Switch off 'grow-ops'
The public is at risk and the threat is escalating.
Indoor "grow-ops" pose a serious fire hazard. They fund organized crime. And the marijuana trade fuels gun violence in our streets.
The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police estimates that the number of illegal grow-ops in this province has increased 250 per cent. Revenue could hit $12.7 billion.
News this week that a grow-op fitted with hazardous wiring had been set up through eight units of a Parkdale high-rise is only the latest warning sign. Police recently found Canada's largest indoor grow-op hidden in an old brewery in Barrie.
And officers found six children living amid squalor in a York Region grow house. As many as 10,000 Ontario youngsters may be exposed to similar conditions, living with fertilizers, pesticides, mould spores and the constant risk of fire.
Police and electricity companies say privacy legislation forbids a utility from telling authorities about high spikes in power usage — a telltale sign of energy-hungry grow-ops.
These rules should be relaxed, allowing power companies to report suspicious patterns so that police can apply for search warrants.
Privacy is a cherished right. But power consumption is an impersonal statistic and one that can be shared with authorities without undermining our basic freedoms.
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'Unbelievably dangerous': NB Power sounds alarm on copper theft after vandalism, deaths
FREDERICTION - New Brunswick's power utility is urging people to stay away from its substations, saying the valuable copper they contain is proving hard to resist for thieves.
NB Power has seen almost as many incidents of theft and vandalism to its property in April and May of this year, than in all of last year.
In the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the utility recorded 16 cases of theft and/or vandalism.
In April and May, there have already been 13 cases.
One of those was a fatal incident in Bathurst. On April 13, a 41-year-old man was found unresponsive and later died, after breaking into…
