People have had it with crime after latest LCBO heist: Ford

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Doug Ford held up a copy of the Toronto Sun at the end of his news conference on Wednesday and went on a rant about crime.

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Ontario’s premier had been making an announcement about Hwy. 413 contracts being awarded and was asked questions about that, tariffs, the American booze ban and more.

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But he wasn’t asked about Joe Warmington’s story on a brazen robbery of an LCBO outlet in Kitchener, which saw thieves make off with more than $8,000 in booze, much of it high-priced scotch.

“Did you see these characters on the news last night that went into the LCBO up in Kitchener? They’re brazen bunch of crooks,” Ford said off the top during his rant.

“We’ve got to catch these guys and throw them in jail. They just do not care. They go in there. They start loading up, loading up and loading up. And you know what’s ironic? It’s the taxpayers money, the LCBO, and so they’re stealing off the taxpayers.”

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The four men who carried out the heist didn’t even hide their faces as someone recorded them, while also being told the video was going up live.

Theft at LCBO locations have gone from people walking in and stealing a bottle or two for themselves to organized gangs targeting hooch. In April 2024, two men robbed an LCBO in Bowmanville, left in a U-Haul van and then drove the wrong way down Hwy. 401. That incident ended in a fiery crash that killed an infant and two grandparents visiting from india.

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The driver of the getaway vehicle also died in the crash, but Manpreet Singh Gill, 38, was sentenced to 5 1/2 months for his role in the deadly crash.

Gill was on probation when the crash happened, while his accomplice who died in the crash, Gagandeep Singh, was out on bail. At the sentencing hearing, the judge warned Gill could face immigration consequences for his actions.

A light sentence for being part of a robbery and crash that killed a three-month-old and his grandparents and no sign that he has been deported despite the warning from the judge.

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During the incident at the Kitchener LCBO over the weekend, there did not appear to be any violence. That’s unlike many other LCBO robberies documented on video or the videos of jewelry stores facing smash and grabs like the one we saw in North York over the weekend.

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Ford says he is fed up with all of it.

“People are at their peak with this violence, I mean, with the violence, but the criminality and they’re just at their wit’s end that the judges keep letting people out on bail,” Ford said.

Bail reform is desperately needed and the Carney government in Ottawa has promised something this fall.

“I will be all over the prime minister about bail reform,” Ford said.

Ford has been on the federal Liberals – first Justin Trudeau and now Mark Carney – for years on the issue of bail reform and it has mostly fallen on deaf ears. Hopefully, this time they get the message and close the loopholes they created with the passage of Bill C-75.

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The Liberals passed C-75 in 2019 and promised it was a way to modernize the bail process and bring equity to the system.

That bill instructed judges and justices of the peace who are hearing bail cases to “give primary consideration to the release of the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions.” The province may administer the justice system, especially at this level, but it is the federal government setting the rules that everyone must follow.

Judges and JPs who deny bail are often overturned by judges appointed by the Trudeau government, especially by Trudeau’s former justice minister David Lametti, who is now Carney’s principal secretary. We need tougher sentences, we need bail reform, we need to take crime seriously so that unmasked men don’t think it’s OK to steal $8,000 worth of booze from an LCBO store.

The problem is, with the team Carney has surrounded himself with, we are unlikely to see change no matter how much his best buddy Ford asks for it.

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