Second-class dads: The fathers who are fighting to be in their children's lives

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Mike Smith played basketball at university, went to nationals a few times, and today is a successful executive in Halifax. But his charmed life was upended when his marriage collapsed and his access to his three children evaporated.
Seven years ago, he and his wife of nearly two decades had an intense verbal fight. His wife left the house, called the police and reported Smith had a mental health disorder. According to his telling, when they arrived he was given an hour to vacate the premises or face arrest. When he initially challenged the demand, one of the officers told him, 'She wants to come home with the children.'
'I said, 'I'm here, I'm the dad. She can drop the children off here. Her mother lives up the street. She can go stay with her mother.''
The cops didn't budge. Smith left his house that day, fearful of being arrested, and faced a very different life the next.
It is a nightmare he has yet to wake up from.
National Post has removed his real name and identifying details from this story for legal and privacy reasons.
A tense custody battle has left Smith with a fraction of time in the lives of his children while paying to support them. Last year, he made appointments with doctors to explore his eligibility for medical assistance in dying (MAID), a last-ditch attempt to ease the pain and grief he feels from the alienation of his kids.
'My story is one of thousands,' said Smith, who has since backed off his pursuit of MAID. 'What I've been able to do is try to build awareness and move things forward using that pain, that suffering, as motivation to keep working.'
Dads have gotten a bad rap. They are caricatured on sitcoms as boys role-playing as men — Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin — or bumbling idiots in commercials who don't know how to cook, do laundry or dress the kids.
Such views of fatherhood are entrenched in our loftiest institutions. The Supreme Court of Canada has enshrined a mother's 'constitutional right to the custody of their children,' researcher Grant Brown wrote in the National Post over a decade ago. 'Fathers have no rights at all — only obligations.' The Ontario government publishes mugshots of men who allegedly skirt child support payments. No women are listed.
The 'best interest of the child' remains the guiding principle of Canadian family law. Modern research clearly shows dads play a crucial role in the development of healthy children. Keeping fathers — and mothers — in the lives of their kids should be the optimal outcome in custody proceedings, but dads are still too frequently being cut out of their children's lives.
Divorced dads can face protracted and costly legal battles to win back access, alongside the devastation of family dissolution and alienation from their children. But a new generation of men are building a grassroots fatherhood movement challenging antiquated stereotypes of masculinity and what they say is an unfair system for fathers.
'It was just assumed that divorced fathers were uninterested, kind of happy to be footloose and fancy free from responsibility after separation,' said Edward Kruk, a professor of social work at the University of British Columbia, describing his work in the 1980s with single mothers in Toronto.
His assumptions changed following a cross-national study he conducted on the impact of divorce on non-custodial fathers.
'To my absolute surprise, these fathers didn't at all fit the stereotype,' he said of his 1989 PhD thesis studying dads in the U.K. and Canada. 'I actually found that a lot of fathers were experiencing a grief reaction containing all the major elements of bereavement. The outcomes for fathers were really quite devastating in some cases.'
Kruk's academic career coincided with a rise in men taking a more active role in family life. In 1976, stay-at-home fathers accounted for approximately one in 70 of all Canadian families with a stay-at-home parent. By 2015, according to Statistics Canada, the proportion had risen to about one in 10. A 2022 Pew Research Centre study of American dads found they overwhelmingly viewed being a parent as an important aspect of their personal identity.
Canadian family institutions, however, have not caught up with the rapidly changing social landscape.
In 2008, Kruk published a review of Canadian family law, exploring the gendered outcomes of contested custody cases. He found mothers were awarded sole custody 77 per cent of the time, while fathers received such an arrangement in just 8.6 per cent of cases.
I still am grieving their loss. I don't know when I'm going to see them again.
Mike Smith, father of three
A 2018-19 Justice Canada survey of custody decisions by Superior Courts in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Yukon found sole custody was awarded to mothers in 27 per cent of cases compared with three per cent for fathers. In one indicator of equitable progress, joint custody was awarded in six in 10 (61 per cent) court orders.
Of the 275,000 active family law cases in 10 provinces and territories in 2019/2020, custody/access issues represented 19 per cent of the cases, according to the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics. However, these cases represented just under one-third (31 per cent) of the total family events recorded by the courts, because custody/access cases tend to involve more court activity and remain in court longer than other family case types, such as divorce or support disputes. Quebec, Manitoba and Newfoundland were not included in the data.
Custody refers to the living arrangements of a child or children and which parent will have decision-making authority. Access allows the parent with whom the child does not primarily reside to apply for parenting time.
'I believe equal shared parenting is the ideal and what we should be striving toward,' Kruk said in an email to National Post.
'I wasn't in a good place'
Mike Smith is one of the fathers caught on the losing end of a long custody battle.
An emergency protection order filed by his ex, and put in place in the aftermath of the police incident, showed 'on a balance of probabilities,' his wife was in 'immediate danger' and a box was checked affirming there 'has been a history of domestic violence.' The specific nature of abuse was not indicated, but the order included his wife's allegation that he was 'on meds for bipolar,' reads the document, shared with National Post.
The order prohibited Smith from seeing his wife for 30 days. Because the kids were in her care, he was effectively barred from seeing his children until he successfully challenged the order. He eventually found a new place to live, a short drive away.
In a second incident later that same year, his wife called child protection services, alleging the children in Smith's care were scared, that he 'was screaming at them,' and they didn't want to be with him.
'That's kind of when things started to get pretty screwed up,' he said.
Divorce proceedings were initiated, and the couple reached an agreement on interim parenting arrangements. His ex was granted primary care, with Smith agreeing to specified parenting time, including two visits per week, a weekend overnight stay and vacation time.
The agreement didn't resolve the parenting issues; Smith wanted their time to be split 50/50. Other calls were made to police and child protective authorities in the bitter leadup to the divorce hearings.
A detailed parental capacity assessment was performed by a psychologist. Both parents and the children were interviewed, along with medical and other professionals close to the family. The report, reviewed by the Post, makes no mention of domestic abuse, but it does detail Smith's anger issues, something also expressed by his children. It noted that Smith did not meet the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder, but he did have an anxiety disorder, for which he had been receiving treatment. Among the conclusions, the assessment noted that both parents loved the children, but they were being affected by the conflict between the parents.
'I was told repeatedly, for years, that she would leave and I would never see my kids again,' Smith explained when asked about his anger issues. 'I wasn't in a good place, and I did yell. I'm sure it scared my kids, but it was also me who cuddled our kids together every night, who (they) would come running to if they needed help or were hurt.'
At the conclusion of the divorce hearings, Smith's ex was granted primary custody and the court ordered therapy for the family. Smith battled with the Superior Court of Nova Scotia throughout the next two years to challenge the ruling but failed. His attempts for equal parenting never materialized.
In a final attempt to fight the court orders, the judge concluded that Smith had not successfully completed his court-ordered therapy, and that his time with the children would be 'at the sole discretion' of his wife, according to court documents reviewed by the Post. He was not allowed to take his children outside Halifax's city limits or have sleepovers. The order required Smith to always be in public spaces with his children.
The judge cited Smith's behaviour post-divorce, such as his repeated challenges to court orders, as a factor in her decision. She also noted his deteriorating relationship with his children, and said the decision was in their best interests.
The arrangement left him with minimal facetime while paying the 'full amount of child support,' he said, translating to a couple of thousand dollars monthly. Most outings with his children are now confined to local restaurants or coffee shops. Occasionally, he takes them skiing and snowboarding.
Later that year, Smith was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), which develops from chronically reliving trauma.
'I still am grieving their loss,' he said. 'I don't know when I'm going to see them again.'
In May 2024, he undertook his first MAID assessment, which was rejected. A second, performed by a prominent Dalhousie University bioethicist later that year, approved the procedure, citing the pain of familial loss.
He's no longer considering MAID.
'That was a dark time. I couldn't see a way to stop the suffering. I don't want to go back there,' Smith said.
He said he has turned his experience running the gauntlet of government agencies into a central clearing house for other parents across the country.
Survey of the custody landscape
The custody landscape didn't always look this way, Kruk wrote in his 2008 study looking at child custody outcomes in Canada. Throughout the 19th century, there was a 'paternal presumption' of child rearing. However, the Custody of Infants Act of 1839, a British law used in pre-Confederation Canada, challenged that view by permitting mothers to petition courts for access to their children. That paved the way for the 'tender years doctrine,' which held that young children should reside with their mothers, Kruk wrote.
'This presumption appears to have been in place in Canada since at least the beginning of the 20th century and remained in place until the formal introduction of the 'best interest of the child' standard through Canada's second Divorce Act' of 1986, he wrote.
The well-intentioned legislation failed to produce more equitable outcomes. Nipissing University criminal justice academic Paul Millar reviewed the Central Divorce Registry, a Department of Justice database, between June 1986 and September 2002, covering the post-reform period of the Divorce Act. In the more than one million judgments Millar examined, mothers were granted sole custody in two-thirds of cases, while fathers received it in just 11 per cent. The remainder were granted shared custody or were situations where neither parent was awarded custody.
It's a worldwide phenomenon. Fathers want to be more involved with their kids.
William Fabricius, psychologist, Arizona State University
Custody researcher Grant Brown reviewed the landscape of Canadian family law in his 2013 book, Ideology and Dysfunction in Family Law: How Courts are Disenfranchising Fathers, and summarized Millar's findings in stark terms: 'Mothers were more than 27 times as likely as fathers to obtain sole custody of the children.'
Kruk's 2008 study catalogued a list of negative outcomes associated with fatherlessness, including that 85 per cent of youths in prison and 71 per cent of high school dropouts are the products of fatherless homes. Children raised in dad-absent environments are also more likely to be obese and use drugs and alcohol, according to the U.S.-based National Fatherhood Initiative.
That corresponds with University of Virginia sociology professor Brad Wilcox's work in this space.
'Children are much more likely to flourish when they have an active and engaged dad in their lives,' he wrote in an email to the Post. 'They get better grades, are less likely to get into trouble at school, and are more likely to avoid ending up depressed.'
'No faith in the legal system'
In the early days of their marriage, Al Clarke said his wife grounded his life in sprawling Toronto. Then one day, a decade into the marriage, his wife began acting erratically, speaking uncharacteristically rapidly.
'It's as if somebody went up to her and cranked it to max,' Clarke recalled. 'I knew right away something was wrong.'
Clarke's real name and identifying details have been removed from this story for legal and privacy reasons.
Clarke took his wife to their family doctor in Toronto, who signed a FORM-1, requiring her to undergo a psychiatric assessment at a local hospital.
Clarke's wife eventually rebounded from the episode in the following months with his care and support. 'Life simply carried on,' he told the Post.
Two years later, the couple conceived, but the welcome news didn't solve their underlying tensions. Shortly after the birth of their son, their marriage fell apart. She left, taking their two-month-old son, who Clarke didn't see for several weeks until a court order restored weekly access.
The delicate arrangement held for a few years. At first, Clarke saw his son several times a week for a few hours and a full day on the weekend. That was whittled down throughout a custody battle and his access shrank to one weekday and every other weekend in a subsequent court order. He now alternates between two to four hours of supervised access with his son each month.
The collapse of his family propelled Clarke to rock bottom. He lost 30 pounds and went for a psych evaluation. The doctor described a man who was preoccupied with the loss of his family and 'having a hard time moving on and enjoying positive activities' a medical document shared with the Post reads.
He struggled to hold down his job and went on short-term disability, then long-term disability. He began seeing a therapist the following year. The practitioner's notes also chart Clarke's struggles to cope with the deprivation of his son and the ongoing custody battle.
'Al has no faith in the legal system, police services and Children's Aid Society. He feels his identity as a male puts him at an immediate disadvantage in all of these respects,' read the therapist notes.
When Clarke returns his son to the police station, the agreed-upon meeting spot for custody exchanges, the therapist noted, 'Al feels like a piece of him (is) dying every time this happens.'
Throughout the first years of his son's life, Clarke said his wife repeatedly called the police to conduct wellness checks while their son was in his custody. A police report shared with the Post showed his ex-wife was threatened with public mischief charges if she didn't stop.
'She has unnecessarily called police many times, and more than 200 hours of officers time has been wasted,' the report noted. It also noted there were no concerns with the father, 'he has been very cooperative with the police.'
But Clarke still found himself on the losing side of the legal battle with his ex. A trial before the Superior Court of Ontario severely curtailed access to his son. He eventually collapsed from the stress of it all and was rushed to the hospital. The following year, he was diagnosed with PTSD.
When his ex's lawyer raised his new medical condition during another divorce hearing, the judge ordered him to undergo another mental health evaluation and cut off contact with his son. The same month, Clarke was notified of an investigation by child services following a tip citing concerns for his mental health. The agency conducted interviews with both parents and the child and said it did not identify any additional protection concerns, documents shared with the Post show.
Limited, supervised access was eventually returned to Clarke two years ago.
'When I finally got to see my son, he was crying and, of course, I was crying more than he was. The first thing he said to me, he says, 'Daddy, what did I do that I couldn't see you?' That really broke my heart.'
City of Fatherly Love
Philadelphia is known as the City of Brotherly Love but was actually named by founder William Penn by combining the Greek words for love (phileo) and brother (adelphos). Penn wanted his town to live up to its name. In recent years, the 'City of Fatherly Love' is more apt as the American city becomes a hub for a growing fatherhood movement championing men taking a more active role in family life and child rearing.
Throughout the pregnancy of his first son, Joel Austin felt like an impostor. He wanted to be more involved, but felt unprepared, as though he lacked the basics. Shortly after the birth of his second son in 1992, his eldest was invited to a big-brother class at his local Philadelphia hospital. Surrounded by a sea of children, Austin had a realization.
'I'm the only one in my household who has not been taught how to care for an infant. They were learning things, which no one took the time out to show me,' he told the Post from his office in downtown Philadelphia. Austin is athletic, well-dressed, with broad shoulders and long locks speckled grey that also shades his beard.
He said doctors and other professionals dealt with him as an afterthought. He felt the home was not his domain, that his identity was simply being the breadwinner.
'How do you come from such togetherness to such division? It was her and the world,' he said of life being a new father. 'I was pissed that you didn't take me seriously. I was pissed that for nine months I felt invisible.'
His awakening wasn't warmly received at home, at first. 'Honestly, there was conflict. I felt as though I was stepping on her feminine toes. That was her job,' Austin confided.
The tensions Austin encountered at home manifested out in the world. When he'd take his children to the pediatrician, he would be asked where his wife was. He also began to question his career goals, which led to friction with work. One day, he was running late and trying to get his kids ready for school. They were playing, and he got upset with them. He explained that if he ran late, he could get fired.
'They both looked at me and said, 'Well, does that mean you'll have more time to play?' That's when I realized money was not going to be my legacy,' he recalled. 'I've realized that I could become a millionaire, but my son will regret me because I didn't show up at the game.'
Austin rebuilt his life by laying the foundations for a healthy home. He carved out time for vacations, made a point of nightly family dinners and visited his kids at school during lunchtime with fresh cupcakes, 'sitting at these very tiny tables just kicking it for 30 minutes.'
His eldest recently confided that if it weren't for his father's 'constant push,' he likely wouldn't have graduated high school.
Austin founded Daddy University in 2004, which he describes as the longest-running male parenting education organization in the United States. The support group sees dads gathering around food and drinks to talk about the challenges of fatherhood. 'Some venting, some peer pressure, support, safety, and it has grown into what it is now,' he says.
Austin's proud of the events they run, like 'Daddy Daughter Dance,' which gets fathers outside their comfort zone and builds lasting memories.
'I find it one of the most equalizing, non-racist, non-biased things in the world,' Austin says with a laugh as he explains the fatherhood learning curve. 'All of them will complain, 'I don't understand her!' No level of education, none of that — it doesn't save you. Many of us are on-the-job training.'
Daddy University is just one example of a flourishing fatherhood ecosystem in Philadelphia. Rufus Sylvester Lynch, who runs the Strong Families Commission, said his Philadelphia non-profit is 'not a fatherhood organization,' but a 'child well-being organization through the lens of fathers.'
'When I talk about the Strong Families Commission, we're talking about child well-being, because one of the things I've learned in messaging in America about fatherhood is try not to talk about it. Talk about something else. And that something else are the children.'
While it is true that more mothers than fathers have exclusive parenting time with their children, this is largely due to fewer fathers seeking parenting time.
Suzanne Zaccour, National Association of Women and the Law
Lynch found that fathers' perspectives were rarely considered by the children and family agencies in Philadelphia. Strong Families aims to nudge government bodies and public officials to remove barriers for fathers in child involvement. Lynch helped pioneer the father-friendly flagship accreditation, which a dozen city agencies signed up for by 2018.
The model, Lynch told the Post, lost its relevance in 2020 when national and state attention was redirected toward global health concerns, but he plans to 'reactivate' the program in 2026. 'My goal is to have Pennsylvania become America's most father-friendly state in the union.'
There are others across Pennsylvania shouldering Lynch's broader mission. In 2022, Lynch worked alongside Jeff Steiner, executive director of Dads' Resource Center, to lobby and pass a state general assembly act that created the Pennsylvania Advisory Commission on Greater Father Involvement.
Steiner explained his Dads' group caters to 'single fathers fighting to be in the lives of their children.' Steiner grew up not knowing his father, a perspective he believes heightens his passion for fatherhood. 'I couldn't tell you who my father is, so that's defined my life in a way where I kind of have, like, this hole in my soul.'
Steiner's work involves dealing with state family courts and child protective services. 'I wear a lot of hats,' he said, speaking about his mentorship of other fathers. Attitudes about fatherhood are rapidly changing, he said, but when asked whether child custody rulings still disadvantage men, he didn't skip a beat.
'Everyone knows this is an issue. The judges, the lawyers, the social workers — everyone knows this is an issue. But there's an inertia within the family courts,' Steiner said.
Joel Austin agreed. 'Fathers still fall into second-class citizenship when it comes to children. It is an asinine system and it is also very biased.'
Push for equal parenting
There has been a growing push to make shared parenting the default in legal custody decisions. Studies have shown that children of divorce wish they had better access to both parents, and kids in joint parental custody often do better than those in sole custody arrangements. More equitable custody has also been found to reduce parental conflict because children are taken off the chessboard — they are no longer pawns in the inevitable power struggle of a messy divorce.
William Fabricius, a psychologist and head of a research laboratory on fatherhood and divorce at Arizona State University (ASU), told the Post that numerous studies examining the benefits of equal parenting show a similar conclusion: 'We can't disprove that equal time is best for kids,' he said.
Fabricius stumbled into the field in the '90s when he discovered that psychology colleagues at ASU were prominent divorce academics. He found most of the research at the time failed to take the perspective of fathers and children into account.
The disconnect got him interested in the concept of equal parenting — the idea that child custody should be roughly equal between guardians so long as there is no credible evidence of abuse or violence. Fabricius was instrumental in passing two bills in Arizona over a decade ago that made the state the first in the nation to 'embrace equal parenting time.' Other states, including West Virginia, Florida and Kentucky, have followed.
'It's a worldwide phenomenon. Fathers want to be more involved with their kids,' Fabricius said, citing recent consultations he has done with legislators in Japan and Norway.
Canada's National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) argues that shared parenting endangers women trapped in abusive relationships, forcing them to share custody and their location with their abusers. Suzanne Zaccour, director of legal affairs for NAWL, disputed the view that family law is biased against fathers.
Zaccour pointed to articles she'd published that argue Canadian courts discounted domestic violence against women and prioritized father-child contact over child safety. 'While it is true that more mothers than fathers have exclusive parenting time with their children, this is largely due to fewer fathers seeking parenting time,' she wrote the Post in an email.
Shared parenting arrangements are 'not appropriate in all cases,' Zaccour continued. 'Mandatory shared custody laws lead to negative outcomes for children by pushing judges to grant 50-50 shared parenting, even against the wishes or best interests of the child, including in cases of child abuse.'
Fabricius called such arguments 'a bit of a straw man,' noting that courts are charged with determining 'things like abuse and neglect and parental substance abuse or mental health problems.'
Edward Kruk, the UBC professor, is an advocate for reforming Canadian family law and serves as the president of the International Council on Shared Parenting. He's heartened to see supportive statements from several European countries pushing for equal shared parenting but is frustrated that Canada is slow to embrace the change.
When it comes to legally contested custody cases, Kruk believes the percentage of equal shared parenting outcomes is 'very, very low.'
'The closer to 50/50 division, the better the outcomes for children and parents,' Kruk said.
A majority of Canadians feel the same. Polling conducted by Nanos in 2022 found more than three-quarters (77 per cent) surveyed strongly or somewhat supported new legislation emphasizing 'a presumption of equal parenting in child custody cases.' That's up from 70 per cent in 2017. Two-thirds of respondents said such a reform is a 'right' youth deserve and represents a 'child's best interest.'
'The public opinion polling for 25 years has been strongly in favour of equal parenting right across the board,' said Brian Ludmer, a lawyer and divorce specialist. Ludmer helped draft Bill C-560, sponsored by a Conservative MP in 2014, which sought to enshrine within the Divorce Act a 'principle of equal parenting.' It failed to pass.
The Conservative Party of Canada has long advocated for shared parenting in its policy declaration guidelines, but Ludmer understands why other political parties don't pursue the issue, given its limited electoral appeal. 'We're doing a disservice to our children by allowing this to continue this way. This is long overdue.'
Father's Day joy and sorrow
Father's Day is usually a time for BBQs and family gatherings. Austin's tradition in Philadelphia is to invite the community of fathers he mentors to his place 'to sit, drink and be merry.' He sees it as a 'simple 24 hours of respect and appreciation,' with the children bringing 'gifts, hugs or whatever they have.'
Austin's Father's Day joy is something not shared by Mike Smith and Al Clarke. The absence of their children in their lives makes the occasion particularly painful for the Canadian dads.
According to Clarke's calculations, in 2024, he saw his son a total of 36 hours. As of the end of May, he's had 14 hours of supervised scheduled time with him this year. Clarke struggles to maintain his optimism. He says he can't remember the last time he got to celebrate Father's Day with his son.
Smith deals with 'conflicting emotions' come Father's Day. 'I hold onto the hope that, even briefly, my children are able to feel the simple and unconditional truth — they are deeply loved by their dad, not for what they do, but for who they are.'

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Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors RCMP Supt. Adam MacIntosh said there is a high level of 'competence and cooperation' between SPS and RCMP officers investigating the series of extortions targeting South Asian businesses. His team was created in the fall of 2023 to increase coordination between police departments in Canadian cities, such as Brampton, Edmonton and Surrey, which were all seeing a rise in extortion cases at that time. 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This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Divnoor Singh Asht, one of the men arrested last summer as part of Project Gaslight, recently pleaded guilty to arson, extortion and conspiring to commit extortion. An agreed statement of facts in the case said some of the group behind the Edmonton extortions were members of Brothers Keepers, although there was no evidence Asht was one of them, according to the CBC. He admitted to 'assembling and instructing the lower members of the group to carry out the extortion and related arsons. These actions were based on the direction and instruction of Maninder Dhaliwal and Harpreet Uppal, prior to his death.' Uppal's death in 2023 shocked many across Canada as his 11-year-old son was gunned down alongside him. The court records reported by CBC identified Uppal as a key part of the extortion scheme and a member of Brothers Keepers. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In a statement to Postmedia on Friday, Edmonton police spokesperson Cheryl Voordenhout said police are still investigating the extortion scheme, but cannot share details. Edmonton police are in close contact with police in B.C. and across Canada 'as we increasingly manage transnational crime groups.' She confirmed they are still pursuing Dhaliwal's extradition. During their investigation, Edmonton police enlisted the public's help to identify suspects, putting out several news releases on their progress and releasing surveillance photos of suspects buying and filling gas containers. The team had a dedicated tip line and email address. Police in B.C. have not linked the extortion scheme to the Brothers Keepers. The B.C. gang, which was started in about 2016 by the late Gavinder Grewal, has been locked in an eight-year gang conflict against shifting rivals including in the BIBO gang and the United Nations. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The extortions in Ontario appear to be linked to organized crime as well. On Monday, Peel police said they had dismantled a crime group involved in extortion and insurance fraud, arresting 18 people as part of Project Outsource. Nijjar Trucking in Surrey was shot at, which points to an extortion-motivated shooting. Photo by Jason Payne / PNG As reported by CTV News Ontario this week, the investigation was launched in 2023 after a sharp rise in extortions targeting the South Asian business community. 'The threats escalated into a variety of different offences, including drive-by shootings, arsons, a variety of acts of violence that spread fear and insecurity,' Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said at a news conference this week. Police were able to link a Brampton-based crime group to the extortions, as well as a scheme where they allegedly staged dozens of collisions on Greater Toronto roads in an effort to defraud insurance companies. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Police seized four high-end personal vehicles, five stolen vehicles, six firearms, 600 rounds of ammunition, two bulletproof vests, and $45,000 in Canadian currency as they laid almost 100 charges, with more expected. Although the Bishnoi gang was not mentioned by police in the recent arrests, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said he was supportive of Eby's request to designate the gang as a terrorist group. Brown said Peel police told him a terrorist designation 'would be helpful' and the gang is involved in 'serious criminal activity' in Ontario. 'We're talking about extortions and murders in our region.' Asked about Eby's request Wednesday, federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said national security officials 'continuously' review whether criminal organizations meet the legal threshold to be named as terrorist groups. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. RCMP have alleged that Indian diplomats shared information about Sikh separatists in Canada with the Indian government and that top Indian officials then passed the information to the Bishnoi gang. Brown said the gang has become more brazen in Brampton and local police have spotted vehicles with Bishnoi-affiliated decals in the city. 'They have over 700 shooters worldwide. They meet every threshold that is required to be designated as a terrorist organization,' he said. 'And if we can give police this tool to allow them to better combat this threat in Canada, I think that is a no-brainer.' With files from Canadian Press gluymes@ Read More

Vancouver Sun

4 hours ago

• Vancouver Sun

Few B.C. arrests in heightened extortion battle frustrating for Surrey residents, officials

The head of a national team set up to support police departments investigating cases of extortion in cities across Canada said Surrey's municipal police force is working well with the RCMP, but could not comment on why significant arrests have been made in Ontario and Alberta and not B.C. RCMP Supt. Adam MacIntosh said there is a high level of 'competence and cooperation' between SPS and RCMP officers investigating the series of extortions targeting South Asian businesses. His team was created in the fall of 2023 to increase coordination between police departments in Canadian cities, such as Brampton, Edmonton and Surrey, which were all seeing a rise in extortion cases at that time. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Since then, police in Brampton and Edmonton have made arrests, while the attacks in Surrey appear to be ramping up again, with two more shootings this week, including one at Surrey's Nijjar Trucking and another at the Maple Ridge home of a Punjabi music producer. MacIntosh was unable to comment on any possible links between the extortions in Brampton and Edmonton and those in Surrey, including the suggestion that the Bishnoi gang, an organized crime group based in India, might be connected to the violence in Surrey. Earlier this week, B.C. Premier David Eby asked the federal government to classify the gang as a terrorist group. Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke said Thursday the lack of clarity on who is behind the extortions is frustrating. 'That's why I'm calling on the province and our national police, the RCMP, to really put their shoulder into this,' she said. The possibility of international organized crime involvement means 'it's going to take our national police.' Speaking at a public safety forum last weekend, the mayor said a single national dashboard that flags extortion incidents within hours, not weeks, is needed. She also wants a joint provincial-federal task force to audit the impact of the Surrey police transition on 'organized crime activity with the authority to redirect resources on the spot.' 'Policing is not an experiment,' she said in reference to the transition. 'We are not getting the kind of service and attention that we need in order to keep our citizens safe. Not just from Surrey Police Service and not just from E-division RCMP, but the entire nation. What happens right now in Surrey falls squarely on the province's shoulders. How it is fixed — and make no mistake, it must be fixed — falls squarely on the provincial government.' MacIntosh said timely information about extortions is being shared between police departments. He encouraged the public to continue to report extortion attempts to police. While he was not able to comment on links between extortions across Canada, he said it is clear organized crime groups are motivated by profit, and some groups see 'extortion as an easy way to make a profit.' One way to counter that is to take away the profitability, whether through arrests, or by reporting attempts to police, he said. 'If people are paying and not telling us, that works in the favour of organized crime.' As reported by CBC News Edmonton this week, court records show an extortion scheme that targeted South Asian homebuilders in Alberta for several months in 2023 and 2024 had links to B.C.'s Brothers Keepers gang. Edmonton Police Service arrested six people in July 2024 as part of Project Gaslight, a special investigation into 34 extortions, which included arsons and shootings. A seventh person, Maninder Dhaliwal, who was suspected of orchestrating the attacks from abroad, remained at large for several months until he was arrested in the United Arab Emirates on separate charges. Earlier this year, Edmonton police applied to have him extradited to Alberta to face charges, although Canada does not have an extradition treaty with UAE. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Divnoor Singh Asht, one of the men arrested last summer as part of Project Gaslight, recently pleaded guilty to arson, extortion and conspiring to commit extortion. An agreed statement of facts in the case said some of the group behind the Edmonton extortions were members of Brothers Keepers, although there was no evidence Asht was one of them, according to the CBC. He admitted to 'assembling and instructing the lower members of the group to carry out the extortion and related arsons. These actions were based on the direction and instruction of Maninder Dhaliwal and Harpreet Uppal, prior to his death.' Uppal's death in 2023 shocked many across Canada as his 11-year-old son was gunned down alongside him. The court records reported by CBC identified Uppal as a key part of the extortion scheme and a member of Brothers Keepers. In a statement to Postmedia on Friday, Edmonton police spokesperson Cheryl Voordenhout said police are still investigating the extortion scheme, but cannot share details. Edmonton police are in close contact with police in B.C. and across Canada 'as we increasingly manage transnational crime groups.' She confirmed they are still pursuing Dhaliwal's extradition. During their investigation, Edmonton police enlisted the public's help to identify suspects, putting out several news releases on their progress and releasing surveillance photos of suspects buying and filling gas containers. The team had a dedicated tip line and email address. Police in B.C. have not linked the extortion scheme to the Brothers Keepers. The B.C. gang, which was started in about 2016 by the late Gavinder Grewal, has been locked in an eight-year gang conflict against shifting rivals including in the BIBO gang and the United Nations. The extortions in Ontario appear to be linked to organized crime as well. On Monday, Peel police said they had dismantled a crime group involved in extortion and insurance fraud, arresting 18 people as part of Project Outsource. As reported by CTV News Ontario this week, the investigation was launched in 2023 after a sharp rise in extortions targeting the South Asian business community. 'The threats escalated into a variety of different offences, including drive-by shootings, arsons, a variety of acts of violence that spread fear and insecurity,' Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said at a news conference this week. Police were able to link a Brampton-based crime group to the extortions, as well as a scheme where they allegedly staged dozens of collisions on Greater Toronto roads in an effort to defraud insurance companies. Police seized four high-end personal vehicles, five stolen vehicles, six firearms, 600 rounds of ammunition, two bulletproof vests, and $45,000 in Canadian currency as they laid almost 100 charges, with more expected. Although the Bishnoi gang was not mentioned by police in the recent arrests, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said he was supportive of Eby's request to designate the gang as a terrorist group. Brown said Peel police told him a terrorist designation 'would be helpful' and the gang is involved in 'serious criminal activity' in Ontario. 'We're talking about extortions and murders in our region.' Asked about Eby's request Wednesday, federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said national security officials 'continuously' review whether criminal organizations meet the legal threshold to be named as terrorist groups. RCMP have alleged that Indian diplomats shared information about Sikh separatists in Canada with the Indian government and that top Indian officials then passed the information to the Bishnoi gang. Brown said the gang has become more brazen in Brampton and local police have spotted vehicles with Bishnoi-affiliated decals in the city. 'They have over 700 shooters worldwide. They meet every threshold that is required to be designated as a terrorist organization,' he said. 'And if we can give police this tool to allow them to better combat this threat in Canada, I think that is a no-brainer.' With files from Canadian Press gluymes@

The Province

6 hours ago

• The Province

RCMP finally identifies Air India bomb-testing suspect

However, the mysterious Mr. X, who police said helped test a bomb on Vancouver Island a few weeks before the twin terror attacks, has died RCMP Asst. Commissioner David Teboul says RCMP have identified the mysterious Mr. X who helped test the bomb that shattered Air India Flight 182 in 1985, but that man has died. Photo by Jason Payne / PNG BANTRY, Ireland — Police in British Columbia have finally identified the mysterious man who helped test a bomb on Vancouver Island a few weeks before the Air India bombing on June 23, 1985. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors RCMP Asst. Commissioner David Teboul told Postmedia that the previously unidentified suspect in the mass murder case recently died without ever facing charges. He said he couldn't release the name of the man due to privacy laws even though he's now dead. Teboul and several other RCMP officers are part of the Canadian delegation here to mark the 40th anniversary of the Air India bombing. Dozens of relatives of victims are arriving to attend the service at a memorial to the 329 people who died when a B.C.-made bomb exploded on Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland. Leading the Canadian delegation will be federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree. Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin is scheduled to attend, along with local officials and a representative of the Indian government. Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Teboul, who is the commander of federal policing in B.C., said that despite the acquittals of two key bombing suspects in 2005, investigators have continued to work on the file 'to tie up some loose ends and discover more truth that's independent of judicial process.' That's what lead them to uncover the identity of the mystery suspect, dubbed Mr. X, who travelled to Duncan on June 4, 1985, with terror plot mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar. The two men then joined up with electrician Inderjit Singh Reyat. The trio went into the woods and tested a bomb all while they were being followed by agents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The agents heard the blast but thought it was a gunshot. Parmar, founder of the Babbar Khalsa Sikh separatist group, was killed by police in Punjab in 1992 before he could be charged in the Air India terrorism plot. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Reyat was convicted of manslaughter for building another bomb that exploded at Japan's Narita Airport 54 minutes before the Air India blast. Two baggage handlers were killed. And he pleaded guilty to assisting Mr. X and Parmar build the Air India bomb. But he testified at the trial of his co-accused that he didn't know X's name. He was later convicted of perjury. Relatives and friends of Air Indian victims at the memorial in the seaside village of Ahakista in Ireland, in 2004. Special to The Vancouver Sun Teboul said that while there is an continuing investigation 'there's very little realistic chance of seeing this matter go to another trial.' But officers are doing administrative work like returning exhibits and working with families to better memorialize the victims. The RCMP is working with the federal Global Affairs Department to get an agreement with the government of India to allow pieces of the Boeing 747 recovered from the ocean to remain in Canada as part of a permanent exhibit or memorial, he said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. It's important for Canadian investigators who worked on the case to attend the memorial here 'out of respect for the families, out of respect and remembrance of the victims,' said Teboul, who is on his third trip to the seaside memorial at Ahakista, Ireland. 'This is the largest act of terrorism in the history of Canada, so we — the RCMP — have an obligation to memorialize it and pay respect every year.' He has developed close ties with Irish first responders who pulled as many of the victims' bodies out of the sea as they could that day. 'It was really a Canadian tragedy, first and foremost. But it was also an Irish tragedy. A lot of Irish folks have been very invested in it through the last 40 years,' Teboul said. 'It's part of their history. So there's a lot of emotions there.' kbolan@ Blueksy: @ Read More