DEPORTED PIZZA MAN IS BACK
HARJIT SINGH
2004 claims brought down Liberal minister
arjit Singh had tried to void deportation for 13 ears, but it was his final, desperate bid to stay in Canda that made him the leadng man in a bizarre politcal drama. Levelling allegations he ater admitted were fabricated, Singh brought down federal cabinet minister Judy Sgro — and caused eeks of heartburn for Paul artin’s Liberal governent of the early 2000s. It as to no avail.
The Brampton, Ont., izza shop owner had also een found liable for credit ard fraud, was suspected f people-smuggling and acused by police of threatening the relatives of witnesss in his fraud case.
On Feb. 2, 2005, Candian border officials put Singh on a plane back to his ative India, seemingly for ood.
“Public interest in the integrity of the immigration system clearly favours is removal at the earliest pportunity,” said a judge n the last of many legal appeals.
But 13 years later, the nlikely headline maker is ack, allowed into Canada nder a new Liberal governent, his visa request aided y a “routine” letter from aj Grewal, another MP imersed in controversy. Parminder Singh, Harjit’s on, confirmed in a short elephone exchange that his ather is living in Canada etween trips to India. “Harjit is in India, you an call him when he’s ack,” he said. “He comes ack and forth.”
Singh urged the National ost not to write about his ather, saying “it happened decade and a half ago. ou’re trying to revive somehing.”
Sgro said she has asked immigration officials for an “accounting” of how Singh was allowed back in Canada, saying he is not the type of person Canada should admit and “clearly there has been a mistake.” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Canada Border Services Agency are investigating and have promised to report back to her, the MP said.
“It’s reliving a nightmare that I went through at that particular time,” she said about the personal impact of the situation. “I was forced to step down from cabinet, I had to clear my name … It was pretty sad.”
Spokesmen for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and for the minister, Ahmed Hussen, said they could not comment on the case because of privacy rules.
But Mathieu Genest, Hussen’s press secretary, said deportees are sometimes readmitted “if they are able to provide compelling reasons to come to Canada and satisfy IRCC that they do not pose a risk to Canadians.”
Grewal, the Brampton, Ont., MP kicked out of the Liberal caucus after racking up millions in gambling debt, does not know Singh personally, but his staff issued a standard letter requesting “fair and equal assessment” for him at the behest of a relative living here, said Richard An, a spokesman for the MP.
“Ultimately, visitor visa decisions are made independently by immigration officers,” An said.
Singh became an overnight political-news sensation when he alleged that Sgro had agreed to solve his immigration troubles in exchange for providing free pizza and volunteers to her 2004 election-campaign office. The minister denied the charges but promptly resigned, only for her accuser to later admit he had made up the odd tale.
Joe Volpe, the former cabinet minister who took over the immigration portfolio when Sgro quit in 2005, said he was shocked when told Singh was back, given how difficult it is to return to Canada after being deported.
“It’s about, what, 15 years later and he’s here? Wow,” said Volpe. “Somebody must have made a significant representation if in fact Harjit Singh is here.”
It’s unclear if Hussen was personally aware of Singh’s case, but Volpe suggested that when he was minister, he would have been extremely leery of such a visa application.
People who have been deported can apply for an “authorization to return to Canada,” known in the immigration world as an ARC, but the permits are “hell on earth” to obtain, said lawyer Richard Boraks.
“This would require ministerial intervention to bring him back under the circumstances,” argued Boraks, who is suing the government over an unrelated matter. “A deportation order, the circumstances of the deportation order: red flags everywhere. It would have to be a decision at the highest level.”
Sergio Karas, another Toronto immigration lawyer, said it’s actually “not that difficult” to obtain an ARC, so long as several years have passed and the behaviour leading to the deportation was not overly egregious.
The approval is typically made by visa officers, unless the situation is particularly sensitive, he said.
“In many heavy-duty cases, the matter goes to the minister’s desk,” said Karas. “So one is left to wonder how this (Singh) case unfolded.”
Singh came to Canada in 1988 on a visitor visa, overstayed and then asked for refugee status. He was denied — though his three children were later admitted as refugees — and ordered deported, triggering more than a decade of legal battles.
He at one point was granted permanent resident status on “humanitarian and compassionate” grounds, until it emerged that he had been convicted in India of passport fraud in 1996, caught by police there trying to take a child out of the country on a false passport.
Singh and his three children were charged with credit card fraud in Canada, though the charges were stayed against the father after relatives of prosecution witnesses in India received death threats, according to police.
Three Canadian banks, represented by lawyer Lincoln Caylor, went ahead with a civil lawsuit over the same acts, and the four family members were found liable in 2004. Harjit Singh, said Justice John Macdonald, was the “guiding force” behind the scheme in 2000, which the banks said netted $1 million by “skimming” data from credit card magnetic stripes.
In jail after failing to attend a pre-removal hearing, Singh filed an affidavit accusing Sgro of making the pizza deal, then reneging on it, arguing she had exerted improper influence on his case. Justice Michael Phelan rejected the argument, saying his story “does not make common sense.”
Sgro agreed to withdraw a $750,000 libel suit against Singh after he wrote to say the tale had been made up. But the MP — cleared at the same time of wrongdoing around the immigration status of an ex-stripper who worked on her campaign — has never returned to cabinet, either in the short-lived Martin government, or recently under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.