Border agency 'systemic collapse' allows man found guilty of immigration fraud to walk free and sue Canada
CBC
Gurpreet Singh, a 40-year-old Indian national, is suing the Canadian government and employees of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), alleging they prosecuted him maliciously and violated his charter rights.
It's the latest twist in a massive immigration fraud saga in Saskatchewan that has been winding its way through the justice system for many years.
At the heart of that drama lies a big mistake by the CBSA.
"This was not a single lapse in judgement by a single individual," Justice Naheed Bardai wrote in a July 2025 Saskatoon Court of King's Bench decision.
"This was a systemic collapse."
In 2022, Bardai found Singh guilty of running an immigration fraud scheme — making fake job-offer letters and providing them to would-be immigrants from India.
But instead of convicting Singh and sending him to jail, the judge threw out the entire case, allowing Singh to walk free. The surprising turn of events began just moments before Singh was to be sentenced for his crimes.
His lawyers asked Bardai to declare a mistrial, alleging the CBSA and the Crown withheld crucial information that might have exonerated Singh. They also claimed a lead CBSA investigator intimidated witnesses.
The resulting mistrial hearing set off an unprecedented string of events — a series of bad decisions by CBSA officials that ended up undoing their two-year immigration fraud investigation.
In his July 23, 2025 ruling, Bardai granted a stay of proceedings in the criminal case against Singh, meaning he would receive no jail sentence and no criminal record.
Bardai said he made this move even though he continued to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Singh was guilty. He said his hand was forced by the CBSA's conduct, which "offends society’s sense of fair play and decency."
Now Singh is pursuing compensation from the Canadian government in civil court and permanent residency in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
One of his lawyers, Tavengwa Runyowa, said while some might look at this case and think Singh got off on a technicality, they should keep an open mind.
"He's now always going to have this watermark of alleged guilt on him ... based on an investigation that was not just severely flawed but that was designed, in our view, to give the court an inaccurate view of what the reality was," Runyowa said.
There was a bit more optimism among Prince Edward Island producers at this year’s Seafood Expo North America in Boston — but that depended on which industry they were representing.
A new contractor will take over operations of the Inuvik Warming Shelter on April 1 — closely following a switch at another Inuvik shelter — as Housing N.W.T. takes a step back from operating the two locations.
Northern Ontario politicians are urgently appealing to the federal government for help during one of the deadliest winters on record along 2,000 kilometres of highway between Nipigon, Sudbury and North Bay.
The ongoing U.S.-Israel war against Iran is causing diesel prices to spike across Canada, climbing nearly 30 per cent since the conflict began.
The federal government is bringing its case to justify use of the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy protests that gridlocked the capital city and border points to the country's highest court.
Statues on the grounds of the Ontario Legislature will be covered in wrapping to protect them from vandalism ahead of expected protests at Queen’s Park this spring.
In the aftermath of Ontario’s decision to no longer support provincially-funded supervised drug consumption sites, a potential path forward is emerging for the London Ont., based Carepoint Consumption and Treatment Service.
A group of children in the St. John’s neighbourhood of Shea Heights were playing outside last spring, when they made a shocking discovery.
Erin Sheppard's family was excitedly waiting Saturday afternoon to take a direct flight from Halifax Stanfield International Airport to Cancun, Mexico.
N.B. Power's ongoing rate hearing has been told that plans to spend $88.4 million over three years on outside experts to help fix chronic reliability problems at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station might not show results immediately but will pay off eventually.
As the province doubled down on its “tough on crime” measures and calls for federal bail reform this week, rates of violence across Ontario jails — both inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff assaults — are rising, according to an analysis of data shared with CBC News by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).
Finance Minister Eric Girard is set to table Quebec’s provincial budget on Wednesday — less than a month before the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) chooses a successor to Premier François Legault.
Manitoba's finance minister says the NDP is funding education adequately, yet won't acknowledge some school divisions are raising taxes because they feel provincial funding hasn’t kept pace.