A gunman fired multiple shots at Canadian businessman Patrick Dovigi’s Toronto home early Monday morning in what the garbage magnate believes was a robbery gone wrong.
The reported billionaire, who now heads Canadian environmental services company, Green For Life Environmental Inc. (GFL), said Monday night that he was not the target of the shooting at his Rosedale home, and that he was not in the city when the shooting took place around 1 a.m.
“We had a guy run up to the house trying to break in our house,” Dovegi said Monday night in a phone interview from New York City.
Dovegi’s security guard, who was walking around the house, yelled at the intruder.
“He said, ‘What are you doing?’ and the guy turned around and then fired a shot towards the security guard, and then fired four shots at the door as he was running away.”
The first shot appeared to be aimed toward the ground, Dovegi said.
“We have the video,” he said.
“As he was running away, the security guard was sort of running after him. He like turned back and shot four times at the front door.”
Dovegi questioned whether the intruder was just trying to scare off the security guard to make it to a getaway car. “There was a car on the street with another guy in it.”
We’re Canadian because it’s supposed to be safe. But, I don’t know
The security guard wasn’t hurt, Dovegi said. “He’s obviously a little bit rattled,” he said.
“Thankfully the guy was there. If they got in the house, who knows what they would have taken.”
The house has full-time security that work in shifts around the clock because of the recent volume of break-ins in the neighbourhood, he said.
Dovegi said he doesn’t think the armed intruder knew it was his home.
Dovegi questioned Monday night whether the gunman was after two Range Rovers parked in his Toronto basement.
“This has been an ongoing topic in Toronto for a while,” he said.
“It’s pretty scary that it’s happening… We’re Canadian because it’s supposed to be safe. But, I don’t know, between all these carjackings and all these break-ins on our street, it’s pretty crazy.”
Dovegi emailed his neighbours about the shooting, looking for images of the crime-in-progress from their surveillance cameras.
“I told them exactly what happened, and I said if you guys can cooperate with the police to get the photos, that would be very helpful,” he said.
“They have not made any arrests, but they’re compiling the footage from the street.”
Former hockey star Eric Lindros lives at the end of the same street, Dovegi said, noting the getaway car might have been parked beside the Lindros home.
“So maybe we have something from before he came on the street,” he said. “They have videos of what looks like the same car. But the police said the problem with these guys is they probably stole the car to come, or they’re using a car with stolen plates.”
People in the neighbourhood are trying to be vigilant, Dovegi said.
“In the last two months there has been three or four break-ins,” he said.
Geoff Beattie, the former head of private holding company Woodbridge Co. Ltd., the holding company for the powerful Thomson family, lives on the same street at Dovegi.
“He was broken into just down the street,” Dovegi said. “Something has gone wrong in Toronto with all these carjackings and car thefts and break-ins. It’s been widely publicized, but clearly something needs to be done.”
Dovigi founded his waste-management business in 2007, following a short-lived professional hockey career when he was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in 1997.
GFL quickly grew after a series of acquisitions and in March 2020, it held its initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange, leaving it with a market value of $6.1 billion.
Canadian Business magazine has listed Dovigi’s net worth at $1.1 billion.
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