Public Safety Committee on Feb. 29th, 2024

[Huw Williams]

I would say with respect to the top-10 list that, if you look at the Toyotas that are on that top-10 list, as an example—not to pick on one particular brand—you will see that the stolen vehicle rate is 10 times higher on those Toyotas on the top-10 list in Canada. It's six times higher in Canada than it is in the U.S. It is a global problem. We take the point that this is organized crime everywhere, but we're uniquely being taken advantage of here in Canada.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

A few weeks ago, I participated in the National Summit on Combatting Auto Theft. I'm going to share with you some things I heard and was astounded by.

One of the speakers said that it's recommended that people leave their cars in the garage and that, in that way, car theft could be avoided. I found that quite an impressive statement. First of all, not everybody has a garage. Then we've seen cases where people have broken into a house's garage to steal a vehicle. So, I felt that proposing this solution wasn't the idea of the century.

I also heard a speaker say that it wasn't the cars' fault, it was the criminals' fault. I understand that, but I still think there are things that manufacturers can do, that's for sure.

The purpose of the summit was to bring all the stakeholders to the same table and to hear from them, because I think there's a lack of collaboration among the various stakeholders. This has come up a number of times.

The government has taken the initiative to host this summit. However, as soon as the initial speeches were made, the ministers put forward solutions. In a way, so much the better. At the same time, I thought we were going to wait to consult stakeholders before proposing solutions.

WhatMinister Champagne has proposed is to ban certain devices that make it possible to reproduce the signal of a key to steal a vehicle. Yesterday, in La Presse and on Radio‑Canada, police officers and security and cybersecurity experts said it was a waste of time, since some devices are already banned but are still used by offenders. Police officers have said that this idea clearly came out of nowhere and that no one was consulted.

I'd like to hear from each of you on that.

[David Adams]

You're right. It's important to have coordination, networking and dialogue amongst all stakeholders. That's what we've been facilitating on our own through the association for the last number of months with police task forces right across the country.

What the auto theft task forces have said to us is that, whenever they have a bust of a vehicle ring, they find not only vehicles but also counterfeit key fobs and devices that are used to copy keys and to interrogate the vehicles so they can start them.

Will banning those devices help? It couldn't hurt. What could help is at least not having them readily available on online platforms like Amazon and Alibaba for a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Adams.

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

We're moving now to Mr. Julian.

Go ahead, please. You have six minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I want to follow up very quickly with you, Mr. Adams. You mentioned a number of initiatives to harden vehicles against auto theft. Do you have any idea of the cost per vehicle of those particular elements?

You talked about modifying the key fob so it doesn't transmit and those kinds of things. Do you have any sense of how much that adds to the cost of the vehicle?

[David Adams]

I don't, but I think that reflects back on Mr. Shipley's comment.

I can try to determine that amount for you. I guess it goes to the overall issue of affordability for Canadians. There is some cost associated with it for sure.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Absolutely. Concerns have been raised about the part that auto manufacturers play in preventing auto theft. I think it is a multi-faceted problem, as you've all expressed. It's not just a matter of manufacturers hardening their vehicles at what could be a relatively low cost—and I think your figures will help us with that. There's also a government responsibility as well.

I want to come back to you, Mr. Williams. You mentioned in your brief that your dealership employees are being carjacked at gunpoint, pistol-whipped, run over and shot at. Do you have figures to share with us about the extent to which that has happened across the country?

You also spoke quite appropriately, I think, about the role of CBSA. We heard testimony earlier this week from Mr. Weber of the CIU, who very clearly pointed to the Conservative government's cuts of 1,100 officers back in 2014, from which CBSA has not recovered. The new government did not, in any way, respond to the size and scope of those cuts, which means, according to Mr. Weber, that CBSA is 3,000 agents short.

To what extent do you have figures on some of these violent acts on car dealership employees, and to what extent do these cuts—initiated by the Conservatives and maintained by the Liberals—serve to undermine the ability of CBSA to really enforce the law?

[Huw Williams]

I won't be able to give you a figure on the exact number of stolen vehicles at dealerships off the top of my head, but I could look into that, for sure.

The cases I'm referencing are well known and documented in the media. Sales folks run over as they get strong-armed in a robbery. There's a very famous case in British Columbia where a police officer was shot responding to a Chrysler dealership that was being robbed of vehicles at gunpoint. Dealerships across the country can all tell you stories about people coming in for test drives, and then snatching the keys and bolting that way.

It's a pervasive problem.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I understand.

It's helpful for us to have the concrete numbers. If that is something your association gathers, it would be helpful for all.

[Huw Williams]

We don't gather it, but I will undertake to look into it and see what we can do to provide some clarity on that front.

With respect to the coordination issue, we've been somewhat mystified, because we've been promoting this issue on a cross-jurisdictional basis since roughly 2022. We saw, between 2018 and 2022, in all the GTA areas, that there was a 200% increase in auto theft. When we took part in events like the Peel auto summit, CBSA was reticent to come to the table. Police chiefs from all over the region were there. Leadership and law enforcement from OPP were there. CBSA was absent in a senior leadership capacity. It's mystifying to us.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

You and other witnesses have said—and I certainly agree—that organized crime has taken advantage of CBSA not being able to act on this issue. There were cuts done by the Conservatives in 2014 that have not been restored by the Liberals to date, leaving us 3,000 agents short.

Do you believe this has been a contributing element to the fact that we haven't been able to crack down on organized crime syndicates and do the appropriate filtering to ensure vehicles are not being shipped overseas?

[Huw Williams]

I would comment that CBSA seems to be in some disarray with respect to dealing with exports. I think that's a combination of personnel and training, but it's also the overall approach. I think the union did a very good job of explaining that in previous testimony this week.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you.

You referenced B.C. To all of you, B.C. has been the exception across the country. We've seen a rise in car thefts, particularly in Ontario. In B.C., the number actually went down in 2022. There are anecdotal violent acts. I don't doubt that. B.C. is on a trade route to the Middle East. In fact, it's easier to ship to the Middle East from British Columbia than it is from eastern Canada in many respects. However, one of the reasons why some people have been attributing this exception to B.C. seems to be the fact that there is integrated law enforcement. It also has what has been called the biggest bait car program in the world.

On the bait car program, I know the New Westminster Police do an excellent job. The Burnaby RCMP and RCMP detachments throughout the Lower Mainland work with local police detachments. The bait car program has been a real success. We see rising rates elsewhere. However, in B.C., rates remained stable in 2022 or even went down, as I mentioned.

To what extent should we be integrating some of the B.C. strategies to help lower auto theft rates in other parts of the country?

[Damon Lyons]

I'll jump in on this one.

In Ontario, when we had the extremely high rate, we saw the creation of the Ontario provincial auto theft team in the early 2000s. As we saw, by 2012, it had such success that the team was disbanded in 2015. That's the time period, again, when we started to see the thefts slowly creep back up again.

B.C. has the IMPACT team, of course, which has been there for the entirety of that time.

Certainly, having the resources brought back in is critical. Ontario invested $51 million in the OPP for auto theft. There was a stat that came out from the Toronto police recently: In January of this year, they saw their first decline in auto theft compared with January of last year. Potentially—it's one month—it could already be a success. We see that investment to help the police on the ground could be one of the avenues to help knock this down.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

Thank you, Mr. Lyons.

We're moving into the second round now.

We have Mr. Kurek up for five minutes.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thanks very much to our witnesses.

I find it very interesting how this meeting has gone. The Liberals, specifically, seem desperate to blame anybody for their inaction when it comes to the revolving door of the justice system.

Mr. Williams, there are certainly larger car dealership networks that own a number of dealerships, but many of your members.... I know that, in my constituency, as an example, these are small businesses. These are in smaller communities and have 20 to 30 employees.

Can you share what you're hearing from your members about some of the ways they're practically trying to fill in the gaps being created by the revolving door of the justice system, in order to combat the explosion in the rate of stolen vehicles in this country?

[Huw Williams]

I appreciate the commentary.

When you're a single dealership operator and that is your family business, you're truly the victim of this. To the member from Vaudreuil's commentary, I'm not diminishing that our customers are the largest victims of this, but we are in a constant cat-and-mouse game with organized crime to try to protect those assets, because if you have a hundred vehicles on the lot, you have to put hard security measures in place.

I won't list all of those here, because I don't want to tip our hand to organized crime, but it's a constant ratcheting up of those elements. Every dealership has a constantly evolving protocol.

What's new in the last five years, I think, is that dealerships have had to reach out to former law enforcement security officials to have them on paid retainers to help them harden their assets and protect their employees going forward. We've seen everything in thefts at night, as well, from when they come in and remove physical barriers and flatbed vehicles out of there, to knocking right through the showroom walls.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

It may seem like a fairly straightforward question, but are there costs associated with those measures?

[Huw Williams]

Yes. The costs are enormous, of course, with respect to that, but there's also the cost in increasing pressure from insurers, because if you're constantly a victim, just as the average member of the public is constantly a victim of this, there's pressure on the insurance costs as well.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

In many cases, these small business owners—certainly, the car dealerships I represent—are paying the costs. Those are being passed on to consumers. Everybody, whether it's dealerships or individuals, is paying higher costs. Would it make sense to you, especially for these repeat offenders...?

I recently heard a statistic that, in Alberta, several hundred individuals were responsible for thousands of crimes, resulting in tens of thousands of hours of police time being taken to put resources, in some cases, into having to rearrest the same person time and time again for things like auto theft and the associated criminal activity.

Would it make sense to you that somebody who seems intent on continually breaking the law faces an appropriate penalty for their crimes? Would that assist in helping make sure that vehicles are no longer stolen?

[Huw Williams]

I think we need a layered approach to address this. I think specific penalties for auto theft and their enforcement are important.

What we should all be outraged by is that it's international organized crime taking advantage of Canadian youth, in some cases, and paying them exorbitant sums of money to get involved in crime. That's the tragedy underlying this. It's large international groups taking advantage of Canadians, paying them and incentivizing them to become part of these organized crime rings.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Please, go ahead.

[Damon Lyons]

Following up on that, Toronto police announced a bust last year in which they arrested hundreds of people. When questioned about whether they were arresting the people on the street or the higher levels of the crime group, I think it was the chief who said they were not getting the head of the snake.

This is really the key. We can take our criminal justice system. Are we going to put kids in jail for three years, or are we going to try to get the head of organized crime?

There is a report from a couple of years ago that said 86% of money laundering cases never go to trial in Canada. That's a horrible number. We have the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, but it's hardly ever used. The reason is—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I'm out of time, but I'll just conclude by saying that instead of sending letters, maybe we need real action.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Kurek.

Mr. Bittle, you have five minutes.