
"Today, my bike was stolen.
Or at least I thought it was stolen. After a 90-minute client meeting at Yonge/Bloor, my bike had disappeared from this pole outside the Hudson's Bay Centre. I walked up and down the sidewalk for several minutes, not accepting that this was really happening.
I was about to head home and have a good bawl -- I can't afford a new bike -- when I noticed a security camera on the RBC that would have captured the bike thief. So I approached a security guard standing outside the Centre and explained my situation. "Yeah, I cut some bikes in the last hour and a half," he said. "That's private property," he said, and told me that the building owner -- Brookfield Office Properties -- orders their security staff to remove bikes from the pole. Since when is the SIDEWALK private property? I told him he needed to give me my bike back right now or I'd call the police to report a bike theft. While waiting in the lobby for my bike, the security guard on duty there commiserated with me, saying, "Yeah, we get several angry cyclists in here a day."
And those are just the ones who figured out what really happened! I wonder how many people have just assumed their bike was stolen by some run-of-the-mill bike thief and gone home and cried like I was about to? I mean, who would guess that a company worth $18.7 billion steals bikes from low-income people? What does this $18.7 billion company do with all the bikes they steal -- do they actually sell them? Sickening.
- Lisa Ferguson