Contact information update – March 2022:
Please note that all program and admission-related inquiries are managed exclusively via email. To ensure your inquiry is addressed, please contact immigrationdiploma@queensu.ca or review our FAQ section.
Mac Scott is Carranza LLP's immigration consultant. Over his 20-year career working with immigration, Mac has accumulated several high-profile immigration cases in his arsenal and has been able to support organizing around migrant justice and poverty using his immigration legal skills.
Born and raised in Toronto, Mac's propensity to litigate and agitate was largely influenced by punk rock and his mother, who was a devoted feminist and instilled in him the tools and desire to make inroads for justice.
Mac became an activist at the age of 21, participating in anti-war campaigns and rallying around indigenous solidarity. His passion for justice paved the way for his professional devotion to the legal field when he began working with immigration as a volunteer for the Ontario Coalition against Poverty in 1997, a reverence that continues to this day. His professional curriculum includes "Legal worker of the year" at the National Lawyers Guild, which was the first bar association in the US to be racially integrated, along with being Carranza's most featured individual on Google.
Mac has appeared before all three divisions of the Immigration Refugee Board, and has assisted on cases before the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Ontario Superior Court, the Ontario Court of appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.
On his spare time, Mac enjoys spending time with his family, his collective house, happy hour, science fiction and bad suits, not necessarily in that order.
Education
- B.A. York University
- Paralegal Diploma Humber College
- Immigration Practitioner Seneca College
Affiliations
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty; No One Is Illegal; Law Union of Ontario; Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers; Refugee Lawyer Association.
Awards
Legal worker of the year, National Lawyers Guild
Noteworthy Cases
- Chaudhary v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2015 ONCA 700 (CanLII) - allowed Ontario Courts to look at the detention of an immigrant by way of Habeas Corpus
- Brown v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2017 FC 710 (CanLII) challenging the Canadian scheme for immigration detention
- Klein v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2015 FC 1004 (CanLII) challenging treatment of an indigent person applying for permanent residency based on humanitarian considerations
- Mvogo (2014 Canada) United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention opinion that Canada was in violation of international in detaining migrant Michael Mvogo for almost ten years.
- Canada (MPSEP) v Chhina 2091 SCC 29 The Supreme court judged that Habeas Corpus should be extended to any immigrant detainee. Mac assisted the intervenor the End Immigration Detention Network.