The Commons Public Safety Committee opened hearings on auto theft Monday, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.The probe comes following complaints of poor policing at Canadian ports by the Border Services Agency (BSA), due to lack of staff and unreliable equipment. Industry estimates payouts on theft claims to be worth $1 billion a year with some 70,000 vehicles stolen annually. Thefts have included some 38 government-issue vehicles, according to an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons January 31.Bloc Québécois MP Kristina Michaud earlier told the committee there are “only five officers at the Port of Montréal responsible for searching over 580,000 containers a year” and “the X-ray scanner used for the containers only works about half the time… there is an obvious shortage of staff and equipment.”On November 16, the BSA acknowledged it recovered only 1,038 vehicles intercepted at the Port of Montréal in 2023, out of some 42,000 reported stolen vehicles in Québec and Ontario.An internal report called Evaluation Of The Criminal Investigations Program shows, in 2023, the Border Services Agency assigned just 207 staff to all criminal investigations nationwide, including gun and drug smuggling — but that auto theft was not a priority.“Managers are required to focus the vast majority of activities on major and complex cases which deal with multiple fraud or crime schemes, multiple entities or that go beyond a single incident rather than port prosecution cases which are single or isolated incidents,” said the report. After highlighting the lack of personnel assigned to auto theft, Michaud shared data on the scope of the export trade in stolen vehicles, including that “60% of the vehicles that end up at the Port of Montréal were stolen in Ontario.”“They are put in sealed containers and then shipped to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe,” said Michaud. “The Canada Border Services Agency and Government of Canada are clearly responsible.”Conservative MP Dane Lloyd said his own vehicle was stolen from his home in Alberta. “I had a subscription for technology that allowed me to track the vehicle,” Lloyd told the committee on February 6. “I called the police and they were able to locate the vehicle.”Lloyd said he witnessed a second incident in his neighbourhood in December 2023. “Over the Christmas break I woke up at 7 o’clock in the morning,” said Lloyd. “I saw an F-350 parked outside my house. There were people in hoodies trying to steal it.”The most commonly stolen models are Ford F-series pickups, Ford Econoline vans, Toyota Highlanders and Jeep Wranglers.Attorney General Arif Virani earlier told media the problem spreads across all of Canada. “I am hearing about this in British Columbia, I am hearing about this at the Port of Halifax,” said Virani.“This is truly a national issue that requires a national response.”
