The billionaire Canadian businessman behind one of North America’s largest garbage collection empires has found himself publicly disputing a Toronto police theory that a midnight shooting at his house in Rosedale was part of a series of targeted attacks.
Late Sunday, gunshots were fired at the home of Patrick Dovigi, CEO and founder of GFL Environmental, which handles waste management for cities around North America, including parts of Toronto. Police say gunfire hit the house and a vehicle, but no one was injured.
Toronto police say investigators with the guns and gangs task force believe the attack was targeted. But Dovigi has pushed back against that theory in his comments to media this week.
When reached by phone Thursday, he declined to elaborate on why he believes the police account is wrong and added he had no idea what to make of the shooting.
Police have said the incident is connected to another shooting that occurred about an hour later, around 1 a.m. on Monday morning. Shots were fired into the door of a home near Bayview Avenue and York Mills Road, about seven kilometres from the first shooting.
The investigation is ongoing and investigators believe the two shootings “are connected and were targeted,” police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said in an email.
Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail reported that the house involved in the second shooting belongs to one of Dovigi’s associates. Dovigi, however, told the National Post that reports of a targeted, connected series of attacks were wrong and suggested the shooting at his home could have been a random attempted robbery.
“This is not the Sopranos,” he told the Post.
A retired RCMP officer who specialized in organized crime investigations said it’s unlikely a home in the Rosedale neighbourhood would be targeted for a random break-in.
Houses in the posh midtown neighbourhood routinely have plenty of security cameras and police response times there are fast, he said.
“You might have one minute on the floor (of the house),” he said.
The former officer also said he’s curious what — if anything — happens next.
Dovigi has come a long way in a short time from his beginnings as a professional hockey goalie from Sault Ste. Marie. He was drafted by the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers in 1997 and founded his waste-management company 10 years later, after attending business school at Toronto Metropolitan University and working at a real estate investment firm.
“Since then, drawing on the discipline he learned in his earlier hockey career, Patrick has driven GFL to become the fourth largest environmental services company in North America,” People in Business magazine reports.
Dovigi, who rang the opening bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 2020, has an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion. His name surfaced in 2023 as a potential serious candidate to buy the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League.
Dovigi was reportedly out of the country at the time multiple shots were fired into his Rosedale home. Dovigi also reportedly has residences in New York, Miami and Aspen, as well as a private island in Muskoka that he accesses via seaplane.In September, he paid $59.75 million (U.S) for Newberry House, a 7,900 square foot residence in Aspen, Colo., once owned by actor Jack Nicholson. With files from Alex Cyr
