared the corrupted judicial police who were with the drug trafficker "Tata". 10 The applicants are correct in contending that the Federal Court has pointed out some of the pitfalls for tribunals using port of entry notes and PIFs, going overboard to identify contradictions and omissions in order to find a lack of credibility, when that was not always the case. The nature and significance of the contradiction or the omission as well as the time of the amendment must be taken into account as well as any explanation given by the claimant (Singh v. Canada (M.C.I.), [1996] F.C.J. No. 963 (F.C.T.D.) (QL) and Anthonipillai v. Canada (M.C.I.), [1995] F.C.J. No. 1774 (F.C.T.D.) (QL)). 11 Certainly, if an applicant cannot satisfactorily explain a contradiction regarding a central element of his story, it would not be patently unreasonable for the IRB to find that the applicants' story is not credible (Chen v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, 2005 FC 767). 12 The nature and significance of the applicants' contradiction or omission in the immigration officer's notes at the port of entry and their PIFs must therefore be assessed. 13 In my opinion, the contradiction identified by the IRB is not a major contradiction. It is true that the applicants did claim at the port of entry that death threats made against the applicant were made by "strangers", while they stated in their PIFs that they feared the corrupt judicial police who were with the drug trafficker "Tata". At the hearing, they testified initially that they feared the judi-cial police and "the Tata". The applicants also used the term "strangers" repeatedly in their testi-mony to describe the people that harassed them, who they now presume were people associated with "the Tata" and who they presume were judicial police. In my opinion, it is plausible that the applicants would have used the term "strangers" to describe the persons who harassed them because they did not know who those individuals were, even though they did learn some time later that those individuals were probably had ties with "the Tata" and that they were probably judicial police. 14 The IRB therefore noted that there was a contradiction between the notes of the immigration officer at the port of entry and the applicants' PIFs. However, I am not persuaded that it is a contra-diction of great significance. In my opinion, it is understandable that the applicants would have used the term "strangers" in a very general sense, a term that they also used in their testimony.