As the Greater Toronto Area faces a car theft crisis, some residents are considering bold, perhaps even radical, action.
Kamran Hussain, who immigrated to Canada from India on an international student visa in 2017 and completed the difficult process of becoming a permanent resident, said he woke up on the morning of January 11 and couldn’t find anything and considered leaving the country. But a car window broke in a driveway east of Toronto.
“When I got out, the car was gone,” Hussain said of his 2022 Toyota Highlander.
For the 30-year-old communications worker, the already complex task of becoming a permanent resident of Canada has been made even more difficult by the bureaucratic steps the pandemic has thrown up. However, he said he chose to build a home in Canada because he thought it was safe.
He now feels that reputation is being called into question by the prevalence of car theft.
Asked if he was seriously considering leaving Canada, he said: “I’m looking at options.”
“I left my home country because the situation there was unstable,” he said. “But right now, with the increasing issues of safety, theft, break-ins and increased crime here, that’s a big concern for me.”
Mr. Hussain’s history of vehicle theft did not pose a threat to his personal safety. The thief never entered his house.
But he said he was concerned about reports of criminals breaking into homes with weapons and demanding car keys.
Toronto police say a spike in auto thefts has led to an increase in home invasions, violent robberies and gun violence across the GTA.
Ontario Provincial Police said the province’s current car theft rate is “unprecedented” and is driven in part by demand for luxury cars in overseas markets.
The Equite Association, an insurance company-funded crime-fighting group, announced that car theft insurance claims in Ontario exceeded $1 billion for the first time last year.
Amid growing public frustration, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau convened a national auto theft summit in February to encourage closer collaboration between law enforcement, border agencies, the insurance industry and automakers.
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Laura Puckett, another car theft victim, wants to bring more attention to the role of car companies. Specifically, she thinks automakers could be sued for making cars that she alleges are too easy to steal.
At 4 a.m. on Jan. 10, she said she heard the familiar beep of her Toyota SUV being unlocked.
“I was completely shocked,” she said in a recent interview. “I woke up my partner and I was like, ‘Someone’s stealing my truck.’ And we ran downstairs, and it was gone.”
The 52-year-old social worker described the ensuing ordeal as a “nightmare”.
Police found her car, but it needed extensive repairs.
During that time, her insurance only covered $1,000, which meant she was paying $2,000 in monthly rental costs for a replacement car. She said on top of her $230 monthly insurance premium, she continues to pay $700 a month for the stolen vehicle.
She reflected on what she had endured and how easy it seemed for her car to be taken by thieves, and called for car manufacturers to be held “accountable”.
“If I invested money in a security door for my home and anyone could come into my house with an empty keychain, I would feel kind of cheated, right?” she said. Ta. “That’s how I feel about my car.”
Paquette said she is discussing her legal options.
“Why should consumers protect themselves?” she said. “Cars are a big investment, so why are they so easily stolen? Why do we have to go to extremes to prevent it?”
In the weeks following the national summit on auto theft, law enforcement agencies have sought to highlight a series of successes.
This includes a joint effort between OPP and Canada Border Services Agency that recovered 598 stolen vehicles destined for export at the Port of Montreal, Canada’s gateway to overseas stolen vehicle markets. The estimated value of these vehicles was he $35.5 million.
According to OPP, 75 per cent of recovered vehicles were stolen in Ontario, where the Ontario government spent about $36 million last month to purchase four new police helicopters as part of its response to the auto theft crisis. announced plans to do so.
Toronto Police and Equite Association Vice-President of Investigations Brian Gast link this growing problem to organized crime.
Gast noted that car theft rates had been rising year-over-year even before the COVID-19 pandemic, but supply chain issues caused by the resulting global shutdown have caused a decline in new and used cars. Both cars said it became difficult to find.
“Organized crime is exploiting that problem and profiting from it,” he says. “That’s when the numbers are going up,” he added, noting that the cost of insurance claims related to car theft in Ontario has increased by 319 per cent since 2020.
Lieutenant of the Toronto Police Department. Pauline Gray said car theft was now the top three sources of revenue for organized crime groups.
Gast praised the new level of coordination initiated in response to the crisis, but said only one metric would ultimately matter in assessing its success.
“The goal is to stop the uptrend to at least level off and then turn down,” he said.
“Success is in the results. The number of vehicles stolen in Canada shows how well this collaborative program is working.”
