Re Michael V. Patola, 2026 CanLII 26884

Ontario Review Board

Re: Michael V. Patola

ORB File No: 7634

Hearing held on: Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Place of Hearing: Providence Care Hospital

Pursuant to: Section 672.81(1) of the Criminal Code

Before:

Alternate Chairperson: Mr. J. Weinstein

Members: Dr. S. Hucker Dr. G. Kerry Ms. K. Weisbaum Mr. T. Wall

Parties Appearing:

Accused: Michael V. Patola Counsel: Mr. M. Rodé

Person in charge of hospital: Counsel: Ms. J. Szabo Representative: Dr. M. Chan

Attorney-General of Ontario: Counsel: Ms. R. Edward

REASONS FOR DISPOSITION

(Dated March 20, 2026)

Introduction:

1. On November 6, 2019, Mr. Michael V. Patola was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder, on charges of assault and failure to comply with probation(x4); all contrary to the Criminal Code of Canada. (“Criminal Code”).

2. Mr. Patola is subject to a Disposition of the Ontario Review Board (the “Board”), dated March 14, 2025, which discharged him from the Providence Care Hospital, Kingston (“Providence Care”), on conditions set out therein.

3. On March 4, 2026, the Board convened a hearing at Providence Care to conduct the annual review of the current Disposition.

4. Mr. Patola was present at the hearing and was represented by his counsel, Mr. Michael Rodé.

5. A Hospital Report, dated February 9, 2026 (the "Hospital Report"), was entered as Exhibit 1.

6. The issues at this hearing were whether Mr. Patola is a significant threat to public safety, as defined in s. 672.5401 of the Criminal Code, and if so, what is the necessary and appropriate Disposition in the circumstances, bearing in mind the factors enunciated in s. 672.54 of the Criminal Code.

7. For the reasons set out below and based on the expert evidence and opinions before us, the Board concluded that Mr. Patola continues to represent a significant threat to public safety. The Board found that the necessary and appropriate Disposition in the circumstances is a continuation of the current Conditional Discharge.

Psychiatric Diagnoses:

• Chronic Schizophrenia
• Substance Use Disorder
• Acquired Brain Injuries
• Social Anxiety combined with Dependent and Avoidant Personality Traits
• Tobacco Addiction

Position of the Parties

8. Counsel for the hospital, the Attorney-General, and Mr. Patola, advised that this was a joint submission. All agreed to the continuation of the existing Conditional Discharge Order.

9. Counsel for Mr. Patola advised that the issue of significant threat was not in dispute for the purposes of this hearing.

Index Offences

10. The circumstances giving rise to the Index Offences are extracted from last year’s Reasons and are as follows:

“On Friday, August 16, 2019, as a result of three earlier separate criminal court appearances, Mr. Patola was under various periods of probation supervision, all of which required him to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. That morning, at about 6:45 a.m., the adult female victim, was walking to her workplace on Princess Street. She observed Mr. Patola in the parking lot of 59 Bath Road, Kington. And as she approached the Garden Centre alley way, Mr. Patola began to walk toward her. He proceeded to walk toward her, even after she made a change of direction; he was yelling hysterically and showing a clenched fist. He approached her, to which she immediately put her hands up in a defensive manner and began pleading “I didn’t do anything to you.” Mr. Patola kept approaching the victim until he grabbed both of her hands. She was able to get free and flagged down a passing taxi.

At that time, Mr. Patola left the scene, the victim attended her workplace but she was too upset to work and her manager sent her home. Police officers were dispatched to the area. They met with the victim at her residence, and she gave them a description of the accused, including his clothing. She was not visibly injured but was visibly distraught, crying and shaking while giving her statement to the officers. Police then patrolled the area and at about 7:55 a.m., saw Mr. Patola, who matched the description just provided, including clothing. He was sitting in front of Circle “K” at the corner of Princess Street and University. He was identified by name and arrested. Subsequently, Mr. Patola was held in custody and ultimately, on September 4, 2019, was admitted to the Providence Care Hospital at Kingston, where he remains on inpatient status.”

Personal, Criminal, and Psychiatric Histories

11. Mr. Patola’s personal, criminal, and psychiatric histories are outlined in the Hospital Report, and they are accurately summarized in last year’s Reasons as follows:

“Mr. Patola has a longstanding history of alcohol use, dating to the age of 12. He reported that he was raised by "alcoholic parents" and underwent alcohol rehabilitation in Windsor, Ontario in 2003. Mr. Patola reported that he gave up alcohol and switched to using drugs, including crystal meth, which he had been doing intermittently for 10 years prior to the index offences. Mr. Patola also used tobacco, smoking approximately one pack of cigarettes per day for many years.

According to the Hospital Report (p. 15), Mr. Patola has 15 criminal convictions, beginning in 1997 (when he would have been approximately 19 years old). There is unfortunately no information as to the nature of these convictions or when the underlying offences occurred in relation to the time of the index offences. There is some indication (at p. 6 of the Hospital Report) of assaultive incidents in 2018 and 2019 leading to arrests, charges, and psychiatric admissions, including twice to the PCH Forensic Unit. However, there is no indication whether these incidents led to judicial findings.

Mr. Patola had extensive contact with mental health services, starting in May 2000, when he was 21 years of age. His frequent admissions to hospital largely consisted of worsening psychosis (auditory hallucinations), paranoid delusions, substance use (crystal meth) and nonadherence with medication. At times, prior to his admissions, Mr. Patola’s behaviour was aggressive, assaultive, and threatening towards unsuspecting members of the public.

At the time of the index offences, Mr. Patola was reportedly experiencing persecutory delusions which precipitated the assault. He had also been using crystal methamphetamine a few days prior to the incident.”

12. We can now update his criminal history as follows:

According to the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) report, included in the Hospital Report, Mr. Patola incurred his first criminal conviction at age 18 (1997-01-17). Since then, he has amassed a total of 16 criminal convictions across 10 sentencing dates and spanning 21 ½ years. The vast majority of these convictions (i.e., 14) occurred over a 2-year period (2017-05-04 to 2019-06-27). With respect to violent offences the CPIC lists four Assault convictions and one conviction for Uttering Threats. None of these convictions resulted in more than a 10-day period of incarceration and terms of probation. With respect to the latter, Mr. Patola’s CPIC lists 5 convictions for Fail to Comply with Probation Order. Noteworthy, his current offence occurred on August 16, 2019, approximately 49-days after he had been convicted of Assault (2019-06-27) and sentenced to 1-Day and 12-Months probation (60-Days Pre-Sentence Custody).

Course Since Last Disposition

13. Mr. Patola’s course since his last Disposition is set out in the Hospital Report. The following extracted paragraphs are relevant to this hearing:

“Mr. Patola is a 47-year-old single Kingston man who has been in NCR accused since November 2019. He made the transition to community living during the early years of the pandemic and has not required readmission. He enjoys his own apartment space and is well supported by our outpatient team.

Besides regular contact with his case manager, he attends the Smart Recovery Group programming at the outpatient location and attends AA meetings twice weekly in the community. He has struggled with alcohol cravings, especially going into grocery stores but has coped using behavioral techniques. His longstanding psychotherapy with Dr. Douglas focusing on CST approaches came to an end recently and she noted almost 140 hours of individual work. She also assisted him with anxiety management. Over the past year his anxiety has been manageable but can sometimes fluctuate and occasionally he would use lorazepam as needed. He is a chronic cigarette smoker and has had smoke breaks in the middle of the night when he wakes up. His sleeping has been unusual in that he goes to bed extremely early and then wakes up in the early hours of the morning. He has been working on going to bed later to shift the cycle.

He has been spending more time with his mother this past year, visiting her and also going on recreational outings together, for example bowling. He has moved away from the Jehovah's Witness contact as he felt they were judgmental of his smoking and desire to celebrate Christmas with his mom.

He has been enjoying attending the gym several times weekly at the YMCA. He socializes with other outpatients. And he is very pleased that he finally had his dentures installed in the fall last year boosting his sense of self. He has maintained contact with his family physician with no major physical issues.

His finances are managed by the PGT which has been a very beneficial arrangement for him.

Overall his mental state has been stable and occasionally hears voices, but he copes using behavioral techniques.”

Evidence at the Hearing

14. The Board had available to it the evidence and documents forming the Record, the Exhibits, and oral evidence from Dr. Chan. Dr. Chan co-authored the Hospital Report, and testified as follows:

a. Mr. Patola’s overall mental state has been stable. He occasionally experiences residual auditory hallucinations, but these are not clinically significant, and he manages them well using the cognitive techniques he has learned in therapy.

b. Mr. Patola’s medication regimen is optimized.

c. The primary ongoing risk factor is Mr. Patola’s exposure to negative peer influences. Specifically, there is one individual who was staying overnight at Mr. Patola’s house but now is visiting during the day. This person is a former forensic patient and is known to use stimulants. He sometimes brought drug paraphernalia and other drug users to Mr. Patola’s apartment, and he imposed himself on Mr. Patola’s kindness in housing him.

d. This forensic patient could represent a source of stress for Mr. Patola, possibly triggering a relapse into Mr. Patola using substances which would destabilize his mental health. Mr. Patola recognizes the risk of being associated with this one individual and is thus actively trying to set boundaries to prevent this individual from contacting him. Mr. Patola’s personality however, coupled with the persistence of this other individual, makes it very difficult for him not to partake in substance use.

e. Mr. Patola is highly engaged in his treatment; appreciates the care he receives and understands that he is in his best possible place right now.

f. A psychiatric destabilization, and an increase to risk to public safety is likely should there be any relapse; particularly involving alcohol or stimulants, given his history of substance abuse.

g. One of Mr. Patola’s strengths is that he can use avoidance strategies to prevent alcohol use. In addition, he has a very good therapeutic and open relationship with the treatment team to whom he reaches out when he is under stress or feels tempted to use substances.

15. In response to questions from the panel, Dr. Chan testified:

a. The following paragraphs (paragraphs 21 and 25) from last year’s Reasons for Disposition are still true today:

“ 21. During the past reporting year, Dr. Christine Rose conducted a review of her psychological risk assessment from 2023. In her review, she quoted the following risk scenarios from that earlier assessment:

Mr. Patola's case, there are two potential pathways to violence (hat warrant consideration. Firstly, a substantial increase in stress could overwhelm Mr. Patola's capacity for stress management, placing him at an increased risk of substance use lapse. A return to substance use would likely lead to behavioural disorganization that could compromise his ability to maintain medication compliance. Additionally, past substance use has served as a destabilizing factor for his psychotic disorder. On-going substance use and medication non-compliance are considered gateway risk factors that could likely lead to an exacerbation for psychotic symptoms. Psychotic symptoms are considered both a destabilizer and a disinhibitor. Severe symptoms would impair Mr. Patola's ability to monitor and control decisions making, as well as make him less likely to be influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic restraints against violence.

An additional pathway to violence would include an increase in psychotic symptoms, whether spontaneously or via medication non-compliance'. An increase in psychotic symptoms would impair Mr. Patola 's ability to monitor and make decisions regarding his se of substances as, in the past, he has reportedly used substances to cope with active symptoms. In the context of active symptoms and substance use, he would have more difficulty maintaining his medication compliance, further complicating the situation.

In both instances, increases in psychotic symptoms could contribute to increases in hostility and anger towards any person who becomes encompassed in his delusional beliefs. In the past, this has been individuals in close proximity to Mr. Patola who are the focus of auditory experiences or individuals who he perceives as getting in the way given goal. In this context he may attribute hostile intent to the individuals' behaviour, which would have a disinhibitory effect and make Mr. Patola more likely to behave in a manner seen in past offences (e.g., yelling, threatening, following the victim, placing hands on the victim).

25. Dr. Chan stated that at present, Mr. Patola's greatest risk factor involves substance use. In his opinion, if granted an Absolute Discharge, Mr. Patola would "drift off' from community support. Although Mr. Patola knows from his prior experience before the index offence that this would be "disastrous" for him, his engagement with friends who use substances over the past reporting year exemplifies the risk about which Dr. Chan is concerned. He adopted, in this regard, Dr. Rose's formulation, as follows, from p. 26 of the Hospital Report:

[Dr. Rose] recommends that Mr. Patola's treatment team consider the potential influence of negative peer associates on Mr. Patola's risk profile. This is in light of the risk enhancing situations described above. Staff may want to consider reviewing interpersonal effectiveness skills and assertiveness skills given that Mr. Patola voiced having difficulties "saying no" to peers in need. Additionally, it may be helpful to discuss the strategies Mr. Patola used to manage his substance use cravings/thoughts while in this risk enhancing situation. There is no evidence to suggest he experienced a relapse, which suggests some effective use of skills and provides some support for internalization of skills he has learned to date.”

b. The main concerns, as outlined in paragraphs 21 and 25 above, are how Mr. Patola reacts to stress from others. Negative peer influences, particularly from the one individual who takes advantage of Mr. Patola, coupled with the risk of Mr. Patola using substances, would lead to decompensation in his mental state.

c. These risk factors are currently managed under Mr. Patola’s current Disposition. He would represent a significant threat to public safety without it.

16. No other evidence was called.

Analysis and Conclusions:

17. Having heard and considered the entirety of the evidence as well as the submissions from the parties, the Board agrees with the joint submission: Mr. Patola remains a significant threat to the safety of the public.

18. In Winko, the Supreme Court outlined that, in coming to the conclusion on the issue of significant risk, a Review Board should closely examine a range of evidence, including: the circumstances of the original offence; the past and expected course of the accused’s treatment; the present state of the NCR accused’s medical condition; the NCR accused’s own plans for the future; the support existing for the NCR accused in the community; and most importantly, the recommendations provided by experts who examined the NCR accused. In coming to our conclusion in this matter, the Board relies on the uncontroverted expert evidence of Dr. Chan, in addition to the documentary evidence before us.

19. Dr. Chan confirmed that paragraphs 21 and 25 from last year’s Reasons are still true today. It is not necessary to repeat them as they are contained in these Reasons and adequately summarize why Mr. Patola remains a significant threat to public safety. Dr. Chan confirmed that Dr. Christine Rose’s psychological risk assessment is still applicable today.

20. In consideration of all the evidence, submissions of the parties and criteria set forth in s. 672.54, the paramount consideration being the safety of the public, in addition to the mental condition of Mr. Patola, his reintegration into society and his other needs, the necessary and appropriate Disposition is to continue with his Conditional Discharge Order.

DATED this 20th day of March 2026, at the City of Toronto, in the Region of Toronto.

Mr. J. Weinstein Alternate Chairperson

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Office of the Registrar Ontario Review Board