First Up: Stolen in Leaside, driven in Moscow - Toronto Star

In today's First Up: Parliament is back and poutine is in Michigan.

Hotel thieves in Mississauga casing a parking lot.

Good morning. This is the Monday, Sept. 21 edition of First Up, the Star’s daily morning digest. Sign up to get it earlier each day, in your inbox.

I’d like to wish all those observing Yom Kippur today a meaningful fast. And I hope most of us had a better weekend than the Blue Jays, who aren’t quite eliminated from the playoff race, but look pretty close to done.

Channon Russette-Mondoux, organizer of the fourth annual Can-Am Peace Jam in Kalamazoo, Mich., this weekend, calls herself a “peace officer.” “Many Americans are heartbroken at what’s happening right now,” says Russette-Mondoux.

In Kalamazoo, Michigan, the fourth annual Can-Am Peace Jam celebrated Canadian culture — an attempt to repair the fraying bonds of friendship between two countries that have been kindred neighbours for hundreds of years. “Many Americans are heartbroken at what’s happening right now. They apologize to me all the time,” says Canadian-born resident Channon Russette-Mondoux. Francine Kopun checked out the festivities, from Barenaked Ladies cover bands, to curling demonstrations and a poutine cook-off.

Eighty-nine-year-old Gord Krantz, Mayor of the Town of Milton, stands in the basemenet of his home with a chair decorated by his late wife. Milton, ON. September 16, 2026. Nick Kozak/For the Toronto Star.

Chief investigative reporter Kevin Donovan has broken a lot of big stories for the Star that started with clandestine meetings or anonymous tips. In 2021, one investigation started when his car was stolen. He looked into what happened to it, and wound up reporting on an unfolding car theft epidemic that was, at the time, powered by technological changes that had thieves performing “relay thefts” using scanners to copy the signals of keyless entry fobs.

When he looked into the state of the industry in 2026 for his ongoing five-part series “Grand Theft Toronto,” he told me recently, it has gone back to “the stone age.”

As in, picking up rocks and throwing them. “People coming up to the doors of houses in the GTA with a paving stone or a rock, depending on the kind of window they want to break, smashing in, going in …. They usually end up with a set of car keys — three sets of car keys in one case — and they’re gone,” he said in a video podcast interview at the Star studio. This method of home invasion, alongside the rise in armed carjackings, leads to a crime that has become more violent, with higher stakes.

It’s in service of a black market that’s multinational. “A Toyota Highlander may show up on the streets of Moscow tomorrow, and two weeks ago it was in Leaside in Toronto.”

Frustratingly, while the crime has become less digital and more dangerous, tech advances have simultaneously made it harder for police to have any hope of catching the “Mr. Bigs” actually in charge. Donovan says that, like in the cases we’ve heard of recently about guns for hire, the thieves (typically young, relatively low-paid) get orders for cars and instructions via encrypted messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp, and never know who they are working for.

The results of the investigation are fascinating, and his reporting is packed with videos of crimes in progress, vivid true stories of individual criminal characters, and detailed examinations of where, when and how these crimes tend to go down.

You can find my chat with Kevin Donovan here, and read the latest instalment in his ongoing series — part four, on the jail sentences thieves get — right here. You can find earlier parts of the series here: part one, part two, part three.

Do you have a question for Kevin Donovan about auto thefts? He’ll be hopping into the comments to chat with readers at noon today. You can join the conversation, and leave your questions in advance.

JUSTIN LING: Artificial intelligence is the nuclear bomb of the 21st century. We need a plan to control it.

BARBARA YAFFE: Trump should be asking why it is that Canada doesn’t want to join the wealthiest, most powerful country on earth.

SHAWN MICALLEF: Toronto feels lost. But the winner of the mayoral election isn’t going to be able to “fix” it.

Coco owner Nicole Bilyea works in her bakery and coffee shop in the days before it closed in January. Bilyea’s cakes often drew lineups outside the shop, which closed after the landlord took back the space for a homeopathic clinic.

When I hear about people getting charged then released on bail only to reoffend, I wonder: why don’t the judges look at the employment circumstances of the offender? Does he have a job? If he does not have a job, how is he going to make ends meet while out on bail? — Miguel

At this point, there has to be some accountability for a justice system that lets people like this out to commit violent crime after violent crime with little consequence. — Belal

Before we go: I learned over the weekend that longtime Toronto Sun cartoonist Andy Donato died last week at the age of 89. He worked at the tabloid from its founding — he designed the logo and format of the paper — right up until earlier this year. I enjoyed this tribute from his longtime colleague Christina Blizzard. When I was a kid, his “find Donato’s bird” contests and front-page caricatures of politicians made this news business seem like it could be a lot of fun. It’s hard to imagine that paper without him.

Thanks for starting your day with us. If you enjoy First Up, please share it with a friend. And let us know what you think of the changes we’ve made, and what you’d like to see. Email firstup@thestar.ca. I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning.

Paige Oldfield is a digital producer for the Star. Reach her via email poldfield@thestar.ca