Next to music and my dogs, my biggest obsession is cars. I’ve always been a car nut. I’m one of those people with a list of cars I’ll buy when i win the lottery…

I’ll start with production sports cars. A Porsche 911 Turbo 4 will be my daily driver, although there will be a Lamborghini Uris SUV for those times I need to haul people and stuff. For those summer days, I think a McLaren 750s Spider would be cool.

I’ll need a car for track days, of course. No one else in the neighbourhood would have a Koenigsegg. I’d probably order the Jekso Absolute (1600 horsepower sounds about right.)

And just to show everyone that I’m not out to completely destroy the planet, there will be at least one EV. Right now, that would be a Rimac Nevera.

That’s what? Four million dollars’ worth of vehicles? Not including insurance and maintenance, of course. I’m never going to win that kind of lottery, but it’s nice to dream.

For other people, though, this is the kind of machinery sitting in their air-conditioned, highly secure underground garages. That includes a lot of rock stars.

Eric Clapton is so well-known at Ferrari that the company built him a custom one-of-a-kind model that probably cost him upward of five million. Neil Peart had a selection of very collectible sports cars from the 1960s, all in silver.

Brian Johnson of AC/DC has a bunch of Bentleys, Ferraris, and some classic race cars. Same with Nick Mason of Pink Floyd. He’s even written a book about this collection.

Then there’s everything we use in the car to listen to music. Radio, car audio, satellite radio, infotainment systems, and all that.

All this got me thinking about the relationship between cars and rock. The two things go hand-in-hand. We should look at this history, yeah?

Songs heard on this show:

• Jonathan Richman, Roadrunner
• Coldplay, Speed of Sound
• Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, Rocket 88
• Weezer, We Are All on Drugs
• Greta Van Fleet, Highway Tune
• Foo Fighters, Something from Nothing
• The Clash, Brand New Cadillac
• Blink-182, The Rock Show
• Jamiroquai, Black Devil Car
• Joy Division, Love Will Year Us Apart

Eric Wilhite has his usual playlist.

The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:

• 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday night at 7pm
• Q107/Toronto – Sunday night at 8pm
• Live 88-5/Ottawa – Saturdays at 9am and Sundays at 6pm.
• 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener – Sunday nights at 11pm
• FM96/London – Sunday nights at 8pm
• Power 97/Winnipeg – Sunday nights at 11pm
• Sonic 102.9/Edmonton – Sunday at 8am and 8pm
• The Zone/Victoria – Sunday at 8am and 9pm
• The Fox/Vancouver – Sunday at 11pm
• Surge 105/Halifax – Sunday at 7pm
• WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown – Mon-Fri at 9pm
• We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor,  Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The last time we had a New Music Friday on a Friday the 13th that fell in March was in 2020. Remember what happened that day? Let’s hope this time things will be far less dramatic.

Singles

1. Arkells and Grouplove, Ride (Universal)

Arkells love to collaborate with other artists: AJR, Rivers Cuomo, K.Flay, and Portugal. The Man and the ones I can name off the top of my head, but I know there are more. This time, it’s a crossover with Grouplove for a song that’ll appear on the upcoming Arkells album, Between Us, which will be here April 17. You can hear the summer in this one, which is something we can probably all use right about now.

2. Broken Social Scene, Hey Amanda (Arts & Crafts)

BSS breaks their 10-year silence with Remember the Humans on May 8, an album that will feature contributions from Feist, Hannah Georgas, Lisa Lobsinger, and a bunch of other friends who dropped by. This is the second advance single.

3. Violet Grohl, 595 (Aurora Records/Republic)

After years of appearing onstage with her dad with and without the Foo Fighters, Violet Grohl has been dropping singles of her own. She’s now ready to launch her debut album with a song about, er, phone sex. The track was inspired by a vintage t-shirt advertising a phone sex line, which explains the lyrics “I’ll be your 1-900-G spot, baby / 595 I’m on the line / You won’t last.” I wonder what Dave thought the first time he heard this…

4. Modest Mouse, Look How Far… (Epic)

Modest Mouse has been largely absent since 2021 when they released The Golden Casket. Their reemergence began when they hosted one of those music cruises in the Caribbean with Portugal. The Man, Kurt Vile, and Mannequin Pussy. This new song–it’s not even two minutes–is the first bit of MM music in about five years. This will help set up a 30th anniversary tour that begins in May. Canadian dates are scheduled for Vancouver, Calgary, and Saskatoon with more to come.

5. Michael Stipe, I Played the Fool (Water Tower Music)

The former REM frontman returns the theme song to the new HBO series, Rooster, starring Steve Carrell. His group features Josh Klinghoffer (ex-RHCP), Travis Barker (Blink-182), and producer Andrew Wyatt. They’re calling this “the best clapping TV theme song since Friends.”

6. Weezer, Go Away (UMe)

No, this isn’t a new song, but it is a lesson on how something can suddenly go viral. Weezer fans will remember this collaboration with Best Coast from the 2015 album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End. But last month, TikTok had something to say. The track went viral and then blew up on Spotify. This old single is now the most-streamed song in the entire Weezer catalogue–and it only took two weeks. That explains this official re-release. The internet is weird.

Albums

1. Kim Gordon, Play Me (Matador)

Kim’s third solo album is finally here after months of teasing. How is it that someone at the age of 72 is more in touch with what’s going on with music than a lot of 20 year-olds? This record contains hip-hop, krautrock, industrial noise, and more. Can the world keep up with Kim Gordon? Good luck.

2. Lamb of God, Into Oblivion (Century Media Records/Epic)

Randy Blythe and crew are up to twelve albums now and if you’re looking for something that reflects your angry and anxiety, you’ll find something here. And no, LoG isn’t a band that likes to repeat itself. Bang your head.

3. Tinariwen, Hoggar (Wedge)

Let’s end with something out of right field. Tinariwen is a Grammy-winning Tuareg blues band from the deserts of Algeria and Mali. If you like this–they’ve posted the whole album on YouTube–there are nine other albums dating back to the 80s that are worth exploring.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

You might not have heard his name, but you’ve heard his machine. Japanese engineer Ikutaro Kakehashi passed away in April 2017. He was a founder of Roland, the music electronics company, and the inventor of the ubiquitous Roland TR-808 drum machine.

The 808 has cemented its place in music history and pops up on a wide variety of tracks, from Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” to Kanye’s entire 808s and Heartbreaks album.  But the machine almost died early.

The 808 was originally released in 1980 as a cheaper alternative to fancier machines. But cheaper parts meant less memory and more electronic sounds, which critics did not like. The 808 was pulled from shelves only three years later, but saw a resurgence thanks to underground producers in the worlds of techno-pop, hip hop, dance and techno. Used machines were selling for only a couple hundred dollars, and the interface was super easy to program. It didn’t take long for the 808 to start showing up everywhere.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Questions are being raised about the Ford government’s timeline to shrink the number of conservation authorities in Ontario by 75 per cent, with local leaders still waiting to see details of the plan.

Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks Todd McCarthy confirmed this week he would amalgamate the province’s 36 conservation authorities into just nine, something he aims to achieve in the next year.

The province said in its news release it wanted to see a “clear and successful” transition to the new model by “early 2027.”

Tim Lanthier, the CAO of Grey Sauble Conservation Authority, said he and his colleagues were still waiting to see details of the government’s strategy, which he said could likely take more than a year.

“I would suggest that February 2027, as being proposed, is very ambitious,” he told Global News. “It’s our understanding from the media statements that the province has a plan. We’re yet to see this plan, though.”

Lanthier said he wasn’t in favour of the plan but would work to make it happen.

“This isn’t what we’ve advocated for and certainly not what we wanted to see,” he said.

“We will work collaboratively with our partner conservation authorities to make it happen. But whether it can all happen by 2027 — or just the absolute bare bones — remains to be seen. Because there is a lot of work.”

McCarthy has pledged that the amalgamation won’t lead to net job losses and insists it is necessary to deal with “fragmentation,” bring efficiency to leadership and standardization to the work conservation authorities do.

“We had a problem with fragmentation and inconsistency,” the minister said. “We identified the solution to that problem. We listened after initially proposing seven, and we’ve arrived at nine.”

Critics argue that that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what conservation authorities were designed to do.

“What we’re seeing brought forward seems to ignore the reality that we have very different situations in every watershed,” Ontario NDP MPP Peter Tabuns told Global News.

“Putting them together into nine, blending together areas that have very substantial differences is not actually going to help the conservation authorities function properly. It will, in fact, lead to problems where local control isn’t there and understanding of and reflection of local needs won’t be taken into account in decision-making.”

Lanthier said amalgamation could hurt local representation on conservation authorities. While that may be less impactful to their core mandates of protecting drinking and source water, it could reduce the effectiveness of other services they provide.

“We also offer other programs like environmental education, environmental stewardship, watershed management in terms of watershed monitoring,” he explained.

“Some of those programs, because of changes made to the legislation over the last five years, are not considered mandatory anymore. They are implemented because it’s deemed to be important locally.”

McCarthy said his office received 14,000 messages and consultations about its decision to reduce the number of conservation authorities.

His spokesperson did not respond to questions asking if the majority of those comments were in favour of the amalgamation or not.

A housing law from the Progressive Conservative government a few years ago reduced the role of conservation authorities, including limiting the areas they can consider in development permissions, removing factors such as pollution and conservation of the land.

— with a file from The Canadian Press

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

After losing his wife and daughter to cancer years prior, Jimmy Ottenbreit lived his Regina home with his dog for the last three years.

However, last December he lost his home to a house fire, with only the smoke detector saving his life.

“The fire alarm went off and I got up, opened my door and the house was full of smoke,” says Ottenbreit.

Ottenbreit says his friends in the Regina Beach community have helped him rebuild his life and he now lives in a temporary cabin with his dog.

He wants people to know the importance of keeping yourself safe and living with a working smoke detector.

Sania Ali has more details in the video coverage above.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Some Edmonton landowners are taking a stand by erecting a blockade against what they call a delinquent oil and gas company.

The group says MAGA Energy hasn’t paid its lease for three years, and therefore the company is no longer allowed on their land.

On Thursday, landowners Mark Dorin and Dale Braun put up a wooden barrier on their piece of farmland in southwest Edmonton, where MAGA Energy operates pumpjacks.

“If I’m a land owner and I don’t pay my bills, I lose my land, I lose my house,” Dorin told reporters in front of one of the company’s active wells.

“But look behind me, we’ve got (an) active pumpjack here … more pumpjacks over there on our land, all operating and they haven’t paid their bill.”

Braun, who along with his family own a 75 per cent stake in the land, said he’s not anti-oil and gas and that he believes Premier Danielle Smith’s government is on the right path when it comes to the industry. But he said he just wants the company to “grow up.”

“The laws have been broken here. They’re being broken on a daily basis and it’s being ignored,” Braun said.

Dorin said that now that the group has terminated the lease over the missing payments, MAGA Energy isn’t allowed on the land unless its employees are there to decommission the wells.

“That’s the law of Alberta and we’re going to enforce it here,” he said.

He added that the company usually has staff on site at least once a day.

MAGA Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dorin said the company had taken over the lease about a decade ago and at first had no issue making the payments, which he said amount to $12,000 a year.

Last year the Narwhal — an independent environmental news outlet — reported that MAGA Energy’s main refinery closed in 2023, which cut off a major revenue stream.

Dorin said he and the other landowners with stakes in the site have tried to get the provincial energy regulator to take action, but said the effort has gone nowhere.

“They’re supposed to balance the rights of that industry with the rights of these people that own this land. That’s not happening,” he said.

“We’ve got a complete loss of social licence for the industry that built this province, and thousands of landowners across this province are absolutely fed up with this lawlessness and these double standards.”

Oil and gas companies failing to pay landowners or pay property taxes to municipalities is a long-standing issue in Alberta, and MAGA Energy is just one company in arrears.

Landowners like Dorin and Braun as well as the association that represents rural municipalities in the province have been calling on the government for years to fix the problem, which has led to some policy changes.

But Dorin said it’s not that the province needs new laws to address the issue; rather he said the existing laws just need to be enforced.

In 2023 the provincial government implemented a new rule that required the Alberta Energy Regulator block the transfer of oil and gas leases to companies that were more than $20,000 in arrears. The Investigative Journalism Foundation reported last month that despite the rule, some companies, including MAGA Energy, have managed to acquire new wells.

Asked for comment on the blockade Thursday, the regulator said in a statement that agreements are private between a landowner and a company.

“The AER cannot enforce commitments between a landowner and a company not included in a written agreement,” it said.

Energy Minister Brian Jean dismissed Dorin and Braun as “activists,” but he also said that no system was perfect, “especially when it’s run by the government.”

“But I will tell you this government is focusing like a laser on this particular issue,” Jean told reporters at the legislature in Edmonton.

“For the first time ever a government is actually looking at the current process and trying to make the process a lot better.”

Jean, in a statement later Thursday, added that landowners who haven’t been paid by energy companies can file a claim with the provincial property rights tribunal, which can order the government to compensate land owners instead of private companies.

Dorin said it was an “absolute joke” that taxpayer dollars get doled out when a company refuses to pay.

“That’s roads, hospitals, libraries (and) other services that aren’t funded,” he said.

Opposition NDP energy critic Nagwan Al-Guneid said Dorin and Braun aren’t alone in their fight against oil companies not paying rent or taxes, calling it a “crisis in the management of liabilities” in the province.

“Companies have promises to fulfil to landowners, and it’s a question of how is the regulator applying the law to ensure that companies are meeting the commitments to these landowners,” she said.

“The regular needs to regulate, the government needs to start governing and ensuring that companies are meeting their commitments.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2026.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

The City of Saskatoon says no legal avenues are off the table after a semi hauling an oversized load struck an overpass Wednesday.

The crash happened just after 5 p.m. on Circle Drive at the 108th Street overpass in the Sutherland neighbourhood when a truck hauling an excavator hit the structure.

City staff and structural engineers arrived on scene shortly after the collision and conducted an assessment to make sure the overpass was safe to use, the city said in a statement.

Police also attended the scene and questioned the truck driver.

Crews removed loose concrete that broke from the overpass Wednesday, closing Circle Drive’s northbound curb lane for further repairs.

Crews remained on scene Thursday morning, removing loose concrete and conducting a secondary damage assessment.

The lanes reopened nearly 24 hours after the crash Thursday.

The incident comes nearly a week after someone hit the Highway 16 overpass while travelling into Saskatoon on Highway 11. The two incidents are around six km apart.

For Jason Aebig, CEO of Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce, the two crashes are “too many.”

“The bylaws are clear, the regulations are clear. The signage is clear. What’s missing is a commitment on the part of drivers and haulers to make sure that they’re adhering to those things,” he said.

These overpass crashes incur a number of costs, Aebig said, from infrastructure repairs to traffic delays.

“Saskatoon-based companies actually, they do their diligence,” he said.

“What tends to be a problem are companies from outside our jurisdiction who don’t do that.”

Under its traffic bylaw, the City of Saskatoon can fine individuals and companies for infrastructure damage, with maximum fines of $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for companies, according to Cindy Yelland, the city’s solicitor.

“The City takes all legal steps to collect damages from any individual or corporation that damages City infrastructure,” the city told Global News in a statement, adding that legal steps can either be through restitution imposed by a court or through a civil litigation claim.

“Each case is different and there is often an insurance company involved that pays for all or a portion of the claim. It will be the City’s intention to pursue all legal avenues to collect damages for the two recent incidents.”

Saskatchewan’s trucking association says it wants to see more resources delivered to its regulator SGI to make sure bad actors stay off the roads.

“We’ve got lots of great pieces of legislation and regulation on the books in Saskatchewan. And it’s not a matter of not having the laws there to protect society. It’s a matter of having enough people, right, to investigate it,” said Susan Ewart, executive director of the Saskatchewan Trucking Association.

While road closures have been lifted for the most recent crash, they remain in effect for last Thursday’s crash for repairs, according to the city’s road restrictions and construction projects webpage.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Coming off one of their worst performances of the season, the Winnipeg Jets were hoping for a strong, bounce-back effort against the worst team in the Eastern Conference Thursday night.

Instead, they fell apart defensively in a 6-3 loss to the New York Rangers to further dent their fleeting playoff hopes.

The Jets never had a lead, and Connor Hellebuyck surrendered five goals on only 16 shots as the Jets dropped their second straight. But it’s hard to fault the goalie when three of the five goals were from direct deflections.

“We gave up nine 5-on-5 scoring chances and they scored four goals off coverage,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “It was all coverage, every one of those. Obviously, the tip ins, those deflections, those are getting beat to the net front. They were just coverage. Coverage goals that we have to be better at.”

The Jets outshot the Rangers 26-17.

They traded goals back and forth as the Rangers took the lead four separate times, but New York had three unanswered goals in third period including the empty netter.

“Got to be a little bit sharper and talk it out and know who we have in coverage,” said Jets forward Kyle Connor. “Thought we did a good job offensively, a lot of zone time and holding onto pucks and creating some there. Yeah, for whatever reason, kind of a lack of discipline in a lot of ways in our own zone that leads to some of those goals.”

Connor, Gabriel Vilardi and newcomer Isak Rosén scored the goals for the Jets in the loss.

Rosén notched his first as a Jet, while Jacob Bryson recorded his first point with Winnipeg.

“Getting to know the system more and how we want to play here,” said Rosén. “Yeah, more comfortable.”

The Jets gave up four goals in the final frame and have now allowed a goal in the first two minutes of the third period in five of their last six games.

“It’s been said,” Arniel said. “Be ready to go. Be ready to go. That’s just the focus, that’s a detail. Those are just things that you have to be ready for. As much as I keep saying it, maybe I’ll just say nothing. Whatever, we tried starting different lines, doing different things and it’s sort of backfired the exact same way.”

The Jets also might want to think about putting those Heritage jerseys in storage for the rest of the season as they have just three wins in 11 games when wearing them this season.

Dylan DeMelo appeared in his 700th career game in the loss.

Things went wrong early for the Jets as Vilardi was called for a questionable hooking penalty just 59 seconds into the game.

It took New York all of nine seconds to capitalize as Adam Fox beat Hellebuyck from the point thanks in part to a drive-by screen from Gabriel Perreault.

A couple minutes later, Rosén sprung Jonathan Toews on a breakaway thanks to a long, yet accurate stretch pass from his own end. Toews tried to sneak a shot blocker-side on Igor Shesterkin but the Rangers’ netminder stopped it with his right pad.

The Jets earned their first power play look of the night at the 11:18 mark of the opening frame but were not able to capitalize.

Not much else happened in a fairly low-event period with Winnipeg managing just six shots on goal to only three for New York.

Winnipeg drew even at the 2:21 mark of the second when Rosén deflected a Bryson point shot past Shesterkin for his first goal as a Jet.

The Rangers responded at the 7:36 mark when Alexis Lafrenière tipped a point shot through Hellebuyck.

New York picked up their second power play of the game just past the midway point of the second, but the Jets had the better chances as Cole Koepke and Morgan Barron both came close to scoring shorthanded.

Winnipeg got back on level ground with 2:11 left in the second thanks to a highlight-reel marker from Connor, not long after he was robbed by Shesterkin.

After New York cleared the puck and changed some of their players, the puck came back to Elias Salomonsson in the Winnipeg end. He sent it up to Mark Scheifele who carried it into the Rangers’ end before passing it cross-ice to Connor.

The U.S. Olympian then toe-dragged the puck through the skates of Fox, a former Norris winner, and faked out Shesterkin before depositing the puck into the net for his 29th of the season.

The score stayed tied 2-2 heading to the second intermission with Winnipeg outshooting New York 9-5 in the period.

Scheifele came within an inch or two of giving Winnipeg the lead in the opening minute of the third when Mika Zibanejad turned the puck over at the Jets’ blue line, springing Scheifele on a partial breakaway. He bore in fast on Shesterkin before firing a shot that beat the netminder but rang off the post and ricocheted into the corner.

That proved costly for the Jets because less than a minute later, the Rangers got the lead back.

New York won a faceoff in the Jets’ end, leading to Braden Schneider getting the puck at the point before sliding it over to Matthew Robertson. He sent a shot to the slot that was steered past Hellebuyck by Tye Kartye to make it 3-2 at the 1:15 mark.

The lead didn’t last long, however, as Vilardi pulled the Jets back level just 3:04 later, collecting a rebound in close and depositing it into the net for his 25th of the season.

The seesaw affair continued less than three minutes later when the Rangers picked up their fourth one-goal lead of the game.

Zibanejad carried the puck up the ice and into the Jets’ end as DeMelo blew a tire in the neutral zone. After several players got a touch on the puck in the Winnipeg end, Schneider sent a pass back-door that Perreault steered into the net to make it 4-3 at the 6:57 mark.

The Rangers grabbed their first two-goal lead of the night at the 11:08 mark. Adam Edstrom collected a loose puck along the boards in the Winnipeg end before leaving it for Conor Sheary. He dropped it to the corner for Vincent Trocheck as Edstrom circled into the slot. Trocheck passed it to Edstrom who took a shot that deflected off the stick of Bryson and past Hellebuyck to make it 5-3.

Josh Morrissey came close to making it a one-goal game when his shot from the slot rang off the post with 4:23 to go.

With 2:15 on the clock, Hellebuyck went to the bench for an extra attacker and Fox nearly hit the empty net from his own end a minute later, missing just wide for an icing to keep Winnipeg’s faint hopes alive.

It turned out to be immaterial, however, when Noah Laba scored to ice the game with 50.8 to go.

The Rangers only managed to get 17 shots on net in the win while Winnipeg got 26 on Shesterkin.

The Jets will be in tough to get back into the win column when they host the league-leading Avalanche Saturday afternoon. Pregame coverage on 680 CJOB begins at 1 p.m. with the puck dropping just after 3 p.m.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

You might know Cody Janzen as the voice of the Saskatchewan Rush, but what you might not know is he has a history of hockey, too.

He’s played in minor and junior hockey and a little bit overseas; he even started up a hockey agency and ran it for about a decade.

While he passed on the agency, he wanted to continue helping people play a sport he loves.

“So kicked around a few ideas, talked to some people, was connected with the right people and decided that getting into the ownership world was kind of something that had always interested me,” said Janzen.

He took ownership of a hockey team in North Macedonia, The Skopja Herd.

While hockey isn’t exactly on the North Macedonia radar, Janzen wants to bring the game back to a place where they haven’t even had minor hockey for years.

“They did actually have a lot of hockey history. It’s Yugoslavia was hockey was huge in the ’60s and ’70s, you know, even pre-COVID they had a really strong national team — won the development cup back in 2018. And then unfortunately hockey fell apart there,” said Janzen.

Janzen says Skopja had reached out in hopes of hockey returning, and the people in the community are excited Janzen is giving them an assist.

“It was special to see… there wasn’t a single empty seat there for either of our games on the weekend. Like that’s cool to me. People want hockey back there.”

Janzen says the team has had a good start so far and he would like to see them win a championship, but most of all, he wants to see hockey thrive in North Macedonia.

“I feel like it’s an opportunity for me to give back to the hockey world. Hockey gave so much to me, sports gave so to me,” said Janzen.

“And now I’ve got the chance to make an impact, and you know, people’s lives, it doesn’t matter where it is around the world, but it’s kids getting into hockey. Just people playing sports.”

Watch above for more on the new North Macedonia hockey team, The Skopja Herd.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Ashutosh Pathak and his brother needed to buy a new vehicle for their families. After searching, they finally found a Ford F-150 they felt would be perfect.

“We found the truck in Ponoka, Summit Ram. As any consumer would do, we went in there and checked and inspected the vehicle,” Pathak said.

“We got the truck in October 2025, and in November RCMP seized the truck. We only had the truck for a month and a half.”

The truck was stolen and taken by RCMP. Pathak had no idea, despite going through the proper channels. They checked the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), and even made a point to purchase a vehicle from a reputable dealership as opposed to Facebook Marketplace or an individual.

Pathak said he and his brother paid for the truck through their line of credit and savings. It was nearly $40,000. They bought it from Kaizen Auto Group’s Summit Ram in Ponoka, who said they didn’t know it was stolen.

He made a complaint to AMVIC,  the Alberta Motor Vehicle Industry Council. Pathak said its investigation found the dealership didn’t know the vehicle was stolen and was not in the wrong. He was told to go through insurance but the insurance said because it wasn’t stolen from Pathak, it’s not covered.

That means, Pathak is out $40,000 and has no truck. The vehicle is going to auction next week. He can pursue legal action, but he said he can’t afford it.

“It’s like daytime robbery to me, nobody is taking accountability,” Pathak said.

“Everybody is giving a clean sheet to each other and at the end, who is the victim here? Me.”

Global News asked Kaizen Auto Group for an interview but they didn’t respond.

ALERT’s auto theft unit calls this a prolific problem, and it’s not just used vehicles targeted. New ones can also have their VINs tampered with.

“For dealerships it is often difficult to detect, because individuals who are re-VINing vehicles in the province know their craft well. They can make their labels appear legitimate,” ALERT Auto Crimes Sgt. Brandon Crozier said.

Crozier said this can be devastating for families who are left on the hook for the cost of the vehicle and nothing to show for it.

“It comes down to who has the higher onus, who has the higher burden of proof to take responsibility. Between a privately sold vehicle and another, that is a dispute between them. A vehicle sold between a customer and a dealership… It’s between them, unfortunately. Dealerships say ‘well we’ve done all the checks we could and we’re not negligent in our business practices.'”
He said when customers go to a dealership they expect to be sold vehicles that are safe, not listed as salvage or rebuilt, and not listed as a stolen vehicle, and that doesn’t enter many buyers minds.

“Before going to a dealership, get to know the dealership. I would ask them about their best practices of what they do to ensure vehicles are safe and legitimate to be on a roadway,” Sgt. Crozier said.

Alberta Services Minister Dale Nally said in a statement to Global News that the situation is completely unacceptable.

“When an Albertan buys a vehicle from a licensed dealership, it should always be able to be legally owned. Licensed dealerships have a responsibility to ensure the vehicles they sell meet the requirements to be legally registered,” Nally said.

Nally stressed the government will meet with AMVIC to get answers to understand how this happened and whether improvements are needed to strengthen oversight and prevent this from happening again.

In relation to Pathak’s truck, the RCMP have charged 49-year-old Tanya Michelle Murray of St. Paul with fraud, forgery and uttering a forged document.

She was taken before a Justice of the Peace and released. Her next appearance is set for August 2026.

The RCMP said in an email that despite auto theft numbers dropping, this is a trending crime type.

Purchasers are encouraged to conduct license checks, Carfax, and Carproof as well as ensure they are purchasing from a reputable dealer. These checks may assist in identifying suspicious vehicles.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.