Public Safety Committee on Sept. 25th, 2025

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

Is there a concern, though, that...? With Carfax providing a reporting service on whether your VIN is a real VIN or a cloned VIN, if you find out that your VIN is cloned, you're talking about a $50,000 loss, and potentially even more, in terms of what you paid for that vehicle. People have brought that concern to me.

I don't want to say that people will do the wrong thing, but there's a risk that these vehicles will magically get stolen. People will file insurance claims. Vehicles will be found burned out in the forest and insurance claims will be filed. The liability costs could be massive.

What plans are being made to ensure that these potentially 372,000 cloned VIN vehicles are not going to undergo that kind of fate?

[Craig Oldham]

I can't speak to your numbers, as I'm not familiar with them, but I will say, as I said previously, that the revinning issue is of concern. Through this national action plan and the collaboration among provinces, municipalities, police forces, etc., we are actively working on that issue.

There is not a plan yet. We are working on a plan. That would be a fair assessment.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

We're in a cost of living crisis right now. Probably through no fault of their own, people bought these vehicles. This is the work of transnational gangs, is it not? These are gangs that are selling these stolen vehicles and revinning them. What's being done to combat these gangs in doing revinning domestically in Canada?

That's my final question. Thank you.

[Craig Oldham]

I will say that globally, the government is doing quite a bit around the gang issue. You've seen actions within the border bill. You see actions included in Bill C-2, which is coming forward. There were changes through Bill C-69 back in June of 2024, which increased offences around the possession and distribution of devices that are linked to this, of course, and adding the revinning factor—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Mr. Oldham, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the time is up.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Parkland, AB]

I'd ask you to follow up in writing to finish the answer.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Yes. That would be greatly appreciated.

Ms. Acan, you have the floor.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for all the witnesses.

I appreciate the numbers you shared from the Équité Association report. That is a drastic change since last year, since 2024.

In the numbers that you gave, you mentioned that Ontario had an almost 26% decrease. This is thanks to the civilian and uniformed members of law enforcement and also thanks to the Halton Regional Police Service, which is headquartered in my riding. Their Project Credit investigation revealed a sophisticated auto theft network operating in the GTA that included chop shops and revinning the vehicles. Those domestic chop shops are now expanding to ship parts internationally.

The Équité Association report also notes the RCMP's role in providing stolen vehicle data to Interpol as a key part of the successful strategy.

With criminals now targeting provinces like Alberta for international export and even expanding domestic chop shops to ship parts internationally, how is the enhanced data sharing with international partners like Interpol empowering the RCMP to disrupt these evolving global criminal networks at their source and at their destination points?

[Liam Price]

Thank you for the detail in the comments about our international efforts.

Let me first say that Halton is a great partner. The Halton Regional Police Service is an incredibly dedicated bunch of folks.

One of the great things about the RCMP is that it is a big tent with jurisdictions across Canada, so the sharing of data is happening organically. We were out in Winnipeg just last month talking with the Winnipeg Police Service and with police officers from across the west about the vehicle theft problem and sharing the lessons that have been learned from central Canada already.

That is happening on a daily basis through awareness and things like the purple notices that go out through Interpol. It's a key part of our effort, so that we don't have to relearn the problem time and again.

My colleague just mentioned the movement to the west. We're detecting these trends earlier because that sharing of data is happening organically.

I hope that's helpful.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you very much.

The report also mentions the positive impacts of Ontario's major auto theft prosecution response team, which focuses on crime hot spots. We see criminal tactics evolving and targeting different regions, such as Alberta, as I mentioned.

Could you please discuss how the RCMP is applying lessons learned from these successful provincial task forces to adapt its national strategy and stay ahead of these organized criminals?

[Liam Price]

Like any challenge involving organized crime, it is a bit of an arms race, a cat and mouse game. We take action; they adapt. We take action again, and they adapt again. It's a constant learning process.

One of the great things about the collaboration among all levels and all of the various partnerships has been our ability to use that collaboration to adjust our strategies. You described the movement from the export of full vehicles to chop shops. There's the movement from stealing cars physically to stealing them by fraud. Those are adjustments that we're making within the strategy at a very organic level. We're applying it as those data points come up in various other jurisdictions. We're sharing with international partners when we learn that there's a network that may have been active in one country and it has suddenly moved to another, and this group of folks is in your backyard, so let's pay attention to them.

To respond a little bit to an earlier question, one danger in focusing on just one group of people is that the organized crime milieu is quite a complex ecosystem, not necessarily from any one country or one background. We really need to use those lessons and investigations to focus on the people who are committing the crimes in the round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Ms. Acan, you have a little time left for a very brief last question.

You have 15 seconds.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I don't have any other questions. They have already answered some questions that I had.

If I have any time left, then I would like to share it with Madame DeBellefeuille, if she would like to take that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

That's great. We indeed have two and a half minutes, Madame DeBellefeuille. We don't have more than that.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much as well, Ms. Acan.

My only question is for Mr. McCrorie.

The national action plan on combatting auto theft includes hiring new officers at the Canada Border Services Agency and deploying them at ports, rail yards and intermodal hubs. The plan is one year old; it will celebrate its first anniversary in November 2025.

Can you tell us exactly how many new officers have been deployed as part of the national action plan?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Thank you for the question.

Very quickly, probably around 30 FTEs have been hired, but the ones that really matter are the 25 FTEs that are operational. We hired 10 new intelligence and targeting officers, and then 15 additional commercial exam officers to deploy to Montreal at the port, in the Toronto area rail yards, the port of Halifax and the port of Vancouver as well. They're in place.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

According to the information I have, the number of border services officers at the Port of Montreal hasn't been increased.

Is that information false? Can you confirm that there has been an increase?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I'm not sure what the source of your information is, but what I would say is that we probably have on average about 40 people working at the marine and rail examination centre at the port of Montreal. With the additional resources, probably another six were added.

Again, some of them were intelligence officers and some of them are going to be there to facilitate the examination of containers.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Mr. Chair, is my time up?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Unfortunately, yes.

That said, the questions were excellent. There will be more opportunities to discuss all of this in the context of the border study, since these two files are related.

Ms. Acan, you seem to want to say something.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, if I may, I would like to move a motion to adjourn the meeting for today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I was going to do that now, because it's already 1:10 p.m.

Thank you very much, everyone.

Have a good day.

The meeting is adjourned.