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Toronto Sun
19 hours ago
- Automotive
- Toronto Sun
Auto theft sees sharp drop in first half of 2025, industry association says
Published Jul 28, 2025 • 3 minute read Équité Association reports auto thefts are down 19.1 per cent year over year in the first half of 2025. Shipping containers are moved in the Port of Montreal, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. Photo by Christinne Muschi / The Canadian Press OTTAWA — The pace of auto theft is dropping in Canada thanks to collective efforts to crack down on thieves, says an industry group focused on insurance fraud and crime. 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. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. 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 Don't have an account? Create Account Equite Association said in a report released Monday that the number of vehicles reported stolen nationally dropped 19.1 per cent in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Just over 23,000 vehicles were reported stolen in the first six months of the year in Canada, the report said. The decline is particularly stark in Ontario and Quebec, which saw annual drops of 25.9 per cent and 22.2 per cent, respectively. The year-over-year drops are more modest in Atlantic Canada and Western Canada at roughly nine per cent. Alberta saw a decline of 12.5 per cent. Bryan Gast, national vice-president of investigative services at Equite Association, credits greater public awareness of the threat and efforts by various levels of government and law enforcement agencies to collectively tackle the problem. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. 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. 'It's really definitely a collaborative effort,' he said. Gast said law enforcement agencies in Ontario and Quebec in particular have stepped up enforcement with police units dedicated to vehicle theft. So far this year, residents of Ontario and Quebec have reported 9,600 and 3,889 vehicle thefts respectively — high numbers that Gast attributed to the provinces' larger populations and proximity to the Port of Montreal. With 4,411 vehicles reported stolen over the first half of 2025, Gast said Alberta continues to lead the country in auto theft on a per-capita basis. Statistics Canada data released earlier this week confirms national progress on the file. The agency reported a 17 per cent annual drop in the rate of police-reported motor vehicle thefts, down to 239 incidents per 100,000 people last year. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In 2023, the number of auto thefts had increased 40 per cent over the historic low recorded in 2020, StatCan said. That trend came to a head last year when the federal government convened a summit in February to address car thefts. Ottawa followed up by giving the Canada Border Services Agency millions of dollars in new funding to track vehicles leaving through the country's ports, after having given Ontario $121 million in January of that year to tackle gang crime and auto thefts. Gast said some of the progress can likely be attributed to Canadians' heightened awareness of the issue. 'Now I think you can talk to anybody and, if their car hasn't been stolen, they know somebody's car that has been stolen,' he said. 'I think they are taking those precautions and some of those steps to make their vehicle less of a target.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Vehicle recovery rates also rose 3.4 percentage points year over year to 56.5 per cent in the first half of 2025, Equite Association said. The organization said that was nearing the 'pre-crisis' level of 57.2 per cent recorded in 2021. Despite progress on vehicle theft, the Insurance Bureau of Canada warned it's still a 'significant concern' and 'far from the only factor contributing to rising auto insurance costs.' 'A combination of inflation, tariffs, rising repair and vehicle replacement costs, legal pressures, and regulatory challenges are driving rates up across the country,' the bureau said in a media statement. Tariffs on vehicle parts are driving up the costs of repairs and replacement cars, the bureau noted. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Gast said that while it's not clear yet, tariffs might be playing a role in the increase Equite Association is seeing in domestic chop shops and vehicle parts being sent overseas. He said that whenever there's a disruption to supply chains _ like the one that made semiconductor inputs a hot commodity during the COVID-19 pandemic — the criminal element tends to adapt to meet that demand. While he's encouraged by the progress Canada has posted to date in tamping down auto theft, he said now is not the time to let up. 'Don't consider the problem solved,' he said. 'To keep it manageable and the numbers trending in the right direction, I think we still need to focus on it.' Canada Editorial Cartoons Sunshine Girls Relationships Editorials
Toronto Sun
5 days ago
- Politics
- Toronto Sun
Housing illegal migrants cost Canada $1.1 billion since 2017
Temporary housing program for asylum seekers extended to 2027, thanks to additional $1.1 billion set aside in Budget 2024 Asylum seekers talk to a police officer as they cross into Canada from the U.S. border near a checkpoint on Roxham Road near Hemmingford, Quebec, April 24, 2022. REUTERS/Christinne Muschi OTTAWA — Canada has spent over $1 billion dollars to house migrants who illegally crossed into Canada from the U.S., according to a government departmental bulletin. That's on top of the $1.1 billion set aside in the 2024 federal budget to extend the program housing to these so-called 'irregular border crossers' in Canadian hotels until 2027. Canada experienced a flood of illegal border crossings in 2017, thanks to changes in U.S. immigration policy under then-U.S. President Donald Trump, and further encouraged by a January 2017 tweet from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, ostensibly rolling out the welcome mat to migrants around the world to enter Canada by any means necessary. 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. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. 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 Don't have an account? Create Account To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 28, 2017 Roxham Rd. a Quebec street about 50 kilometres south of Montreal that dead-ends at the Canada-U.S. border, became a focal point of this international exodus, with U.S.-based taxi and transportation companies offering dedicated routes to the illegal crossing for scores of suitcase-toting migrants. Housing these migrants became the responsibility of dozens of Canadians cities and towns while they awaited refugee hearings. In June 2018, former Toronto mayor John Tory said the influx of asylum seekers quickly overwhelmed city's capacity to care for them, with many taking up valuable space in homeless shelters or living on the street. The $1.1 billion to house these migrants was made available through the federal governments' Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP,) designed to provide funding to provinces and cities. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Ontario received $640.2 million through the program, while Quebec got $440.9 million. Recommended video While a government website listing numbers of illegal migrants was 'down for maintenance' at press time, online web archives from earlier this month show 114,251 refugee claims made between Feb 2017 and March 2025. Of those, 53,856 claims were accepted, 26,377 were rejected, 2,957 claims were abandoned, and 7,119 were withdrawn. The IHAP program has been extended until 2027, thanks for an additional $1.1 billion set aside in Canada's 2024 budget. Migrants were also housed in federally-funded hotel rooms since 2020, money on top of the IHAP funding. The City of Toronto received $40 million from Ottawa to increase their migrant capacity in the 2024-25 fiscal year, while Peel Region netted $22 million. Around 4,500 migrants, largely in Ontario, are being housed in federally-funded accommodations, as of last October. IHAP funding in this fiscal year amounts to around $543.4 million, as listed in the federal government's latest supplementary estimates disclosures. bpassifiume@ X: @bryanpassifiume Sports Golf Canada Columnists Columnists
Forbes
19-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Corporate Memory Drives Purpose, Culture And Employee Engagement
Yolaine Toussaint, archivist for the Bank of Montreal, stands in front of paintings on display at ... More the bank's museum in Old Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Friday, May 12, 2017. In the basement of Bank of Montreal's head office stands one of Canada's oldest corporate archives. Among the treasures are about 1,120 pieces of currency, 18,500 photos, 9,800 documents, more than 1,370 films, VHS tapes and recordings, and about 1,290 artifacts including the most prized possession: the Articles of Association of the Montreal Bank. Photographer: Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg What Does It Mean for a Company to Remember? Not just to store data or precious artefacts, but to understand what shaped it. To carry forward purpose, beliefs, stories and struggles that still echo in decisions made today. Gallup's global research shows that only 30 percent of employees strongly agree that their organization's mission makes their job feel important. When employees can't connect their work to something lasting, the purpose feels abstract. More slogan than story. Purpose becomes powerful when it becomes shared memory. When people know they've left fingerprints on the company's story. When the arc of the organization includes their voice or their decision. That connection doesn't come from messaging. It comes from remembering together. I recently spoke with corporate archivists and historians at two iconic companies—IBM and Marriott—about how their organizations preserve memory. These weren't discussions about storage. They were conversations about continuity. About how memory lives when employees see themselves in it. Purpose As Shared Memory, Not Stored History Most people still picture archives as locked rooms, brittle documents or carefully preserved artefacts behind glass. But corporate memory is not a museum. It is a strategic, cultural resource that belongs in everyday work. 'Archives aren't about looking backward,' said Jamie Martin, Corporate Archivist at IBM. 'We help people use the past to understand what's happening now. Sometimes that means a marketing team wants to revisit a campaign from decades ago. Sometimes it's a product team looking into how a new category was developed. Sometimes it's a legal team trying to trace a long-standing relationship or innovation history. We're here to keep the memory functional.' That functionality isn't just operational. It is emotional. It reinforces identity. It preserves culture. It lets employees see that they're building on something that matters. In the age of digital overflow, corporate memory isn't about collecting everything. It's about discernment. As Jamie explained, deciding what makes it into the archive is a little bit of art and a little bit of science. Not everything should be saved. But the right things must be. At Marriott, archivist and historian Katie Dishman offered a similar view. 'There's something powerful about reading a founder's handwriting,' she said, referring to the journals of J.W. Marriott Sr., which span from the 1920s into the early 1980s. 'They show what he struggled with, what he paid attention to, and how ideas like service and employee care were developed. That voice still shows up in conversations today.' Katie explained that selecting what enters the archive isn't just about historical curiosity. It's about future utility. 'I try to think historically about what people in the future might need to know or find useful for various projects.' That mindset makes memory a forward-looking asset, not just a backward glance. In both organizations, the archive is not separate from employee experience. It supports onboarding, shapes leadership messaging and gives cultural rituals a lineage. Purpose Lives In Memory Some of the most influential knowledge inside organizations is never recorded. It's passed along in team meetings, embedded in rituals or remembered in hallway stories. These are the quiet artifacts. Moments, phrases, instincts. They may be undocumented, but they are often more defining than official content. 'Storytelling is a big part of what we do,' said Jamie. 'Some of the most valuable context comes from conversations. You see people light up when they realize a challenge they're facing today was already being worked on in the 1950s. It gives them a sense of belonging in something bigger.' Jamie also told me how at IBM they use oral histories to help fill in the gaps in the historic record and to bring in personal perspective. Katie echoed the same pattern. 'As archivist, I'm often asked to provide examples from history to help reinforce a leadership message or support onboarding. It's not just about the facts. It's about how those values were shaped over time. That's what people respond to.' One of her favorite resources is the collection of old company newsletters. 'They're a good source of showing how a company was run and how it has changed,' she said. 'They're also full of photos that capture culture in a way words sometimes don't.' It's a reminder that what feels small in the moment often becomes what's remembered. Organizational culture is sustained through repetition and story. Preserving memory is not about freezing the past. It's about retelling it in ways that help people see where they fit and where the company is headed next. The Risk Of Outsourcing Meaning As artificial intelligence becomes more common in corporate workflows, there's a growing temptation to treat memory as another system to automate. AI can summarize meetings, auto-tag documents and simulate timelines. But machine memory can't carry emotional memory. The danger isn't just that AI may misrepresent the past. It may present it too cleanly. Real memory has contradictions. Doubt. Hesitation. Texture. It's not tidy. It's not supposed to be. Katie told me she prints digital reports not out of habit, but precaution. 'I tend to err on the side of caution,' she said. 'You want to make sure the materials still exist years from now, even if the platform doesn't.' Jamie is pragmatic about where AI fits. 'There are ways AI can help. Organizing, sorting, tagging. But the meaning, the value, the emotional nuance? That still needs a person.' Sometimes, when purpose feels diluted, the most clarifying move is to return to the source. Jamie described how IBM's founding documents—some kept in foot-high boxes—still inspire awe. They are more than records. They are reminders of original intent. If memory becomes too technical, it risks losing the one thing that makes it purposeful. Its ability to hold something human. Participatory Memory Builds Engagement Gallup's research continues to show that purpose becomes powerful when it's personal. Employees don't just want a mission to believe in. They want one they helped shape. Real engagement happens when people see how their work is part of the organization's evolution. This is participatory memory. It's when employees are invited to contribute stories, reflect on milestones or share how past decisions shaped current outcomes, they don't just absorb history. They become part of it. Organizations that treat archiving as a living function, not a technical task, are preserving more than content. They are preserving meaning. They are creating space for people to say, I helped build this. That's how purpose becomes shared memory. And how culture becomes something worth belonging to. Six Ways To Build Shared Memory Here are six ways to build memory as a strategic, cultural practice: Purpose That Carries Forward The most enduring purpose is not one that is declared. It is one that is carried. Memory, when activated, gives people a place inside the organization's long story. Not just as observers, but as participants. And when employees feel that, they stay engaged. They care differently. They lead with more clarity. Purpose lives through shared memory. It shows up in how we connect the past to the work of today. It moves when people carry it forward, not because they were told to, but because they believe they're part of what comes next.
Toronto Sun
18-07-2025
- Toronto Sun
Jane Creba killer granted full parole 7 months before Montreal shooting
Published Jul 18, 2025 • Last updated 0 minutes ago • 1 minute read An SPVM police vehicle is seen in Montreal, Aug. 29, 2024. Photo by Christinne Muschi / THE CANADIAN PRESS MONTREAL — The man convicted in the 2005 Toronto Boxing Day murder of a 15-year-old was granted full parole in January after being assessed as having a 76 per cent chance of recidivism. 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. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. 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 Don't have an account? Create Account Seven months after getting parole, 43-year-old Jeremiah Valentine faces one count of first-degree murder in the killing of Abdeck Kenedith Ibrahim. The 33-year-old Ibrahim was gunned down in a downtown Montreal square around 12:45 a.m. Tuesday. In 2009, Valentine pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for 12 years in the 2005 shootout in downtown Toronto between rival gangs that killed 15-year-old Jane Creba. In its decision granting parole, the Parole Board of Canada says an August 2021 psychological assessment of Valentine indicated he had the highest level of risk — a 76 per cent chance of recidivism over a period of five years after release. However, the parole board says he made 'observable and measurable' change in prison, adding that his release will 'contribute to the protection of society.' Read More MMA Sunshine Girls Celebrity Tennis Toronto & GTA
Toronto Star
17-07-2025
- General
- Toronto Star
Couche-Tard shares climb after walking away from 7-Eleven offer
A Couche-Tard sign is seen in Montreal, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. Christinne Muschi/ The Canadian Press flag wire: true flag sponsored: false article_type: : sWebsitePrimaryPublication : publications/toronto_star bHasMigratedAvatar : false :
