Victims are considering leaving Canada or pursuing legal action amid an increase in car theft

As the Greater Toronto Area faces a car theft crisis, some residents are considering bold, or perhaps radical, action.

Kamran Hussain, who moved to Canada from India on an international student visa in 2017 and completed the arduous process of permanent residency, said he considered leaving the country after waking up on the morning of January 11 to find nothing. but the broken glass of his car window on East Toronto Road.

“I got out and the car left,” Hussain said, referring to his 2022 Toyota Highlander.

For the 30-year-old telecommunications worker, the pandemic has made the difficult task of becoming a permanent resident of Canada even more difficult, as various bureaucratic steps are upheld. But he said he chose to build a home in Canada because he thought it was safer.

It's a reputation he now feels called into question by the car theft epidemic.

“I'm looking for options,” he said when asked if he was seriously considering leaving Canada.

“I left my country because of the instability there. “But now the problems that are growing here with the increase in security, theft, burglary and crime are of great concern to me.”

Hussain's carjacking experience did not endanger his personal safety. Thieves never entered his house.

But he said he was concerned by reports of criminals breaking into homes with guns and demanding car keys.

An increase in car thefts has led to an increase in home invasions, violent robberies and gun violence in the GTA, according to Toronto police.

Ontario Provincial Police have described the current rate of car thefts in the province as “unprecedented,” driven in part by demand for luxury vehicles in foreign markets.

The Équité Association, an anti-crime organization funded by insurance companies, said last year for the first time auto theft claims topped $1 billion in Ontario.

Amid growing public outcry, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a national summit on auto theft in February, calling for closer cooperation between law enforcement, border services, the insurance industry and automakers.

Another victim of car theft, Laura Puckett, is trying to bring more attention to the role of car companies: in particular, she wondered whether car manufacturers could be sued for making cars that they think are too easy to steal.

At 4 a.m. on Jan. 10, he said he heard the familiar sound of his Toyota SUV being unlocked.

“I was shocked,” he said in a recent interview. “I woke up my partner and thought, 'Someone has stolen my truck.' We ran downstairs and he was gone.”

The 52-year-old social worker described the ordeal that followed as a “nightmare”.

Police found his car, but it needed major repairs.

Meanwhile, he paid $2,000 in monthly lease payments for a replacement car because his insurance only covered $1,000. He said he paid $700 a month for the stolen car and $230 a month for insurance.

Reflecting on what he went through and how easy it was for thieves to steal his car, he called on car manufacturers to be “accountable”.

“If I put money on a security door to my house and people with loose keys were able to get into my house, I'd feel cheated, wouldn't I? he said. “That's how I feel about my car.”

Paquette said he is discussing his legal options.

“Why should the consumer protect us?” he said. “A car is a big investment, so why are they stolen so easily? Why do I have to go to extremes to prevent this?”

In the weeks since the National Auto Theft Summit, law enforcement agencies have tried to celebrate a number of successes.

These include a joint operation between the OPP and Canada Border Services Agency that found 598 stolen vehicles destined for export at the Port of Montreal, Canada's gateway to the foreign stolen vehicle market. The cost of the cars was 35.5 million dollars.

The OPP said 75 per cent of the vehicles recovered were stolen in Ontario, where the provincial government last month announced plans to buy four new police helicopters at a cost of about $36 million to combat the car theft crisis.

Brian Gast, vice-president of investigative services for the Toronto Police and Équité Association, attributes the growing problem to organized crime.

Gast noted that car thefts have been rising every year since the COVID-19 pandemic, but he said supply chain problems caused by the global shutdown have made it difficult to find new and used vehicles.

“Organized crime takes advantage of this problem and benefits from it,” he said. “That's when the numbers went up,” he added, noting that auto theft insurance claims in Ontario have increased by 319 per cent since 2020.

Toronto police officers. According to Pauline Gray, car theft is now the top three source of income for organized crime groups.

Gast praised the new levels of coordination put in place in response to the crisis, but said only one metric will be important in judging its success.

“The goal is to stop the growth trend to at least a flat line and then a decline,” he said.

“Success shows in results: The number of stolen vehicles in Canada tells us how well the joint plan is working.”

This Canadian Press report was first published on April 13, 2024.