The Ben Mulroney Show - A Deep Dive into the Tow Truck War that no one has been able to stop

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Guests and Topics: A Deep Dive into the Tow Truck War that no one has been able to stop Guest: Clayton Campbell , President of the Toronto Police Association Guest: Hank Idsinga, 640 Toronto’s Crime Specialist, former police inspector If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for spending a bit of your day with us. We are going to do a, take an in-depth look at the tow truck war that has been gripping the City of Toronto for years now. But before we start, first let's welcome our guests to the show, Clayton Campbell, president

of the Toronto Police Association, and Hank Itzinga, 640 Toronto's crime specialist and former police inspector. To the both of you, thank you so much for taking time out of your day, because this is an important issue that should be top of mind for so many Torontonians. Good morning, Ben. Let's get into the conversation that I really wanted to have today, and that's about this tow truck

where a lot of people we've heard about it, we've sort of, some of us maybe chuckled, and it reminded us of the Sopranos and the waste management situation of Tony Soprano, but this is a very serious issue. I mean, we saw we saw what happened in Scarborough on Friday night. A lot of people are believe believe heavily and strongly that this was evidence of the

tow truck war. There have been 15 tow truck related shootings so far this year, representing 70% of shootings in the city so far. 63 tow truck related shootings in 2024. That was nearly 15% of all shooting incidents. Hank, this is, I mean, this seems like a problem we should have under control or we should be all over. But when we saw it happen on Friday night, doesn't feel like it's under control at all. You know, Ben, I started with the police service in 1989, and it was a problem back then, and it's a problem now,

and it's only gotten exponentially worse. So it's tough to imagine the amount of criminality that hides behind this legitimate industry, but it's been happening for a long time, and it involves not just the front end, really, if you look at the criminal opportunities from what their core services, which is towing vehicles, everything from body shop referrals to insurance scams

to car rental scams, that's the tip of the iceberg. And that's a moneymaker. But then we get into the drug dealing, the gun running, that tow truck drivers have been arrested and charged with in the past. And you can see that it creates a real problem, especially when you have active criminals getting into the tow truck business

for the sake of promoting their criminal enterprise. And that's the problem. And we've seen again and again over the years, multiple projects, multiple task force focusing on the tow truck industry and it seems like they make some small dents and then everything rebounds again. So it's something that really needs to be stayed on top of across the entire province and the GTA and some assets have to be put into combating this problem. 24-7, not just a temporary task force,

but an ongoing task force. I mean, I'm looking at some of the sort of the high level crimes that are associated with the tow truck industry. You've got insurance fraud, money laundering, theft, racketeering, corruption, bribery, price gouging, consolidation of criminal control or territory. Clayton, if you had a magic wand to police this problem effectively, what's the fastest way to clean up this industry?

Yeah, I think we're lucky we have an amazing unit, our gang gun unit. There's four teams on that one shooting in Scarborough. And I think we come back to it when our members, and I say when, because they're amazing and they're gonna track these people down, put them in jail and keep them in jail. These videos that I'm aware of, where essentially someone walks into this pub with what looks like an AK-47 and open fire

into these poor people that are there just in the pub. Yeah, if bad guys are shooting bad guys, that's one thing, but when you come in and you terrorize our community and put our members in severe jeopardy, the first responding officer believed it was an active attacker still and putting their lives on the line to protect the public is fine. But when these things spread into the community and cause this terror, I think the biggest thing is when they're arrested, throw them in jail and don't let them back out.

It seems to me, and I'll allow either one of you to answer this, that this marks what it feels to me like a massive escalation in violence. Like you said, this was innocent people at a pub. This wasn't tow truck on tow truck violence that you could say, okay, well, at least one bad guy's hurting another bad guy. And this to me seems like a ratcheting up of the violence that requires a commensurate ratcheting up of attention from our police services.

Yeah, I can say I agree with you, Ben, and always the concern is some sort of retaliation in some other place and some innocent, thank God, out of all those people, all those rounds and the blood and the shell casings in that bar that no one was killed. But there's repercussions that are going to be felt in other places potentially. And God forbid an innocent citizen is caught in the crossfire. I guess what I'm trying to square in my own head is we know who these people are. I have to assume that there's a licensing process.

So we have their business addresses. Why has this festered for 20 years? Why hasn't it been tamped down? I think a lot of people are wondering, look, we know where the tow trucks are, and we know where the criminal element is. This isn't like drug dealers hiding in a community, honeycombing themselves in an apartment complex.

We literally know where these businesses are located. Hank? Yeah, sorry, I didn't know who you were directing that one to, Ben. You know, first off, I should delineate the linkage between the tow truck industry and that mass shooting. I don't think anyone's ever established that evidentiary based yet. That came out of social media. It very well might be the case, but until we see why this pub was targeted and whether there is a specific target in that pub, I think it's a little early to

make that link. But you know, let's roll with that and let's look at, again, the task force issue when it comes to these tow truck businesses. And you nailed it with your first outline. I mean, this isn't just a firearms investigation. This is a fraud investigation. This is a drug investigation. It's firearms trafficking and the attraction of the criminal element into the industry where obviously there's some issues

with some of the background checks that are being done to employ some of these folks into the tow truck industry. So all of these things should be addressed, can be addressed, but it takes money, it takes personnel and as you know, police services right now are really hard up for attracting people and getting those people trained and retaining those people. So that becomes a core issue as well. Where do we start? Do we start with a provincial run task force headed up by the OPP?

Well, the OPP, as we saw last year, just gave 200 officers to border security. Where are we going to draw the officers on who have the investigative know-how and the investigative prowess to make a dent into this industry who are going to be able to cover off all of those issues such as fraud and firearms and drugs. That's a tough ask, and you really need the personnel available to be able to do that. Well, and that would be my next question, Clayton. Has this been and is it the priority that it probably should be for TPS, given the violence and given sort of the myriad other knock on criminal behaviors that we see. Does the Toronto Police Service have the budget and the manpower and the boots on the ground

to tackle this head on and cut the beast off at its head? The short answer is no. And that's why it's so important that we keep hiring in the City of Toronto. Hank mentioned, rightfully so, there is a multi-year hiring plan to bring more officers in. I know it's always, you know, let's create some amazing task force to do it, but there has to be individuals that do it.

When we create task force or redeploy people to protests or other type of violence or gang offence or drug offences or child pornography, you can name it, we're taking those resources away from somewhere. So it's so important that we keep hiring to bring our ranks up to numbers that we need. But the bigger thing is we need to also retain those officers. I talked about it earlier, we could only attract in the last class of 90 of this multi-year hiring plan, 76. So we're already 14 behind starting this year. And we've also seen that 61% of the people that have left

our service resigned. They haven't retired. They've resigned. And over half of those have gone to other police services. We need to make sure we can retain these highly qualified officers to do these investigations or we're going to be in big trouble. Clayton Campbell, Hank and Zynga, thank you so much for giving us the lay of the land. We appreciate it. Thank you so much, man. Welcome back to the show,

and it's time to take your calls at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. Let's level set about the tow truck war. Yes, we are speculating that the violence that erupted in Scarborough, where 12 people were injured in a mass shooting, was directly related to the corruption inside the tow truck industry.

But let's just assume that that is the case. And no, this is not a conversation about how every tow truck driver in the city of Toronto is a criminal. They are good and hardworking Torontonians trying to provide for their families, but there is an element, a criminal element within that industry. And that is what we are talking about today. I want to hear from you. Are you upset or frustrated that this continues? How do you feel living in Scarborough today? Have you been witnessed to or have you availed yourself of a tow truck in the city of Toronto

on one of our highways? And did you did you feel intimidated? Were you a subject to price gouging? Let me know your thoughts. 416-870-6400, 1-888-225-TALK. And I do want to point out as well that in our previous segment, we were talking to a couple of experts about the city response to something like this. But of course, the province has a role to play as well. And I was talking with somebody inside the Ontario government

who said there was a task force. They brought forth legislation that requires the tow truck drivers to be licensed. It had never happened before in Ontario. It did tamp down on violence for a few years, but then something happened and the gangs sort of ratcheted things up. Why don't we listen to Doug Ford, the Ontario premier,

about how he sees the lay of the land and what needs to happen moving forward. These tow truck drivers, a message to you, it has to come to an end. You're putting the community in danger, flying bullets around, we're gonna catch you, you're gonna go to jail, and you're going to jail for a long time.

You know, this is out of control right now. There's a lot of great hard working tow truck drivers that work their backs off. They want to bring a paycheck home. They want to pay rent or pay a mortgage. Guys, get your head around this. You start shooting, you talk about in tow truck words, the heat coming down, the heat's just turned up a thousand degrees on each and every one of you.

I will spend anything I can to put an end to this, make sure we give the resources to the OPP and regional police to bring you guys down and bring you down quickly. And it's not all tow truck drivers. They're good, hardworking people, these tow truck drivers. There's a few bad apples, but those apples we're going to catch and they're going into the slammer.

Gosh, I like to hear what politicians talk this way. Call me crazy, but I like clarity on some issues that really demand and require it. Do you believe that the police have taken this seriously enough? We know that there are manpower issues at the Toronto Police Service. However, have they have they done what they need to do? And should there be an immediate revoking of a company license if one or more of the drivers is found to being part of a criminal organization? I want to hear from you, 416-870-6400, one, triple eight, two, two, five, talk. You know, like I said, I don't know enough about this. I'm learning about this in real time

as many of our listeners are, but this is such a, to me, this is such a big problem that if solved would drop the rate of violence with guns in our city precipitously. It would make people feel immediately more safe. And you know, the worst thing has to be when you are on the side of the road in the middle of the night with a car requiring service and a tow truck shows up and with this violence as a backdrop, you wonder, is this person here to help me or are they here to harm me?

And that has got to be such a feeling of helplessness that I shudder to think people in this city ever have to experience. You just want to get home and you have a blown tire. And next thing you know, well, who knows what happens? And I'd love to hear from our listeners if they've ever been put in that position. But, you know, this is, to me, we talk about it all the time.

The Toronto Police Service has a very difficult time retaining talent. They hire people and then life gets too expensive and they can't, they don't live anywhere near the place they're policing. And so they are in a car stuck in traffic on their way into the city. And so they decide to leave for greener pastures and they decide to become police officers elsewhere, closer to home, where the pay is higher,

where the risks aren't as high, where you don't have to deal with the violence associated with the tow truck wars. And and so we don't have the people on the ground in Toronto that we need to deal with this. Possibly that can be that can be equaled out by the OPP working as part of a joint task force. But this to me, I mean, 20 years of this, it seems to me like if we dealt with this one issue, this one problem, so many other problems would go away or would become more manageable. Most notably, gun violence in the city. I'd like to remind you. Fifteen, one five tow truck related shootings so far in 2025. We're mid-March now, guys.

That's 70% of the shootings in the city so far this year. There were 63 of them last year. That was 15% of all shooting incidents. This is a problem that if we dealt with head-on and crushed, the city would absolutely be safer. David, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely.

I think that if the if they're more selective, it is who gets licensors for the roads like they did on the highways. All this will stop. Yeah, dramatically. Yeah, well, I, I, I, I don't know if it's okay. I can tell my story. I had an accident on the 401 and these two tow truck drivers came. They almost got into a fisticuffs in front of me for my car. And one was threatening to throw the other one

onto the oncoming traffic. It was crazy. I can't believe it. Yeah. And all you're looking for is to get your car towed so you can go about your life. And look, maybe the licensing itself needs to be reevaluated. Maybe whatever benchmarks people need to clear in order to get their license needs to be completely overhauled so that it's not as simple as do you own a tow truck and do you not have a criminal record, but like doing a far more scrutiny-laden deep dive into who they are and what their business associations are. Thank you so much for that call. Mark, welcome to the Ben

Mulroney show. How you know Ben's story doesn't bother you? You're not bothering me, my friend. Okay, look it. I'm 72 and one thing I don't really understand is why motorcycle gangs haven't been mentioned along with the tow trucks, which was a given years ago. And personally, I live in Burlington. I'm not going to mention the tow truck company.

I'm only two blocks away from it. And I was selling my motorcycle a couple years ago and I found out all this through two tow truck drivers that both ride and so on. And they were both members of clubs, which I'm not going to mention. But how come this hasn't been brought up? I don't understand it. Yeah, well, thank you so much. Yeah, I have to assume that there are a lot of criminal organizations that have varying degrees of involvement within this industry. And it wouldn't surprise me if motorcycle gangs played a part as well. But thank you for that call. And we got time for one more call before the break. Adam, welcome to the show.

Yeah, so this is not about toeing. No. This is about gun running. They're the guys who do the gun running in Ontario. Okay. And the only thing that will stop this is if the federal government will go to the Americans and say, you have to take all of Ascas Nasi, because that's where the guns come over the border.

If you're worried about fentanyl, we're worried about guns. And this is the solution. That reservation has to sit either inside of America or inside of Canada, but it cannot go over the border. And that's gonna never happen. You think that that's the nexus point that is causing all this trouble? For sure, to the police.

They say it straight up. That's why he was very, very, what was it called? Nick Kryptick when he was talking about, we need to get our partners. Yeah. And no one knew what he was really talking about. That's what he was talking about. Well, Adam, thank you so much for adding that to the conversation, we speak business.

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