Free Republic

Police in Canada are promising a break-through in their long-running investigation into the country's biggest gold heist after four men were indicted in the US. More than $20 million worth of gold bars were stolen from an Air Canada cargo depot at Toronto Pearson Airport in April 2023, just minutes after they landed from Switzerland. Canadian police believe that the men arrested for a cross-border gun-smuggling ring were involved and will announce details at a press conference on Wednesday morning, a year to the day since the theft. Durante King-Mclean, 25, Prasath Paramalingam, 34, and Archit Grover, 36, all from...

A Canadian reporter for one of the northern nation's only conservative media outfits was arrested Sunday and carted away for doing his job faithfully on public property. Rebel News reporter David Menzies, who local and federal officials appear keen to shut up and lock away, confirmed to Blaze News that he was charged for alleged breach of the peace and trespassing for daring to pose questions to anti-Israel protesters outside Toronto City Hall. Menzies indicated that he will be suing the Toronto Police Service over this incident just as he is suing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for a similarly...

Critics are blasting a "rain tax" Toronto is proposing to charge homeowners, Newsweek reported. City officials are proposing to hit homeowners with a "stormwater charge" according to how much their properties' water runoff would impact the storm sewer system, the magazine said, adding that it's an attempt to encourage citizens to keep grass and plants on their properties rather than paving outdoor square footage. Newsweek, citing Toronto city authorities, said the charge would be based on each property's hard surface area, including roofs, driveways, parking lots, and other concrete landscaping. "Stormwater is rain and melted snow. When not absorbed into...

With car thefts at an all-time high in Toronto, some people are resorting to installing retractable bollards in their driveways — vertical posts to physically prevent their vehicles from being stolen. According to the Toronto Police Service’s major crimes indicators dashboard, car thefts increased by 25.4 per cent in 2022. Insp. Paul Rinkoff described it as a “dramatic surge” in the city’s auto theft crisis over the past few years, with the number of vehicles stolen this year already skyrocketing. “When you compare 2020 to 2023, we saw an increase of 54 per cent in relation to auto theft,” he...

Two Toronto-area hospitals welcomed five leap day babies on Thursday, Feb. 29. Trillium Health Partners, which operates Credit Valley Hospital where the babies were delivered, shared images of the bundles of joy who were born on the rare date. “Feb. 29, also known as Leap Day, only comes around once every four years, which makes for a very unique birthdate,” the hospital network, which also runs Mississauga Hospital and the Queensway Health Centre, said in a post on social media. SNIP

Whenever Dennis Wilson wants to take a drive in his new SUV, he has to set aside an extra 15 minutes. That’s about how long it takes to remove the car’s steering wheel club, undo four tire locks and lower a yellow bollard before backing out of his driveway. His Honda CR-V is also fitted with two alarm systems, a vehicle tracking device and, for good measure, four Apple AirTags. Its remote-access key fob rests in a Faraday bag, to jam illicit unlocking signals. As a final touch, he mounted two motion-sensitive floodlights on his house and aimed them at...

Residents in Toronto are hiding their cars in secret locations and hideouts with round-the-clock security to combat the city's out-of-control car theft. The revelation, reported by The New York Times, comes weeks after federal liberals announced a national summit aimed at addressing the nationwide issue. The publication spoke to collectors who have taken to storing luxury cars in compounds with hired guards and dogs at night, only to still have them burglarized.

This is the shocking moment five transgender players hijack a women's college volleyball game in Canada. Footage showed the five athletes 'dominate' a women's volleyball match between Seneca College and Centennial College in Toronto on on January 24. The biologically male athletes were seen smashing the ball past their female teammates. The controversial players each stayed on the court for the entire game - while the biologically female players were substituted on and off the bench. This is the shocking moment five transgender players hijack a women's college volleyball game in Canada. Footage showed the five athletes 'dominate' a women's...

Residents are speaking out about the impact of the tobogganing ban on 45 hills across Toronto. East Lynn Park was one of the parks that was assessed using the city’s toboggan hill inspection program, which was implemented in 2017. The process deemed the park unsafe due to “several permanent obstacles and safety hazards onsite, including a staircase, wading pool, field house building, light poles and trees.” Nearby residents say tobogganing on this hill has been popular for decades and say that hay bales and fences are usually put up to make it safer, but not this year. Jack, a neighbourhood...

Olivia Chow, the communist mayor says that to close the $2B annual budget shortfall of Tronna, they must jack up taxes. Forget cutting spending, just continue to tax the hell out of everyone!!!! Well, that’s communism for you.

Police chief Myron Demkiw said man charged with public incitement of hatred during weekend demonstrationA Toronto man has been charged with public incitement of hatred after police allege he held a "terrorist flag" during a demonstration last weekend. Police say the 41-year-old man allegedly waved a flag of "an organization listed as a terrorist group by Public Safety Canada" while marching through the city's downtown on Sunday. Speaking at a Toronto Police Services Board meeting, police Chief Myron Demkiw called the charge "unprecedented," noting the "very high threshold" to charge anyone with a hate propaganda offence. Demkiw has not confirmed...

Toronto residents could see a hefty 10.5% property tax hike as a result of this year’s budget deliberations, which will take place over the coming weeks. City Councillor Shelley Carroll, who is also budget chief for the City, confirmed the proposed increase on Wednesday morning. Prior to today, Carroll had only hinted at the increase, telling reporters earlier this week that it would be “substantial.” The proposed hike is higher than the city has seen in several years. For some context, former Toronto Mayor John Tory raised the property tax rate by just 2.9% in 2022 and by 5.5% in...

Police in Toronto, Canada, were filmed Saturday bringing coffee to anti-Israel protesters who blocked a road in a predominantly Jewish residential neighborhood. The protest took place on the Avenue Road Bridge of Highway 401, closing a major access point to Armour Heights. Police shut down the junction. Twitter link.

Toronto police have responded to a now-viral video showing officers delivering coffee to an anti-Israel protester during a recent demonstration. The video, initially shared on X by lawyer and investigative journalist Caryma Sa’d, shows a Toronto police officer carrying a box of Tim Hortons coffee and cups and handing them to protesters. The recipient, dressed in Palestinian garb, explains the delivery was not sent by the police, but someone else who bought the coffee for the protesters attempting an anti-Israel demonstration on a highway overpass. "But police won’t let them in, so the police is now becoming our little messengers...

The minister of a church in Kensington Market says she’s “heartbroken” and “extremely anxious” for those staying at an encampment there after receiving word that the city intends to evict its residents and clear the site on Friday morning. Rev. Canon Maggie Helwig of St. Stephen-In-The-Field Anglican Church on Bellevue Avenue told CP24 that the City of Toronto’s Encampment Office informed them on Wednesday night that it plans to remove the makeshift camp, which is located on a small plot of private and city-owned land just west of the church, sometime between 7 and 9 a.m. on Friday. “We have...

A lawsuit offers a glimpse into the victim’s view of the April heist, though the case remains unsolved.. For six months, the disappearance of $17.2 million in gold bars and cash from a warehouse at Toronto Pearson International Airport has remained a mystery. Now a lawsuit has given the public a glimpse into the victim’s view of the heist. ... While the case remains unsolved, a lawsuit has now filled in several of the blanks surrounding the robbery with still unproven allegations. The lawsuit was brought by Brink’s, the armored car company hired to move the cash and gold bars...

Long before the rest of us were talking about blue and red America, Tom Wolfe not only recognized the cultural divide; he bridged it. When he began his career in the 1960s, the liberal establishment was more dominant and even smugger than it is today. There were no pesky voices on cable television or the web to challenge the Eastern elites’ hold on the national media. Then along came Wolfe, a lone voice celebrating the hinterland’s culture, mercilessly skewering the pretensions and dogmas of New York’s intelligentsia—and somehow triumphing. How did he get away with it? The most entertaining analysis...

A Toronto school board and an education minister announced they are launching investigations Thursday into a professional development training after a former principal died by suicide following a lawsuit in which he alleged emotional distress from antiracist trainings and the fallout that followed. The sessions included concepts from critical race theory. Before his death, Richard Bilkszto, a 60-year-old former principal, sued the Toronto District School Board for emotional distress after he attended a training where he was accused of being a racist. Bilkszto alleged in his lawsuit that Kike Ojo-Thompson – who runs an equity firm called the KOJO Institute...

This story was already being cited as cause for concern about corporate DEI training even before last week when it took an even darker turn. Earlier this month the National Post reported that retired Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto was suing the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) over the treatment he received during diversity training sessions.It all began with a DEI course for TDSB administrators that started in April 2021. DEI trainer Kike Ojo-Thompson (the CEO of the KOJO Institute) led a series of sessions for TDSB higher-ups in which she made a number of familiar progressive arguments, according to Bilkszto’s...

The Toronto Police Service (TPS) is shutting down the licensed bar inside its downtown headquarters that’s served senior officers mostly below the radar for more than 30 years, after a possible connection to a superintendent’s drunk driving crash. A memo went out to all civilian and uniformed senior officers recently that police chief Myron Demkiw’s office has decided not to renew the licence for the bar, which did not serve the rank and file but senior officers could access as a perk. A TPS spokesperson confirmed the move. “The Chief’s Office, in consultation with the Executive Officer Lounge Committee, notified...