A man accused by police in India of helping smuggle a family of four through Canada just before they froze to death on the Manitoba border with the United States is living freely in a suburb outside Toronto, an investigation by CBC’s The Fifth Estate has found.
Indian police allege Fenil Patel was one of two men who helped transport Jagdish Patel (no relation) and his family to the border during a blinding snowstorm and –35 C temperatures two years ago.
The Patel family died of exposure on Jan. 19, 2022, while attempting to cross illegally into Minnesota, near Emerson, Man. The frozen bodies of 39-year-old Jagdish Patel, his 37-year-old wife, Vaishali, their 11-year -old daughter, Vihangi, and three-year-old son, Dharmik, were found just 12 metres from the U.S. border.
Fenil Patel is facing charges in the Indian state of Gujarat of culpable homicide and human smuggling for his alleged role in the death of the Patel family.
Watch the full documentary, “Search for the Smugglers,” from The Fifth Estate on YouTube or CBC-TV Friday at 9 p.m. ET. It will also stream on CBC Gem.
The charges were announced in January 2023. Indian media have reported that he has lived or fled to numerous places, among them the U.S., Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver.
But The Fifth Estate found him living a quiet life in a bedroom community outside Toronto.
Fenil Patel did not respond to a number of attempts to interview him. When a Fifth Estate crew questioned him in front of his home, he turned and walked inside without any response.
The Fifth Estate questions Fenil Patel
Steven D’Souza, host of The Fifth Estate, questions Fenil Patel over allegations from Indian police that he was one of the smugglers responsible for transporting the Patel family (no relation) to the Canada-U.S. border in January 2022.
From driving his children to school to weekend family outings, Fenil Patel’s life seems indistinguishable from that of his suburban neighbours. To protect his family’s privacy, CBC News is not identifying the specific area.
Nothing in the daily routine observed by The Fifth Estate hints at the serious charges he’s facing overseas.
Fenil Patel is alleged to have driven a number of migrants from Toronto to British Columbia and then to Manitoba. There, they met up with the Patel family and were driven to a remote area of the border near Emerson during a severe winter storm on the night of Jan. 18, 2022.
In an interview with The Fifth Estate, Chaitanya Mandlik, deputy commissioner of the Gujarat state police, Ahmedabad crime branch, confirmed the man found by the CBC investigative program is the same Fenil Patel they’re seeking.
“Fenil Patel is basically an agent in Canada,” he said. “He drove them to the border area.”
Mandlik said they had requested the RCMP’s help in locating Fenil Patel and arresting him in Canada so he could be returned to India to face the charges.
But it’s not clear if an official request has been made.
Chaitanya Mandlik, deputy commissioner of the Gujarat state police, Ahmedabad crime branch, says police there requested the RCMP’s help in locating Patel and arresting him in Canada so he could be returned to India to face charges. (CBC)
At the time, a Canadian Justice Department spokesperson would not confirm that a request had been made, writing via email that “requests are confidential state-to-state communications.”
In response to a followup email from The Fifth Estate last week, a Justice Department spokesperson wrote: “We cannot confirm or deny the existence of a potential request until made public by the courts. We can confirm that neither of these individuals currently has an extradition case pending before the courts.”
The RCMP would be responsible for making the arrest, but despite repeated queries from The Fifth Estate, the RCMP in Manitoba, which is leading the investigation into the family’s death, won’t say why an accused human smuggler, who Indian police say was one of the last people to see the Patel family alive, is living freely in Canada.
Indian police say they want Patel arrested and returned to India to face charges. The RCMP says its investigation into who dropped the Patel family at the border is ‘progressing.’ (CBC)
The RCMP has not made any public comment on their ongoing investigation into the Patel deaths since they credited The Fifth Estate a year ago for helping to generate new leads.
Deepak Ahluwalia, an immigration lawyer in California who grew up in Brampton, Ont., has represented migrants seeking asylum who have crossed into the U.S. illegally from the southern and northern borders. He says there’s a number of reasons why Fenil Patel may not be in custody.
“The RCMP may not have the actual minimum that they need to actually go ahead and charge this individual. The Indian authorities may still be collecting information and don’t have enough to actually put forward an extradition request.”
Why migrants choose the United States
Immigration lawyer Deepak Ahulwalia describes the lure of the American dream and why migrants choose risking their life to get to the U.S. rather than settling in Canada.
The Indian High Commission in Ottawa, which would play a role in any extradition request, did not respond to interview requests for this story.
In the death of the Patel family, Ahluwalia says the RCMP should act quickly.
“If there’s reason to believe and there is evidence that this individual was doing all of this in Canada, well, to be honest, then you don’t need India,” he said.
“You don’t need the government of India to do the extradition request. You try that person in Canada. The crime was committed in Canada by someone who was on Canadian soil.”
Jagdish Patel, left; son Dharmik; wife Vaishali and daughter Vihangi are shown in this family photo released to the media at the time of their deaths in January 2022. (Vaishali Patel/Facebook)
The RCMP did send a statement to The Fifth Estate, but would not comment specifically on Fenil Patel’s case, saying the investigation is “progressing.”
“We appreciate there’s much public interest in this investigation and that the public is looking for answers. The RCMP are following all relevant avenues of investigation and continue to work diligently on this case,” an RCMP spokesperson wrote in an emailed response to a list of detailed questions submitted by The Fifth Estate.
Fenil Patel’s alleged role
The story of how The Fifth Estate tracked down Fenil Patel involves late-night calls, dozens of documents from India and Canada and hours of surveillance to ultimately establish that the man living near Toronto was the same man wanted by Indian police.
Through its investigation, The Fifth Estate pieced together more information about the route the group of migrants took to reach the border and the role Indian police allege Fenil Patel played.
Indian police believe that after arriving at Toronto’s Pearson Airport via Dubai on Jan. 12, 2022, the Patel family was shuttled between hotels and a private residence in the Greater Toronto Area before they were transported to a motel in Manitoba sometime between Jan. 16 and 18, 2022. There, they joined other Indian migrants the smugglers were moving to the border.
Patel family arrives at Pearson airport
Exclusive video obtained by The Fifth Estate shows the Patel family arriving at Toronto’s Pearson airport on Jan. 12. A week later, their bodies would be found along the Canada-U.S. border in Manitoba.
One of the other migrants in Manitoba was Varshil Dhobi, an acquaintance of the Patels from their home state of Gujarat.
According to statements to Indian police from Dhobi and his father Pankaj, Jagdish Patel called Dhobi’s father in India to reassure him the Patel family was with Varshil and that they were crossing the border together.
According to Dhobi’s statement to Indian police, on the night of Jan. 18, 2022, Fenil Patel and another man, known only as Bitu Paji, drove the Patel family and seven other migrants to a remote stretch near the Manitoba border with Minnesota and North Dakota east of Emerson during a bitter storm.
The smugglers allegedly provided the migrants with cellphones loaded with a GPS app to guide them to a rendezvous point just over the border, where they were supposed to be picked up.
On the morning of Jan. 19, 2022, U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Florida resident Steve Shand and two migrants in a rented 15-seater passenger van on a snowy highway in Minnesota, just south of the Canadian border near Emerson.
Varshil Dhobi and four other migrants were caught by the Border Patrol walking down the same highway shortly after. Shand is awaiting trial in federal court in Minnesota for transporting illegal migrants.
Varshil Dhobi came to Canada on a student visa in December 2021. He alleges in a statement to Indian police that Fenil Patel helped move him through Canada to the U.S. border near Emerson, Man., where he crossed illegally in January 2022. (CBC)
“Basically, they just forced them to go to that site,” Mandlik said.
“Their plan was to cross from the Vancouver border but I think there was some issue at the Vancouver border. That’s why they drove them to Manitoba and then forced them to walk through that in that chilly temperature and that ice,” Mandlik told The Fifth Estate, further explaining police believe that “to save the money and to save time, they told them to cross from the Manitoba side.”
Tracking an accused human smuggler
Fenil Patel’s name first surfaced when Indian police announced arrests in January 2023, just a few days before the one-year anniversary of the deaths of the Patel family members.
Three men, Yogesh Patel, Bhavesh Patel, neither a relation to any others involved in this case, along with Dashrath Chaudhary, were arrested and charged in India with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted culpable homicide, conspiracy and human trafficking.
Three men were arrested in India in early 2023 and accused of smuggling the Patel family to the Canada-U.S. border. From left: Yogesh Patel, Bhavesh Patel and Dashrath Chaudhary. (CBC News)
Indian police allege Fenil Patel and Bitu Paji ran the Canadian arm of the smuggling network, co-ordinating and controlling the final days of the journey by the Patels to the border.
While the announcement of the Indian arrests initially made headlines in Canada, Indian police did not publicly release any photos of Fenil Patel or identifying information.
Sources tell The Fifth Estate that at the time, Gujarat state investigators gave the RCMP detailed information on Fenil Patel, including his passport information.
The message from Indian police to the RCMP, according to a source familiar with the meetings: “Fenil is in Canada, do something.”
Piecing the clues together
In the spring of 2023, The Fifth Estate obtained, through sources, an Indian police report detailing the charges against Fenil Patel, including part of migrant Varshil Dhobi’s witness account.
The police report described the accused human smugglers as men driven by greed who knew the risks of sending migrants into dangerous weather without adequate clothing, but chose to anyway. Dhobi said he paid smugglers the equivalent of $100,000 for the journey.
A photo posted to Facebook in 2019 shows three-year-old Dharmik Patel; his sister, Vihangi Patel, 11; and their parents, Jagdish Patel and Vaishali Patel. (Vaishali Patel/Facebook)
The document also contained addresses in India and phone numbers both in India and in North America that were possibly connected to Fenil Patel. One number had a Toronto-based 647 area code.
When The Fifth Estate called that number, the person who answered denied any knowledge of the Patel family case.
“Maybe somebody give you the wrong information, maybe because I don’t know anybody,” said the person who claimed they didn’t know the Patel family or about any possible charges.
A few months later, The Fifth Estate was able to obtain more details on Fenil Patel, including photos as well as his full legal name and date of birth.
Photos obtained by The Fifth Estate show Fenil Patel, the man Indian police have charged with culpable homicide, human trafficking and conspiracy in connection with death of Patel family. (CBC)
Using open source property and business records, The Fifth Estate was able to locate a home outside Toronto connected to Fenil Patel.
After days of surveillance, journalists with The Fifth Estate were able to connect Fenil Patel to the photos and information gathered.
Smuggler a flight risk
Ahluwalia says what happened to the Patel family did not stop the flow of migrants from India.
In the case of the Patel family’s death, Ahluwalia said Varshil Dhobi’s witness statement is enough evidence for the RCMP to act.
“I believe the biggest smoking gun in this investigation is the fact that Fenil was placed at the border, alongside with the Patel family, before they made that trek to the United States.”
He said he’s concerned about what may happen if the RCMP wait too long.
“Unless there’s an arrest warrant issued for this individual, there’s nothing that stops him from leaving Canada. He could end up wherever and then we’ll really be at a loss for the investigation.”
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will kick off a three-day cabinet retreat in Halifax on Sunday, where the themes are fairness and Canada-U.S. relations, but the feelings are all about déjà vu.
A year ago in Charlottetown the cabinet hoped its annual post-summer retreat and the massive cabinet shuffle that preceded it would give new life to the Liberal government.
Spoiler alert: They did not.
Trudeau and his team are so far behind the Conservatives in the polls that if they were on a running track they’d have been lapped by now, and with the next election at most a year away, the runway to recover is growing shorter by the day.
Interest rates have started to come down. Inflation is back in a normal range. Wage growth has been strong.
But housing costs and availability remain extremely challenging, food prices are still high and the Liberals have been unable to counter messaging from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre that life has become more expensive and unsafe under Trudeau’s watch.
In June, the Liberals lost a long-held Toronto seat to the Conservatives, further eroding what was left of the fragile confidence the party had that they could stage a miraculous comeback with Trudeau still at the helm.
The cabinet met briefly online over the summer to sign off on some appointments, but the working dinner that kicks off the retreat Sunday will mark the first in-person meeting since that byelection.
Marci Surkes, the chief strategy officer at the Compass Rose government relations firm and a former senior Liberal staffer, said most cabinet retreats are 90 per cent focused on the business of government and 10 per cent on politics and caucus management. This time, she said, there may be more focus on the latter, especially in the more informal conversations on the sidelines.
“I think what’s on the agenda at this retreat is probably even less important than simply having it be a moment to convene,” she said.
This government “desperately needs” a reset, she said. But that may be as much about being better able to respond to the constant changes happening in the world and in Canada, rather than trying to game out every step of the next six to 12 months before the vote.
“I think the reality for this retreat is that in some respects it’s less about the agenda and the programming as it is being able to have some real, frank conversations about where they all stand and whether they have the energy, the muster, the ideas and the drive to keep going,” said Surkes.
The cabinet shuffle in July 2023 saw seven ministers dropped completely and seven new faces added, while 22 of the remaining 30 ministers moved into different roles. Only minor changes have been made since, and Trudeau has thus far chosen not to shuffle the cabinet again before this fall.
Surkes noted that some of the fallout from that 2023 shuffle is still being felt.
Both the Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection, which the Liberals lost in June, and an upcoming byelection in Montreal’s Lasalle—Emard riding, came after former ministers who lost their portfolios — Carolyn Bennett and David Lametti — chose to exit politics altogether.
Bennett’s seat in Toronto was lost to the Conservatives after being a Liberal stronghold for nearly 30 years, and Lametti’s is in danger of being taken by the NDP when that vote happens Sept. 16, something Surkes said would be a “devastating blow.”
While the agenda may not be as interesting as the politics at this retreat, the ministers do have a set itinerary for their discussions. The retreat includes a full-day of meetings Monday on housing, fairness and affordability, and the middle class.
Tuesday is devoted to Canada-U.S. relations. Trudeau launched a new Team Canada mission in the U.S. earlier this year to push Canada’s interests ahead of the presidential election.
The strategy, which Surkes jokingly called the “maple charm offensive,” is focused on shoring up Canada’s defences in case Donald Trump is voted back into the White House in November, but there are still irritants in the relationship even if Kamala Harris takes office.
Harris’s meteoric rise in the U.S. may be one of the things that gives some new energy to the Liberals. Her Democratic party and the Liberals overlap on many policy fronts, on everything from school lunches and women’s reproductive rights to climate change and clean energy.
What is not lost on many Liberals is that President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race brought a sudden surge of energy and momentum for the Democrats.
Speculation about Trudeau’s future has been a favourite game in Canadian political circles for years, though he has not suggested that he is even considering leaving. Surkes said she doesn’t think what happened for the Democrats will compel Trudeau to follow Biden’s lead.
“I expect to see lots of borrowing of technique, borrowing of language, but a wholesale shift in terms of the person at the front of the stage and on the podium? I don’t know that that is in store for the Liberals in the coming weeks,” she said. “But there’s no question in my mind that much of what we’re seeing down there is going to find its way into what happens here in the next six months in terms of agenda.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 24, 2024.
OTTAWA – A law professor is urging the Supreme Court of Canada to weigh the constitutionality of “revolutionary and unprecedented legislation” that limits members of a prominent spy watchdog from using their parliamentary immunity to speak out.
In an application to the top court, Lakehead University Prof. Ryan Alford says the case raises issues of public importance about the protections afforded to MPs and senators exercising their freedom of speech and debate.
Federal lawyers say in an opposing submission there’s no need for the Supreme Court to wade into the matter.
The court is expected to rule in coming weeks whether it will hear the case.
The outcome could have serious implications for the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, known as NSICOP.
The committee grabbed the spotlight in June upon releasing a public version of a classified report that said some parliamentarians were “semi-witting or witting” participants in the efforts of foreign states to meddle in Canadian politics.
The stark findings prompted a flurry of concern that members knowingly involved in interference might still be active in politics.
The committee, composed of MPs and senators from various parties, has access to highly classified information — including many sensitive details that were stripped from the foreign interference report before its public release.
Ordinarily, MPs and senators can claim parliamentary immunity from prosecution for statements made in Parliament.
However, members of NSICOP could face up to 14 years in prison for the improper disclosure of information protected under the legislation underpinning the committee and related statutes.
Alford successfully argued in Ontario Superior Court that Parliament could not restrict parliamentary privilege without a constitutional amendment.
However, in April the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned the decision.
A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal said Parliament can limit the right to freedom of speech and debate in the manner laid out in the legislation governing the committee, without a constitutional change.
In his application seeking a hearing at the Supreme Court, Alford says that since the establishment of responsible government in the United Kingdom, no government in any Westminster system has contemplated sending a member of Parliament to jail for what was said in debate in the legislature.
“This appeal will decide whether this revolutionary and unprecedented legislation, which chills speech in the course of legislative activity, is constitutional.”
In an interview, Alford said the case is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to “give some clarity as to what people need to think about when they pass legislation of this nature.”
In their submission to the Supreme Court, federal lawyers say the Constitution Act of 1867 provides Parliament with the express legislative power to define the privileges of the House of Commons, the Senate and their members.
The relevant section of the legislation governing the committee “is a clear example of Parliament’s intention to exclude reliance on parliamentary privilege in the circumstances identified in the provision,” the federal submission says.
“It is for Parliament, not the courts, to determine the occasion and manner of the exercise of a privilege, such as the freedom of speech and debate.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 24, 2024.
