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Ontario mother’s battle to bring son home from Vietnam reaches 546 days
Everything in Jacob Le’s room is as he left it before he went on a trip with his father to Vietnam, nearly a year and a half ago.
His bright yellow truck is parked in the corner of the bedroom, a pile of stuffed animals, including his favourite teddy bear, sits on the edge of his bed and his paintings are displayed proudly all around the downtown Toronto apartment.
Jacob’s mother, Heather McArthur, is waiting for the day her son returns home after 546 days away.
“It’s the littlest moments when I walk around now and I see a mother with her child looking at a flower, and just remembering those moments with my son and what he brought to my life and how much of him is missing, and how much of this doesn’t make sense to me,” said McArthur.
Jacob’s father, Loc Phu “Jay” Le, took him to Vietnam in February of 2024 to supposedly celebrate Lunar New Year as part of a vacation cleared by the courts, McArthur explained, but he never returned to Canada.
Toronto police released an image of Jacob’s father on May 7 and requested the public’s help in locating him as he was “wanted in a parental abduction investigation.”
Le, 41, is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for abduction in contravention of a custody order.
McArthur has travelled back and forth from Toronto to Ho Chi Minh City multiple times in search of her son.
Adding a layer of complexity to the case is the fact that Vietnam is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which “can help parents with the return of children who have been removed to, or retained in certain countries in violation of custody rights,” according to a Government of Canada website.
“Whether we have a convention, whether we’ve signed a treaty or not, is that relevant? Is that what we care about? We should care about one thing only. We should be doing everything. Every politician, every lawyer, everyone should be behind her, instead she feels like she’s fighting upstream just to get attention,” said McArthur’s lawyer, Robert Rotenberg.
He is calling on the federal government to step up and support McArthur and help bring her son, who is a Canadian citizen, home.
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“There’s no central place for them to go. There’s no place in the government that says, ‘We’re gonna advocate for you, for every means.’ And frankly, if you ask me, what do I think the government should be doing? I’ve got a one-word answer for you. One word. The government should be doing everything,” said Rotenberg.
Global News contacted Global Affairs Canada to ask what is being done to help McArthur.
In a statement, a spokesperson said: “Global Affairs Canada is aware of the parental abduction of a Canadian child in Vietnam. Consular officials are in contact with local authorities and are providing assistance to the family. Due to privacy considerations, no further information can be disclosed.”
The spokesperson added: “Child abductions are some of the most difficult consular situations that the Government of Canada responds to and are a profoundly difficult and damaging experiences for both the children and their families. The Government of Canada works with partners in Canada and officials in other countries to inquire into the safety and well-being of abducted children and facilitate their return to Canada.”
In the last few months, there have been some developments, said McArthur, although none have led to her son’s return.
Jacob was the subject of an Interpol yellow notice, which is a global police alert for a missing person. Yellow notices are often issued to help locate minors or those who are unable to identify themselves.
On a recent trip to Vietnam however, McArthur said she learned that the notice was “no longer active.”
“I was notified that the consulate had met with the child and the father about 20 hours prior to that. And so that was the reason that it was cleared,” she said, adding “my hopes were really high that I would see Jacob. I was sitting at the police station with my lawyer, waiting to see my son.”
McArthur ended up returning to Toronto to work on her son’s case from home.
“You go into a state of shock. There’s only so many ups and downs that the body can take in these scenarios … There’s been so many times or a few times where I’ve been so close to where I have located Jacob and then not been able to get action or had hopes of seeing him and not being able to achieve that and that’s just really hard,” she said.
On top of the emotional toll, McArthur is dealing with the financial impact of the battle to bring home her son.
She set up a GoFundMe campaign to help with legal fees and travel costs.
McArthur has also been in contact with parents of other abducted children.
“There’s systemic barriers that people face in accessing support and services and so I assist other people that are having difficulties accessing service and support, both for their children left behind and those children abroad,” she said.
McArthur is planning to return to Vietnam once again to try and locate Jacob and bring him home.
She said she understands Toronto police are limited in their efforts but hopes the federal government will do more to support her and her son.
“The police have specific jurisdiction, and so when a child is abroad, those investigations can oftentimes be really limited with the procedures that they’re able to do,” she said, adding, “If you were to ask me, why has the government not done more? Why has the Government not done everything to bring Jacob home? My answer is just that I don’t know what to tell you because I don’t know why that would be.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
The Ontario Provincial Police say a local construction business and a communications tower are the latest sites to be targeted for copper thefts.
Police said there was a “significant theft of copper wire” from a construction yard in Temiskaming Shores, just north of Sudbury.
Officers responded to the yard on July 11 but police said the theft happened sometime between July 6 and 11.
Police found a substantial quantity of copper wire was removed from heavy machinery that was stored at the back of the construction yard, including multiple rock crushers and conveyors.
The value of the stolen materials is estimated to be more than $40,000, police said.
However, police noted the total loss is expected to be higher once repair costs and machinery downtime are factored in.
Meanwhile, police are also looking into two separate incidents of copper theft from a communications tower in Corbeil, just outside of North Bay, early on July 14 and on July 16.
Police said the tower is situated within a fenced compound secured with padlocks and chains.
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“Upon inspection, the enclosure was found unsecured, and the locking mechanisms were missing,” police allege.
Police said the tower stands between two buildings that has cables running up from both structures and that the cables “appear to have been cut using a power tool.”
“It is believed that the tower was then climbed and the opposite ends of the cables were also severed,” police allege.
Anyone with information on either incident, including suspicious sightings or activity, is asked to contact police.
In relation to the communications tower copper theft incident, police said there is a possible cash reward of up to $2,000 for information.
Copper theft on the rise in Canada
Earlier this month, four Ontario men were charged after 33 hydro poles cut down for their copper in a rural area of Ontario.
Police in Durham Region issued a warning in May about copper thefts happening from air conditioners and heat pump units in Oshawa. Police said they had received 22 reported incidents since the beginning of the year.
Telecommunications companies such as Bell Canada and Telus said they have noted an increase in copper thefts.
Bell Canada said copper thefts has grown at an “astronomical rate” over the past few years in Canada and that a large portion of the thefts are happening in east end of the country.
Telus reported a 58 per cent increase in 2024 from 2023 in the amount of copper thefts in Alberta. In Edmonton specifically there was a 238 per cent increase in copper thefts.
Bell Canada says copper theft has grown at an astronomical rate over the past few years in Canada, with a large portion of the thefts occurring in the east end of the country.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Four Conservative MPs are calling for a Commons committee investigation into the Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP), and a pivotal non-profit health foundation says the effort needs an urgent overhaul.
Led by Dan Mazier, the Conservative health critic and deputy chairman of the Commons Health Committee, the group requested in a letter that Liberal MP and committee chairperson Hedy Fry convene for an emergency hearing. Fry did not respond to their request.
“This is more than mismanagement,” their letter read. “It appears to be a blatant misuse of tax dollars. The Liberals handed out tens of millions of dollars to high priced consultants while the very Canadians this program was intended to help have been neglected.”
The other Conservatives who signed the letter included Kitchener-area MP Dr. Matt Strauss, South Okanagan MP Helena Konanz, and Red Deer MP Burton Bailey.
A political aide to Hedy Fry said she was unavailable for an interview.
“Dr. Fry is spending time with her family currently where there are connectivity issues and unreliable reception. I’ve been having a hard time reaching her. As such, it seems she is not available to discuss,” Fry’s political staffer replied in an email.
The criticisms emerged this week in the wake of a five-month Global News investigation into the Liberal government’s 2020 announcement it would create VISP and the Public Health Agency of Canada’s decision to outsource its administration to the Ottawa consulting firm, Oxaro Inc., in 2021.
Oxaro did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The five-month Global News investigation that prompted the outcry revealed that:
- Oxaro has received $50.6 million in taxpayer money. $33.7 million has been spent on administrative costs, while injured Canadians received $16.9 million. Updated Health Canada figures released Thursday show the company has now received $54.1 million and spent $36.3 million on administration costs, with $18.1 million paid to injured Canadians
- PHAC and Oxaro underestimated the number of injury claims VISP would get, initially predicting 40 per year and then up to 400 valid claims annually. More than 3,317 applications have been filed — of those, more than 1,738 people await decisions on their claims
- Some injured applicants say they face a revolving door of unreachable VISP case managers and require online fundraising campaigns to survive. Others said their applications were unfairly rejected by doctors they’ve never spoken to or met.
In previous emails sent to Global News, Oxaro has said that the program processes, procedures and staffing (of VISP) were adapted to face the challenge of receiving substantially more applications than originally planned.
“Oxaro and PHAC have been collaborating closely to evaluate how the program can remain agile to handle the workload on hand while respecting budget constraints,” it added.
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Oxaro also said that its monthly invoices to the government include documents and details, which in turn PHAC reviews and approves prior to payment.
In response to questions from Global News, Health Canada spokesperson Mark Johnson replied in an email that PHAC, “continuously conducts analyses of the program to identify both shortfalls as well as opportunities to better support people in Canada who have experienced a serious and permanent injury following vaccination.”
The Global News investigation also found that despite decades of calls for a vaccine injury support program, the federal government cobbled it together during the pandemic and underestimated the number of claims it would receive.
Darryl Bedford, president of the GBS-CIDP Foundation of Canada (GBS), is calling for an overhaul of the four-year old program, demanding it improve the speed of decision-making and support for the vaccine injured.
“We’re very concerned. And we think that there really needs to be a close look or overhaul of this,” said Bedford, who runs the national registered charity that supports people with neurological disorders such as GBS.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s working to us.”
Darryl Bedford, the President of the Guillain Barre Syndrome Foundation of Canada, discussed the VISP effort with Global News.
Global News
Bedford said liaison people and volunteers on the ground have told him that they don’t feel VISP is “consistent enough.” Several people who received COVID-19 vaccines developed serious adverse reactions that included GBS, which can cause paralysis, throwing their lives into crisis, according to a Health Canada database that reported adverse reaction events of special interest.
Global News uncovered allegations that Oxaro was unequipped to deliver fully on the program’s mission, questions about why the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) chose this company over others, and internal documents that suggested poor planning from the start.
Former Oxaro workers described a workplace that lacked the gravitas of a program meant to assist the seriously injured and chronically ill: office drinking, ping pong, slushies and Netflix streaming at desks.
The VISP prepared this brochure to explain the process of applying and getting financial support to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines.
Global News
Bedford said those vaccine-injured people need help and rapid support.
“When you experience a sudden tragedy that rips your life apart, you need support within days or weeks. To have to wait months or years for a decision on financial help from the VISP is completely unacceptable,” he said.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s (VISP is) responsive enough,” he added. “It doesn’t feel like the primary goal is support.”
“It feels like the majority of the money is going to the (program) administration, and it doesn’t feel like there’s an organized process for getting the information, making a decision and getting the money out the door,” Bedford added.
Bedford revealed that members of the GBS Foundation were surprised and concerned when the Liberal government decided to outsource the program to Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Consulting Inc., now named Oxaro Inc.
“We were concerned internally when Oxaro or the subsidiary of Grant Thornton was named because there are public and private entities that have experience processing claims. And these are organizations that Canadians would know and have established processes for managing cases and making decisions on cases,” Bedford added.
“It was a surprise to us because, you know, there are household names that you could think of that process health benefit claims.”
Global News reported that one of the unsuccessful bidders was Green Shield Canada, a national health-claims benefit manager with more than 60 years in the business.
In its proposal to the government, Oxaro (at the time called RCGT Consulting Inc.), noted that its prior claims experience involved processing health insurance claims between 2012 and 2015 for a small regional insurer that became insolvent and entered a liquidation. It also runs a much smaller program for the government that hands out grants to the families of dead first reponders.
PHAC said that a six-person committee that reviewed proposals from four companies “unanimously” picked RCGT Consulting, over Green Shield and three companies.
PHAC says it is reviewing Oxaro’s five-year arrangement to administer VISP, which is up for renewal next year. A compliance audit was also launched last month after Global News started asking questions about Oxaro’s management of claims.
Want to contact us? Email andrew.mcintosh@globalnews.ca or carolyn.jarvis@globalnews.ca
The Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto kicks off with a full day of practices and qualifying this morning.
Headlined by an IndyCar Series race on Sunday, there’s a total of nine races from several series and a variety of automobile classes over the weekend.
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All of the races will take place around a street course that goes through Exhibition Place, along Lake Shore Boulevard, and then loops back through the fairgrounds in downtown Toronto.
Toronto’s Devlin DeFrancesco is the lone Canadian in the IndyCar field.
Colton Herta of the United States is the returning champion.
Admission is free today but fans are encouraged to make a donation to Make-A-Wish Canada.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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