Good morning. Today, we’re looking at the two forces shaping the future of GFL Environmental Inc., one of Canada’s largest companies.

Politics: Mark Carney’s Liberals have secured a majority government with a sweep of three by-elections.

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Ports: Barely a week after the abrupt departure of its CEO, the Montreal Port Authority confirmed its chief financial officer is leaving as well.

Tech: Anthropic’s new AI model has set off a cybersecurity arms race, as organizations rush to identify and address vulnerabilities in their software.

For the better part of two years, GFL Environmental Inc. has straddled two worlds. One – the familiar, business-as-usual undertakings of being one of North America’s top waste-management companies – was underscored yesterday in a $5.4-billion-acquisition of Calgary-based Secure Waste Infrastructure Corp.

The other has played out across job sites and residential streets, where a series of shootings, arsons and other attacks have targeted GFL facilities and the homes of executives connected to the company.

On Thursday, police arrested the owner of a Toronto-based excavating and shoring firm who has had a history of disputes with firms tied to GFL, later alleging he was behind the September, 2024, shootings at the homes of GFL chief executive Patrick Dovigi and Ted Manziaris, who works with the company’s sister construction business.

The arrest and the acquisition, announced just a few days apart, show the two forces shaping one of Canada’s largest companies at once: a business built by acquiring competitors and expanding into new markets, and a dispute in an industry defined by consolidation at the top and fragmentation below, in which thousands of smaller firms compete with industry giants for regional contracts.

That charges have been laid against a competitor is another twist in a saga that has roiled some of Toronto’s most affluent neighbourhoods, rattled the publicly traded company and shaken its top executives, Globe and Mail reporters Robyn Doolittle and Tim Kiladze revealed in a recent investigation.

The growth of garbage

Waste is big business. In North America, GFL has a market value north of $20-billion and annual revenue of roughly $8-billion, placing it among four top operators that together are worth more than $200-billion.

The company has grown through a series of more than 270 acquisitions across Canada and the United States, impressing investors with steady revenue even as GFL has more recently raised concerns about its debt-heavy approach to buying smaller companies.

Yesterday, after the deal was announced, analysts pressed GFL executives about the rationale for the deal, questioning the price tag and how it fits into the company’s core waste-management business.

The company’s stock ended down about 10 per cent on the day, but it’s up more than 100 per cent since its 2020 listing, and roughly 25 per cent per cent since its 2024 lows – in part because of moves aimed at reducing the amount it owed lenders.

On Sept. 29, 2024, Dovigi was a few months away from the sale of a majority stake in the company’s environmental services division to pay down a chunk of that debt when a gunman opened fire on his home in Toronto’s Rosedale neighbourhood.

A timeline of attacks

Police have linked at least a dozen incidents since mid-2024, including shootings, suspected arsons and vandalism directed at properties, equipment and individuals connected to GFL and its sister construction company, Green Infrastructure Partners Inc., but have not made charges beyond those made last week.

The first attack was reported just after midnight on June 1, 2024, when a gunman entered a yard owned by GIP and fired into a maintenance building, striking the front door, windows and two vehicles.

In the weeks that followed, dump trucks were set ablaze and equipment at a road construction site was burned.

After the September, 2024, shootings directed at the executives’ homes, a GFL office building in north Toronto was found with its front entrance shattered and marked by bullet holes.

Last month, a GFL waste-hauling facility was hit by gunfire twice in the same week — and the homes of two more executives connected to GFL were targeted in back-to-back assaults.

Enter Astro Excavating

In the early 2020s, GFL and Astro Excavating Inc. had a working relationship that was, at minimum, functional and at times mutually beneficial. Astro operated on construction proj