The Ben Mulroney Show - Life with Sonduren -- THE crime truth teller in Canada

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

- Sonduren Fanarredha/  “lifewithsonduren” If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right, here's the question for you. Why would a non-journalist, non-politician, non-lawyer be making it his mission to change the criminal code of Canada? What is the story that would push an individual to do something like that? Our next guest is that person. Sonderen, Fannerada, I'm sorry, Fannaretta.

I'll get it better next. time. Let's listen to a little bit about the man behind what I'm sure is increasingly becoming the myth. Another home invasion in Vaughn, Ontario, three criminals in the middle of the day come with an axe. They are breaking the glass on the right side of the door. You're going to see the criminals now going to stick his hand in and open the door. And now they're in the house that quickly. This is insane what's happening. They went ahead, ransacked the house. Now back out to the getaway vehicle, which is probably stolen, and this is happening again.

Vaughn is becoming the prime target of all these home invasions. It's so sad. It's making my skin crawl. In a lot of cases, he's getting the story before the police. So let's welcome Sonderen to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Ben, for having me.

Okay, so you're a marketer, correct? I'm a marketer. I was former accountant, turned marketer, because I started making a, YouTube videos about cars and as you can imagine over the period of time how it all started covering this was some of my friends cars started getting stolen and then I posted a video about it and it's like wow then many people started setting me videos of their cars being stolen and it was like wow this is this is becoming a big problem but yeah marketer accountants and now somebody reporting on crime and hopefully making a change with you and many others to change

aspects of our criminal code to protect our families and our children. Okay, so if you had the ear of the prime minister and of the justice minister right now, what would you, what are the high, high level changes that you want to see right now? Yeah, I think I would say, look, the things that we need to do need to assure the protection and afford the protection for Canadian citizens and our children and our family. So I would say, look, what we've seen over the last five years while I've been covering this is that organized crime has taken advantage. of our criminal code and the Youth Justice Act.

These criminals have taken advantage of the way that our laws are set up with the ability to get access to bail right away. What I would say to them is we need to go much harder on crime. We need to make sure that heinous crimes like home invasions, armed home invasions or people are coming into your home, Ben, putting a gun to you and your family's head, that's a serious crime and there should be serious consequences for those actions. And so I publicly called out, you know,

I think we need to make sure that risk of a reward, reward ratio. And I've talked to many of these criminals. They've come to me, Ben, and said, look, this is the reason why I did it. Yeah. The risk reward ratio is completely out of whack. I've talked about that risk profile as well, that they look at something and say, you know what, we can go in that house. They can't do anything about it. The risk of us, that the reward of what we can get in there versus the risk to ourselves, our ability to do it again, makes it so that we're going to do that crime. 100%. So I think, you know, something that I'm really believing in is like 10 years in jail with no bail and reformed to the Youth Justice

sack to make the deterrence high so that nobody looks at that ratio and determines this is what I'm going to do today. I think absolutely this should be afforded. These are very heinous crimes. We've seen story after story of people losing their lives. Not only if they don't lose their lives, Ben, we know this. Children and families are traumatized for life. When I speak to these homeowners and families, law-abiding families, you know what they tell me? They would not wish this to their worst enemies, Ben. Well, you're supposed to feel safe in your home. That's the place you're supposed to feel safest in the world. And when that is taken away from you, you don't trust that the four walls around you are there to protect you anymore. And that won't

change. And in a lot of cases, the only solution is to move, which is an abdication of failure. Now, look, there are those who would say it's not just a criminal code. We don't have enough jail cells in the province of Ontario. For example, you know, I'm sure that's a problem in other parts of the country as well. But let's also not forget that the judges have been have been directed to release these alleged criminals under the least onerous circumstances possible. That is a direction that comes from Ottawa. That needs to change. 100%. Bill C-75 needs to be changed. Like this has to stop, right? We shouldn't be even giving a small percentage chance for these criminals to reoffend. And many of them do. And then Bill C-5 as

well, which for about 13 or 17 offenses reduces mandatory minimums. Yeah. So these are things that need to change. And also the amount of illegal guns that are coming into this country, right? 85% by the Toronto police, 85% of weapons that they sees are illegal weapons from the U.S. Yeah, well, look, I'm looking at this right now, Sondren, there's a post from the Toronto police with an image of four handguns. And given the fact that handguns are illegal in this country, writ large, it says we see six firearms last week, laid 94 charges in total 10 adults, two use were charged. Two of the adults were on release and one was on probation. These results reflect our continued efforts to hold offenders accountable and keep our streets safe. I have more time in the

day for our frontline police officers than most people out there. Great respect for them and the sacrifice they make for us. But these guns are the problem. And so when, you know, I leave work yesterday and hear that the liberal government in Ottawa will be prioritizing a gun buyback program of long guns, like a double-barreled purdy with a street value of 170. $17,000. I'm asking myself what, and this is a good faith, honest question. I am not trying to be glib or score political points. I'm trying to figure out how this new government is different from the other one that kept going after legal guns that do not represent the lion's share of the problems that our police are seeing in the streets each and every day. I could not agree with

you more, Ben. It really shocks me because you have the data. The police are providing you the data that that's not the core part of the issue. And we continue to go down this path and, you know, target law-abiding gun owners who go through large hoops, right? They have to jump through to ensure that they get their license. And so this totally doesn't make any sense to me at all. When you look at what's happening around the country with the crime, the rise in home invasions, the carjackings, we see malls being terrorized, jewelry stores being terrorized, all of these things that are happening. And it's like the focus is not solving for the root cause of the problem. Yeah. And this is the major issue that I've been advocating for is that we need the structural changes to happen within the country, within the Youth Justice Act, within the Criminal Code, but also there's other things that we need to do, right? When it comes specifically to a lot of the times, these home invasions, why are they doing this, is get access to your vehicle. We need to do things better at the Port of Montreal. Literally thousands, tens of thousands of vehicles are being shipped through there to the Middle East and Africa and are being sold. And then, look, it's 2025. We have authenticated.

devices for our phones. How do we not have proper authentication devices for our vehicles? Yeah. I believe we should have the option to give Canadians better ways to protect their cars. Yeah, well, there's, I mean, there are certain people who are saying the easiest thing to do would be face ID in your car. I mean, if they can put that on every iPhone, if you can open up your phone with your retina or your thumbprint or your face, why, why isn't that an option in cars?

I mean, especially the high-end cars, which are the ones that are getting stolen anyway. I think a lot of people would spend, you know, the extra call it $1,000 to get a face ID in their car. And so unless they're willing to kidnap you, which, and again, back to the risk reward of that kind of crime, kidnap you for your car, I don't know that they would do that. And it's, I mean, that is, the car companies would make more money. The insurance companies could could give you your policy at lower premiums. That to me is a pretty easy solve. Pretty easy solve. And look, talking about insurance. Insurance has been going up for everybody across the country. We hit a record, $1.5 billion in claims. This is up, like, from the average

of $500 million in claims who are almost 300% increase. This is not only impacting the pocketbooks of Canadians. This isn't like something that's just impacting those that literally are being home invaded in their cars. Everybody's paying the price for this. Everybody's paying the price one way or another. And at this point now, it's come to the reality is that I think everybody, know somebody within their network, a friend, a family member, somebody that's been impacted by this crime. And it's unacceptable. Yeah. In Canada, a country that's built on, why do people come to Canada internationally? It's safe. It's safety. It was safe. It was safe. Now we have this false vision out there. And actually, when I speak to new immigrants that come to this country,

they are shocked with how unsafe it has become. Yeah, Sondering, we're going to leave it there for a moment. We're going to talk to you on the other side of the break. Lots more to dig into. I still want know more about your story as well as how you're moving forward and what work you're doing to help get our country to a place where it used to be that it can be again. So don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places, the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. And hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually

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Listen to the full season of Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon music by asking Alexa to play the podcast, Crime Beat. Welcome back to the show. And, oh my gosh, I hope I don't do this again. Sondren Fannaretta. Fanoretta? You got it. Yes, there we go. Okay, name that's hard to discuss, but someone who will cut to the quick

and can break down some very complex ideas and thoughts and important things very quickly. Yeah. Oh, so your social media is your name.com. Do you do that? Oh, yeah. I want you to listen because, well, Life with Sonderen is your Instagram. But tell me about your social media platforms. Yeah, so life with Sondran, it really all started again.

Like, this is not what I thought I would be doing. I was doing car reviews. I was traveling around the world, like doing road trips. And this is what actually got me in marketing. Life was good. And, you know, as a big car guy, obviously when I started getting the stories first from my own friends, like, look, your house got broken. broken into and your car got stolen like this was new yeah like again i was born and raised in

canada in hamilton ontario like obviously car thefts happened but it just started to happen in a weird way where they were invading homes to grab the keys to steal the cars then it happened to a second friend and i posted those out online and ben the amount of people that reached out to me afterwards saying saundra and they broke into my house they stole my car i went to cbc news or ctv news they didn't show the story can you please share it yeah that's how this all started like about almost four years ago. And since then, so since then, how big has it gotten for you? Oh, it's been crazy.

Like, Canadians are really resonating with the fact that I'm covering the gravity of the issue. And I think that's the biggest thing that I found is like so many Canadians when this happens to them or it happens to somebody that they know, they had no idea. They knew car thefts are happening. Hey, it happens to you're there. They don't really understand the gravity of the issue. And that's what I've been using my platform for to make sure people really know what's really going on in their communities and their streets so that we can not only do the short-term things that we need to do to protect ourselves and our families, but doing together the medium to long-term things that we need to change in our legislation so that this stuff doesn't happen whatsoever. To me, it is unacceptable as a first world country that we cannot go to sleep at night, 100% feeling safe in our homes with our families.

That's not acceptable. It's one of the core things that they teach children in school, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. What do you need to do? You need to properly feed your population and make sure that they're safe and have a house over the head that they could sleep at night. Yeah. And like I said, your castle is supposed to be the place where you feel safest at night. And for these people whose homes have been invaded, it is a violation, the likes of which, I mean, it's a breed apart. It changes everything.

Let's talk about our reputation around the world. Do you think it's been tarnished by what's happening in Canada right now? Do you think people outside of this country are looking at Canada saying, wow, that place is not what it used to be? Absolutely. And that's such an unfortunate part because that's what has made us so great on the international stage. We are a place where you could come and really be safe. Go build a business. Go expand on the opportunities that life gives you.

But that has eroded now. I think we see it internationally. When I speak to people that come here, we've seen story after story. But also, we're going to see this. I think as we look at, you know, immigration has been a big problem. proponent of growing our gross GDP and everything else that's going on. I think that's going to be impacted beyond what just the government is doing to tamper down slightly on the numbers.

It's unfortunate because Canada was known for being a safe place to live and be able to raise your family. And that's eroded slightly. And it's really unfortunate. I want to get back to that Canada, that we can leave our theoretical doors open and feel safe at night. Sondren, what do the cops think of your help on these matters? because in some cases, they, you know, they'll tell you, thank you, we appreciate it,

but we've got this handled. Are you, do they rely on your videos or do they find you helpful or are you an impediment to their work in their minds? You know what? This is actually one of the joys that I bring because I have the utmost, like yourself, respect for our police forces. They put their lives on the line every single day to protect us and our families. And they come to me and say, Sondra, and thank you for saying this.

And I've spoken so many police officers across Ontario, across the state, country dispatchers everybody our cmp members reach out to me and say saundering thank you for talking about these issues where we cannot we are stuck between a rock and a hard place i am risking my life i spoke to a toronto police officer that was run over by a car theft criminal and then at the same time that criminal got out in 24 hours and he was sent to the hospital and they are feeling like they're in a position where their lives are on the line and they're trying to do everything that can to protect our communities, but at the same time, the laws are against them. Yeah, well, I remember I had, I had somebody call in who said that their son-in-law was a

police officer. And in, I'm making up these numbers, but in his very short career, he's already drawn his weapon over a dozen times. Now, I remember I harkened back over 20 years ago talking to a police officer who said that in their entire career, they never drew their weapon once. And so you can see that things are getting more. violent. Yesterday on the show, we took Justice Minister, Sean

Fraser at his word, when he said that a bail reform was going to be coming in October. And I pointed out on this show, I said, you know, we need lightning speed when it comes to life and death, because this time next week, I will be reporting on at least another, one more crime somewhere across this country where

someone lost their lives. And so waiting a month and a half, I don't know, is appropriate. What do you think of how quickly the Fed are moving on this issue that really does matter to people in big cities across this country? It's totally unacceptable to me, the speed of this. Now, I understand politically how long it takes the process of the bill,

but that doesn't stop them from communicating their actions and what they want at a detailed level to give clarity to Canadians that they're actually going to put forward legislation and laws. That will make a difference because let's make no mistake. They have done these press releases repeatedly over the last five years about small things, that they're going to do to stop some of the symptoms yeah i've been calling out we need root cause solves for many of these challenges like the 10 years in jail no bail reform to the youth justice act honestly if you do these heinous crimes then i did a lot of stupid stuff when i was a kid okay never

in my life would i ever think to take a gun and pointed at children's head in a home invasion that is unacceptable yeah i was born and raised in a shelter my family was immigrants to this country very tough times there is no excuse for these type of violent heinous crimes and then stand your ground laws in this country we just saw the story about the von father who died trying to protect his daughter after they waved a gun to her face and i spoke to that family about that truly sickening you would not wish this upon anybody we need the government to vocalize the things that they're going to do communicate them while they take the steps that are longer to enact and hopefully pass into parliament for the change.

Well, also, let's not forget this government is, this is a new parliament, but the government's been around for months now. Over the summer months, the justice ministry could have been working on this legislation. I mean, it could be ready. And it's a new government, but it's the same government. Like, I don't know how

much turnover there's been in the Justice Department. I really don't. I suspect not as much as if a new, an entire party had, new party had been elected. So let's not pretend. Yeah, you can say it's new. It's not that new. And so I'm not so dumb that I'm just going to accept, oh, brand new liberal party. Everything's different.

That's not, that's, don't talk to me like I'm an idiot. But so they're not moving lightning fast on that. The one thing they are moving lightning fast on is the gun buyback program. The heads, the most Justin Trudeau thing Mark Carney could do right now. And to the point that you've got frontline officers, you got the OPP and Toronto police that say, thanks, but no thanks. We will not be participating. These are not the priorities they were elected on.

I am dumbfounded by this. Oh, same here, Ben. This is the, again, and Sean Fraser is the justice minister now, and we know Gary is the public safety minister. This gun buyback program has been since 2020. They've spent $67 million to buy back these guns. You know how many guns have been collected so far, Ben? Goose egg.

Zero. Zero. And this is not the core points of the issue about our safety. It dumbfounds me how with so many other opportunities to make an impact to protect our families and our children, which is not a partisan issue, by the way. No. Throw politics out the door. Every Canadian should be focused on ensuring the protection of their families and children. Why are we doing this?

I cannot find any possible or plausible reason as to why this is the priority. When there are so many other things that we could be doing, like reforming Bill C-75, Bill C-5, what we should be doing around standard ground laws in this country. because again, I think the example in bond, the stand your ground laws in this country, you have to determine the level of threat that is coming at you in your home. That's unacceptable. People know you're in shock, Ben.

You cannot properly think straight. The onus should not be on you. Is the law-abiding family that gets broken into the middle of the night at 5 a.m. to determine if the criminal has a gun in their pocket or a night. Do you expect me to go to a knife fight with somebody?

I'm watching you and I'm saying that must be what people see from me when they watch me on YouTube. So I'm getting a good sense of how the world sees me, but that your passion is appreciated. The work that you're doing is appreciated. I hope you come back on the show when we have other issues of law and order and justice to discuss.

Sandron, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me then. The end. For four years, Noah and Sarah have been clying out from beneath the Denver airport. They have faced monsters, secret armies, and killing machines. But they're done running. This season on Escaping Denver, the truth is revealed. Captives become legends, and a war a thousand years in the making erupts around them. Join us for the end of our story. The final season of Escaping Denver drops August 11th on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.