Juno News - March 25, 2026


Robbers STRIKE AGAIN, store forced to shut down in Mississauga

Topics
robberies at jewelry stores
Mentioned
Mark Carney Mark Joe Warmington Taylor Swift Mississauga Brookfield
Liberals push sweeping surveillance bill Toronto Star rips off Juno News reporting

Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

184.7

Word count

3,521

Sentence count

109

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A sharp rise in jewelry store robberies in Ontario has pushed one store to close, and there may be more to come. The Charm Diamond Centre in Mississauga has called it quits after a series of robberies there. Our guest today is Joe Warmington, who is covering this story for the Toronto Sun.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Well, a sharp rise in jewelry store smash and grabs in Ontario has pushed one store
00:00:09 to close, and there may be more to follow. The Charm Diamond Center in Mississauga has
00:00:15 called it quits after a series of robberies there. One video captured the latest incident
00:00:21 in which masked robbers made off with valuables at the Aaron Mills Townsender store.
00:00:26 Now, these robberies often involve men smashing display cases with hammers or other tools.
00:00:35 And police have noted the alarming increase in the number of jewelry store robberies
00:00:40 just over the last few years.
00:00:42 Our guest today is Joe Warmington, who is covering this story for the Toronto Sun.
00:00:46 Welcome, Joe.
00:00:48 Good to be with you, Mark.
00:00:50 How are you today?
00:00:51 Excellent.
00:00:51 Thank you.
00:00:52 So this, I'm doing better than charm, the story you're referring to.
00:00:56 yeah the reason i ask it is because we live in kind of a police state now where the police tell
00:01:03 us that they've got a little thing called patrol rifles and they're going to wander around the
00:01:09 streets of toronto and you know nothing to see here um there's no no no reason for it we've just
00:01:14 decided to bring out patrol rifles so i guess uh when i ask you how how you're doing you're living
00:01:20 in kind of like a, you know, a kind of a mini police state, if you will. It's like ice or
00:01:26 something like that. But since the liberals are doing it, it's okay, I guess. Yeah. And it's not
00:01:32 stopping these criminals. I mean, they are brazen in the way that they are bringing in
00:01:37 tools and hammers and all sorts of things, smashing their way into accessing jewels and
00:01:44 watches and all sorts of valuables of rings. But this is more than just about the closure of a
00:01:49 store. This is the broader issue I think you have to speak to because there's the ongoing bail
00:01:56 problems where you're letting criminals back on the streets almost, you know, within an hour or
00:02:02 two. Police are picking up the same people over and over again, suspected of committing crimes.
00:02:08 You're talking about issues around immigration, high youth unemployment. I mean, you factor all
00:02:13 of this in and what you end up with is businesses having to close because of crime.
00:02:19 Yeah, and the crime also funds all the other activities that you talk about. So, you know, it's all kind of a circle around. But when you've got a store like this charm store in the Aaron Mills Town Center, it's been there for decades, closing its doors because they say they just don't feel safe anymore.
00:02:42 They've been robbed four times in 15 months, violently smash and grab people that are wearing masks.
00:02:49 And, you know, they're never, ever arrested, if you will, or if they are, you know, nothing happens.
00:02:55 And so we shrug our shoulders and go, well, that's okay.
00:02:58 Can't say anything about that.
00:03:00 But as you say, you know, it's a crisis.
00:03:03 I mean, if you don't have free enterprise and commerce and the people have to basically would rather close than to take the risk of putting their employees or customers at risk, you know, of being hurt or robbed or whatever, all of it, what kind of country do you have here?
00:03:19 And that's why I mentioned off the top about the guns.
00:03:22 I'm not blaming the police.
00:03:23 I mean, they have to respond, but they haven't responded to so much.
00:03:26 I mean, the Jewish people have been put up with so much here in Toronto in terms of anti-Semitism for three straight years, right in their neighborhoods, taking mezuzahs off, you know, their doors and, you know, these kinds of things, shooting up their schools and their synagogues and their businesses.
00:03:44 And so, you know, now all of a sudden, okay, well, we better deal with it. Well, if you don't deal with these things right off the top, you give a criminal or a criminal organization or a terror organization one inch, they'll take a lot more than that one inch. And that's what we're dealing with. And it's hard to put that genie back in the bottle, as you well know, Mark, having been a reporter for all these years yourself.
00:04:06 If you don't get on this right away, you don't say to the people, look, leave your keys at the front door and don't bother them.
00:04:13 They don't want to hurt you.
00:04:14 They're just misunderstood.
00:04:16 They're going to take that car, no problem.
00:04:19 And if they're attacking you in your house, just don't upset them because you might get hurt.
00:04:25 That is all backfired.
00:04:26 And people are not doing that anymore.
00:04:28 They don't trust the system anymore.
00:04:30 They pay a lot for it.
00:04:31 everybody that works in the police and in justice and the lawyers and the crown, they make not only
00:04:36 a little more than the average person, but they're making 50, 75, a hundred thousand dollars a year
00:04:42 more. The people that do the protection are the rich people now. And the other people that are
00:04:48 the victims, they can hardly hang on to make ends meet and they have to close their store
00:04:53 because of it. And that's Canada. And if you're okay with that out there, in my view, you shouldn't
00:04:58 be but you do you do you but we'll bring out the stories of something like this i think it's pretty
00:05:04 shocking yeah i mean these stores they don't have the kind of money um to hire permanent security do
00:05:11 they i mean they kind of they do hire permanent security but the security don't have weapons and
00:05:19 so they get victimized as well look at charm is a store that started in over there in dartmouth
00:05:26 in scotia in the selby's and it was a it's still a family business run uh by the same family uh
00:05:33 good canadian products uh there's nothing from china in there or india nothing wrong with china
00:05:39 and india but you get my point it's canadian made in canada and just out of business in the air
00:05:45 mills town center very big mall for those across the country or around the world that watch your
00:05:50 podcast. You know, it's a big mall and you should feel safe. It's kind of a main street. I live in
00:05:56 the area. It's our main street in the winter when you don't know where to go. We don't have in some
00:06:03 of the residential parts of Mississauga, you don't really have a traditional main street. So the mall
00:06:07 is it. Well, this has happened and there's other things like this. I mean, if you look at the way
00:06:13 people live on the streetcars in Toronto or on the buses or subway, they basically just, it's
00:06:19 turned into zombie man it's not safe now people smoking crack and there's fentanyl mixed in with
00:06:25 that crack and you're sitting next to it with your child and you got to inhale that into your system
00:06:30 and you know nobody does anything about it and you go back the next time they're lying around
00:06:35 there they may rob you they may blow smoke in you they may you know uh other things that are
00:06:41 degrading in front of your children etc and everyone just shrugs their shoulders and say
00:06:46 you know you're the problem and that's what happens when the people that are running the
00:06:50 system the mayor the deputy mayor the chief of police they're all making four or five hundred
00:06:54 thousand dollars a year like hockey players used to make and the people that pay into it can't pay
00:07:00 their mortgages because the rates are up the gas is a dollar 75 i mean there's a little reprieve
00:07:05 today but it's going back up things like that and so i'm for the little person in the street who's
00:07:11 becoming littler by the moment as these fat cats get richer and richer and then not do their jobs
00:07:17 yeah you've done your job covering all of this stuff i mean we've seen the pictures the on the
00:07:23 ttc the transit system the buses you were referring to the subways where people are are clearly
00:07:31 on drugs heavily medicated slouched over urinating and defecating uh in the subways it's disgusting 0.53
00:07:40 And it just speaks to the overall decline that this country is going through.
00:07:44 And you've spoken about that many times.
00:07:46 They're in charge.
00:07:47 They're in charge.
00:07:48 And, you know, this FIFA World Cup, $380 million of taxpayers' money.
00:07:53 You can't tell me that that couldn't have helped with some of these things that we're talking about.
00:07:58 Instead, it's going for five soccer games.
00:08:01 You know, I'm all for the World Cup.
00:08:03 Like I was in favor of the Taylor Swift concert or the Journey concert that they just had that I went to,
00:08:09 which we talked about on your radio show but that wasn't taxpayer funded those are private
00:08:14 enterprises it's entertainment you pay for it you get good entertainment for this it's subsidized
00:08:20 by you they're spending a hundred thousand dollars on condoms another 27 000 on other products that
00:08:28 relate to that um and that's for people that you know the and and crack pipes and and and where to
00:08:35 buy safely by your you know your drugs now they're starting to change that in ontario the damage is
00:08:41 done but you got to remember that people paying for this just shake their head and go well like
00:08:48 what about us what about us is paying for it 380 million dollars for five soccer games and yet now
00:08:54 they have to have uh police with long guns in the street like a martial law kind of environment um
00:09:03 I'm not going to be quiet about it.
00:09:06 Look, I don't blame the police.
00:09:07 I understand it.
00:09:08 They don't want to be caught flat-footed.
00:09:11 But I don't want to live in a place that the criminals get to keep on going,
00:09:15 and we just keep responding to them by putting more and more security on it.
00:09:18 Before you know it, you've got a place where you're kind of under martial law,
00:09:24 if you will.
00:09:25 And I'm not comfortable with it.
00:09:27 I'm all about freedom.
00:09:29 I know you are too, and I know this audience is.
00:09:31 And so we pointed out all the other things about, you know, how is it that people can go through a neighborhood where a lot of Jewish people live and harass the hell out of them and, you know, then turn around and arrest the journalists, if you will, for covering it. 0.72
00:09:50 There's something really wrong with all this.
00:09:52 So anyway, maybe it makes us sound popular, but it's also, you know, telling it as it really is.
00:09:58 And I think that's what we need to do.
00:10:00 I think that's why what you do is so important, because people get to hear the real story and not just what's sanitized.
00:10:08 Well, thank you, Joe.
00:10:08 I appreciate that.
00:10:10 But I want to ask you as well about the businesses.
00:10:12 I mean, imagine you're a business person in this country.
00:10:15 We've seen the outflow of billions of dollars in investment.
00:10:19 And, yeah, some of it are the high rollers, people who are moving corporations and head offices out of Canada, like Brookfield, for instance, ironically.
00:10:29 And other companies choosing not to invest, not to expand their companies in Canada.
00:10:36 And of course, you have the many thousands of small business owners, small and medium-sized companies like this one that we're referring to, Charm, getting frustrated with the way things are going and having to shutter at least one store.
00:10:50 and it just sends such a terrible message to the entrepreneurs out there looking at Canada as a
00:10:58 place to start a business, expand a business. I mean, who wants to do that? I mean, who wants
00:11:04 to expand their business or even start a business in the environment that this country is in right
00:11:10 now? You know what? You see Cuba falling and you see what happened in Venezuela and you can see
00:11:16 what's happening in iran and canada's suffering its own thing i mean like this you mentioned
00:11:20 brookfield like that is not really a canadian company and uh you know they moved the under the
00:11:27 supervision or you know signing off on it from prime minister carney when he was the chair of
00:11:32 that company moving their headquarters down the states but i remember all the stories about the
00:11:37 offshore islands and stuff where they had their offices that were in an apartment old man's
00:11:43 apartment or behind a bike shop in a building and again these are great stories to tell but
00:11:49 nothing's done about it but i'll tell you you don't put in every penny on your taxes at this
00:11:53 tax time you're going to hear about it they'll audit you and then they'll come and crush you
00:11:58 and they'll laugh about it and they make the people doing it they're making two hundred thousand
00:12:03 dollars a year to do it while you're meagerly under that way under that you know so that's
00:12:08 that's the kind of uh thing that we're dealing with now which is a a country that is no longer
00:12:16 servicing the people that pay the bill it's the other way around they're servicing the you know
00:12:21 the hard-working taxpayer services the people that administer them and um you know it has to
00:12:28 be pointed out i don't know how you fix it but i think you fix it by pointing it out you know and
00:12:33 saying enough is enough i i can't believe that people don't have enough money to eat and they
00:12:39 you know there's not a pothole that you know it hasn't met my car uh this year all over the gta
00:12:46 and yet they got 380 million dollars for fifa fifa is not something that i'm interested in i'm glad
00:12:52 that we're you know gonna have some soccer games i guess i'll watch them on tv but i don't think i
00:12:57 should have to pay for it you know and i don't think anybody should you know if you think of
00:13:02 places in this country all over this country no wonder they're talking about separating and things
00:13:07 like that they see their money going only to toronto and only to people the you know the fat
00:13:12 cats to get to go to all these events and that's where their money goes i mean and they don't have
00:13:18 their own local library or they have you know roads or bridges that aren't fixed and their
00:13:23 airports aren't open and all these kinds of things so you know maybe we'll get a common sense
00:13:28 government one day but i doubt it because they all just cater to where the money is anyway they're
00:13:33 all the same there's not red white or green or blue or whatever it's all it's all just one color
00:13:39 green for them and i don't mean to be so negative but that's the kind of mood i'm in i guess i felt
00:13:44 a little bit emotional seeing all these ladies packing up all this jewelry these are ladies 0.99
00:13:51 that i've known for 20 years you know buying christmas and birthday presents in that store
00:13:56 and i won't be able to do it anymore because it closes tomorrow yeah so sad i mean they
00:14:01 they didn't even think it was worth it to hang around until um you know next christmas or
00:14:07 whatever it's got to be there well that's one of the things the manager told me and you'll read
00:14:12 this in my column torontosun.com is that they actually were hit twice where they had to close
00:14:19 during christmas which is where they make their money one of those this is actually a different
00:14:24 mall because they've been hit 10 times in total wow in the area so they might close other stores
00:14:29 too and just do an online model we haven't talked about that part of it too all that online craze
00:14:35 and what it's done to retail um you know and the people uh i see these online ads for things and
00:14:43 i think well that looks pretty good someone's handcrafting this and then you see the same
00:14:47 person in a different it's like an ai thing you don't even know what's real anymore looks real
00:14:52 but it's probably made in offshore somewhere and yet there's this local company from our
00:14:59 canadian company from dartmouth that makes its own products it's all sourced here we should be proud
00:15:05 of that that shouldn't be closing you know you know i you gotta say mall the hudson when the
00:15:10 hudson's bay was there by 380 years or something and now in canada and now it's empty and i see
00:15:17 this big empty space there and i think like what the hell happened to this country you know we're
00:15:22 losing everything and you know until we've got someone prepared to talk about what's the reason
00:15:28 for that how do we fix it sure you got to move forward with technology but it can't only go in
00:15:33 mark carney's friends pockets and it can't just be you know for the people that are doing the
00:15:38 security where they get to tell you look if you're a woman you better not dress like that like as if 0.87
00:15:43 that's their business how somebody dresses or if you're someone's in your house just hide and just 0.98
00:15:49 kiss their butt you know and i do think that the tide is kind of changing a little bit people are 0.97
00:15:55 starting to fight back and the police are less inclined to charge people for doing that we just 0.99
00:16:01 had that incident here where somebody was shot in a house by a legal gun owner and they didn't
00:16:06 charge the person so i think the advocacy that we kind of try to do through our platforms does play
00:16:13 a role it takes time but you've got to have a free press you've got to have people to say
00:16:18 not just what's on the press release that's approved by the people in ottawa but what the
00:16:24 regular street person feels in the gut and what they see and they know walking onto a streetcar
00:16:30 with people smoking fentanyl you know it's mixed in with the crack they know that's not right and
00:16:36 yeah okay that you can't get a police officer for six years to come and help you but it still
00:16:42 doesn't make it right no absolutely not joe how do people uh get hold of your stories read your
00:16:47 stories and follow you online well i mean i'm on torontosun.com and i'm on twitter
00:16:54 you can call me 416-947-2392 um i'm old school you see me say hello if you have a story email
00:17:05 it to me jwarmington at postmedia.com you know i don't have ai i don't have a robot i don't have
00:17:12 an assistant I just go where the stories are and I try to tell them I can't tell them all but
00:17:18 everyone that's really good I eventually get to it and nobody controls what I what I do I make
00:17:25 my own decisions and what I write I hope it's resonating for the street because that's where
00:17:30 I'm focused on and uh you know that that somebody's got to stick up for the little guy and that's
00:17:36 going to be people like you and i and others and you know we can't just let let thing let the
00:17:42 country die because uh you know there's too much money for people that for for them to have that
00:17:47 happen um i am really really upset about this store closing because for me it's a symbol it's
00:17:54 not just the the death of one store you know one goes and many goes there's many stores that are
00:17:59 empty in that mall yeah including Hudson Bay it's not okay it's not okay with me and I'm not going
00:18:06 to order something online I want to go to the Dartmouth you know Nova Scotia owned company
00:18:12 that expanded and is successful and hires all local people here in Mississauga those women
00:18:17 are devastated you know they're not going to get another job and why should they have to face some
00:18:22 16 year old punk that no one cares you know the whether to to throw the book out to get bail the
00:18:28 next day, even if they're caught. And no, they threatened these women. And two occasions,
00:18:35 they took women to the back of the store into the back office and tried to take the back there. I 1.00
00:18:41 don't like this. I don't like it at all. Not good. Not good. Joe, thank you so much for coming on
00:18:47 the show. Fantastic work. Thank you. If you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great
00:18:53 independent journalism by becoming a premier member of Juno News. Go to junonews.com backslash
00:19:00 straight up. It helps us do what we do. We'll see you next time.