Police are looking for a person or people responsible for tearing down a Pride flag outside a Windsor, Ont., home on multiple occasions and breaking its flagpole.

These incidents come amid Pride month, which celebrates the LGBTQ2 community.

The Windsor Police Service is asking for help finding a suspect following two separate thefts of a Pride flag.

On May 2, officers received a report of theft at a residence in the 200 block of Moy Avenue.

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Police allege an unknown male approached the front porch and ripped down the home’s Pride flag, breaking the flagpole in the process.

Then on June 13, police said a similar incident happened, with a second flag being stolen.

The suspect in the May 2 incident is described as a male with black hair and a short black beard and moustache.

At the time of the incident, police say he wore a grey hoodie and black track pants with white stripes.

Police have not said if he is also thought to be behind the second incident as well.

Investigators ask residents and business owners in the area to check their surveillance or dashcam footage from May 2 and June 13 between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. for evidence that may assist with the investigation.

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A nerve‑racking four‑day hunt for a missing three‑year‑old girl from Quebec ended in relief on Wednesday when police located her alive in Ontario.

Claire Bell was reported missing by her mother, 34-year-old Rachel-Ella Todd, on Sunday afternoon in Coteau-du-Lac, Que., about 50 kilometres west of where she had last been seen in Montreal.

Circumstances around the girl’s disappearance were “not very clear,” authorities told reporters earlier this week, shortly before the girl’s mother was arrested and charged with unlawful abandonment of a child.

The disappearance kicked off a massive search effort that included multiple police forces, helicopters, drones, search-and-rescue volunteer teams and officers on horseback.

Search efforts began near Claire’s home in Montreal and the store where she was reported missing, before shifting to new areas as officers and the public pieced together Todd’s movements on Sunday.

Search parties of more than 250 people combed fields, roads and forests in the days that followed.

In a stunning turn, Bell was spotted all alone on the side of an Ontario highway on Wednesday afternoon by an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) drone.

How the child survived alone in rural Ontario in the heat for four days remains astonishing to authorities, calling it nothing short of a miracle.

Here’s a closer look at what happened.

Todd and Bell had last been seen around 9:45 a.m. Sunday on Newman Boulevard in Montreal’s LaSalle borough.

Their whereabouts were unaccounted for until the child’s mother parked her SUV outside a store in Coteau-du-Lac — a small city in southwestern Quebec, around 3 p.m.

Authorities said Todd went inside the shop and told staff she couldn’t find her daughter.

Todd had been driving a 2007 grey Ford Escape with a “Baby on Board” sticker in the back window and the licence plate K50 FVE.

Authorities did not issue an Amber Alert, which is triggered when a child is abducted and in imminent danger, because the case did not meet the criteria needed.

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Shortly afterwards, two critical elements of the investigation were made public: the family’s pet dog had been found dead and police described a key witness who they believed might have met the child’s mother.

In a video posted online Monday, Quebec provincial police asked people to be on the lookout for a long-haired chihuahua with reddish-brown fur, which might have been with the girl.

Later in the day they said a dog resembling that chihuahua had been found dead near the junction of Highways 20 and 30 near Montreal.

On Wednesday, police said they were looking to speak to a woman who lived and worked on a farm who they believe met the child’s mother. Police believe they met sometime on Sunday between 9:45 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., either in southwestern Quebec or Ontario.

A key breakthrough was uncovered on Wednesday afternoon just hours before she was found that steered the search.

Police in Quebec were able to establish that the girl and her mother had been spotted alive about 2 p.m. in the rural Casselman and St. Albert area in eastern Ontario on Sunday afternoon.

Shortly after 2 p.m., an OPP drone operator spotted the little girl sitting alone beside route 417 near St. Albert, Ont.

Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Éloïse Cossette told reporters Wednesday the girl was conscious and able to speak with officers, but there was no immediate word on her physical condition.

She received food, hydration and was taken to a nearby hospital to be examined by medical personnel as a precaution.

Officers would not comment on whose custody the girl is in, what she was wearing when she was found or how they believe she survived in the heat.

On Tuesday, Todd was arrested and charged with unlawful abandonment of a child.

Todd briefly appeared in court via video conference from a police station in Vaudreuil Tuesday before being detained at the Leclerc prison in Laval.

2:53
Montreal mother of missing 3-year-old Claire Bell in custody

She looked right at the camera, nodded and seemed to understand where she was and the charge.

Crown prosecutor Lili Prévost Gravel told reporters she opposed the accused’s release due to the seriousness of the charge.

On Wednesday, Todd was handcuffed and back in court at the Salaberry-de-Valleyfield Courthouse as the judge postponed her case to Friday, at which point a decision will be taken on a bail hearing.

The Crown previously said no psych evaluation had been requested for Todd and not much was yet known about her mental state.

The discovery of the missing toddler was an emotional moment for police involved in the search.

At a joint press conference with Quebec and Ontario provincial police forces in St. Albert Wednesday evening, OPP Acting Staff Sgt. Shaun Cameron said the case had deeply affected many officers.

“Most of us are parents with kids of our own,” Cameron said. “This makes us extremely emotional as police officers.”

SQ Capt. Benoit Richard told reporters: “It’s days like this that you are reminded why you became an officer.”

Both forces thanked the search teams who worked around the clock for their efforts in finding the girl.

“Given her age, every hour mattered,” Richard said.

Richard also expressed gratitude to members of the public, emphasizing that their tips and social media posts played a crucial role in the investigation.

Quebec Premier François Legault described the girl’s safe return as “almost a miracle,” and thanked police as well as members of the public who helped.

— with files from Aaron D’Andrea and The Canadian Press

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Missing 3-year-old Quebec child found alive, spotted by drone in Ontario

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Bob Pulham recalls the optimism in the air when General Motors began producing electric vans in Ingersoll, Ont., in late 2022.

As the first BrightDrop commercial van rolled off the line at the CAMI Assembly plant, GM executives, union leaders and former prime minister Justin Trudeau touted it as a major milestone for electric vehicle production in Canada.

Pulham, a Unifor representative at the plant, remembers talk of increasing shifts and hiring more people to produce 50,000 such delivery vans annually by 2025.

But the sales never picked up, the plant kept slowing down the production line amid sluggish demand and the optimism slowly faded.

This April, GM announced it would idle the plant for several months and resume production in October with just one shift. Union members say about half of 1,200 workers at the plant will be gone as a result.

“I feel bad for all 600 that are being laid off. It’s a horrible position to be put in,” Pulham said in an interview. “It’s a crazy amount of uncertainty and I think that hurts people.”

The announcement came shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian-made vehicles, but a GM Canada spokesperson said the halt was directly related to lower-than-expected demand for the BrightDrop vans.

Pulham, who began working at the CAMI plant more than three decades ago, said his wife has also been laid off and is now pondering whether to go back to school or search for a new job.

Several other companies, including Honda, Stellantis, Umicore and Ford have also delayed or scrapped their EV projects amid the slow sales growth and the ongoing trade war.

GM Canada said reducing production in Ingersoll was necessary to adjust to market demand and balance inventory.

But workers at the CAMI plant say Trump’s tariffs made things even worse. They’ve experienced the industry’s ups and downs over the decades, but say this challenge is especially difficult at a time of great economic uncertainty.

“There’s a push to build (vehicles) in the U.S., and that has caused a lot of issues over here,” Pulham said. “So, it’s not a good situation.”

Mike Van Boekel, the Unifor Local 88 CAMI plant chairperson, said even though workers knew layoffs were on the horizon, the news was still shocking for many.

“It was terrible,” he said. “I thought we were going to lose a shift. I was worried in the back of my mind … and now it has come true.”

GM’s ambitious plan to be at the “forefront of a big wave” of electric delivery van production didn’t materialize because the timing was not right, Boekel said.

He felt the company was gaining some momentum before the imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian-made vehicles. GM had just received an order of a thousand delivery vans from the U.S. grocery chain giant Kroger, he said.

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“So, it looked like we were just getting to go and all of a sudden, the tariffs came on,” he said, adding that CAMI workers will still produce Kroger’s vans when they return to the factory this fall.

Workers aren’t the only ones feeling the pain.

The ripple effects of layoffs are a source of concern for Ingersoll Mayor Brian Petrie. The CAMI plant, which spans two million square feet, is the largest employer in the southwestern Ontario town of about 14,000 people.

Petrie said Ingersoll expects to receive $1.8 million in municipal taxes from the company this year, which is around 10 per cent of the total levies the town is expected to collect.

“It is devastating because we’re not talking about new employees here, either, these are long serving employees and … they’ve had a tough road going up to that point,” Petrie said in a recent interview at his office.

The federal government under Trudeau set a target of 100 per cent zero-emission sales of light duty vehicles by 2035. Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin indicated this week that mandate won’t be changing.

But that goal seems hard to achieve, Petrie said.

“It’s honest to say that I think everybody may have misunderstood the scale of the problem that we’re facing to do the EV switch,” he said. “I think all of them will admit that it’s been a bigger problem than they once thought.”

Still, he thinks the more than $50 billion in investments that Canada has pledged since 2020 to incentivize the EV supply chain will pay off in the long term.

Some provinces, including Manitoba and Quebec, are offering rebates for electric vehicle purchases. B.C.’s rebate program, which was the longest running in the country, was paused last month. Ontario scrapped its rebate program after Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives won the election in 2018.

The federal government also halted in January its Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles program, which offered up to $5,000 off the cost of a new electric vehicle. Dabrusin said Ottawa intends to bring back consumer rebates for EVs, but doesn’t yet know what they’ll look like.

Zero-emissions vehicles represented only 8.7 per cent of all new vehicle sales in Canada in the first quarter of 2025 — a drop from  16.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to data from Statistics Canada.

The sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids had steadily increased from below one per cent in 2017 to 14.6 in 2024, but experts say the growth hasn’t been nearly as fast as many expected.

Dan Park, CEO of online used car retailer Clutch, said EV adoption has been slower in Canada because people normally drive long distances in colder temperatures, which reduces battery life by 20 to 40 per cent and slows down the charging speed.

“Canada is just a fundamentally harder market to have,” he said. “Until technology and battery life is improved to be able to handle colder conditions, I think Canadians will just shy away from it.”

Park said EVs make up only five per cent of Clutch’s inventory, which is tied to consumer demand.

He said consumer rebates and production subsidies “artificially propped up the market,” and provincial and federal governments should instead invest in a stronger charging infrastructure to encourage more Canadians to adopt EVs.

A recent survey by consumer insights firm J.D. Power shows that only 28 per cent of nearly 4,000 respondents said they were “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to consider an EV for their next vehicle purchase, down from 29 per cent last year and 34 per cent in 2023. The survey also found that 75 per cent of new vehicle purchasers aren’t confident Canada can reach its 2035 zero-emission vehicle sales goal.

Manufacturers took note of the lacklustre interest.

Honda Canada announced in May that it’s postponing a $15-billion EV project in Ontario, citing the “unexpected slowdown” in the market. Stellantis is postponing the production of an EV model of 2026 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T at its Windsor, Ont., plant as it assesses the effects of U.S. tariffs. And Ford Motor Co. said it will assemble F-Series Super Duty pickup trucks at its Oakville, Ont., plant beginning in 2026 instead of planned electric vehicle production at the site.

Despite the setbacks, Environment and Climate Change Canada said it will continue to support investments and innovations in the EV supply chain.

Canada’s zero-emissions vehicle sales mandates ensure “Canadians have access to electric vehicles, which offer long-term savings for consumers,” department spokesperson Hermine Landry said in a statement.

“Transportation emissions have declined to levels not seen in decades, demonstrating that we can grow our economy while also fighting climate change,” Landry said. “It is important to remain focused on the fact that the real threat to the Canadian auto industry right now are the unjustified tariffs from the United States.”

Overall, Canadians buy around two million new vehicles annually and the country produces approximately 1.5 million of them, according to Unifor. Autoworkers say the federal government should push for more vehicle production in Canada from manufacturers such as Kia, Hyundai, Mitsubishi and others that don’t have any production footprint in the country, to offset the impact of U.S. tariffs.

“It’d be nice, (if) the government stands up for us and you know says to these big companies, ‘If you want to sell here, then you need to build here as well,’” said Paul Harvey, who works as a framing team leader at CAMI.

Harvey said that although he and his wife will keep their jobs at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll, they will both have to work the same hours when production resumes on one shift. With four children at home, that means the couple will need a new child-care plan and increased costs will come with it.

Harvey, who has been an autoworker for 20 years, said it would be “kind of silly” to think that the transition to electric vehicles would happen at the flick of a switch. He said he and his wife remain optimistic about the EV market and that’s why they purchased a Chevy Blazer EV just a few weeks ago.

“We’re committed to moving into the future with the electrified vehicles,” he said.

“I do believe it will get there eventually.”