TORONTO – Too many car thefts: a real “massacre” in recent months. The federal government of Canada has therefore decided to “invest” 15 million dollars to combat the phenomenon. The initiative was announced today during a joint press conference by the Minister of Public Security, Dominic Leblanc, the Minister of Transport, Pablo Rodriguez, the Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, the Commissioner of the RCMP, Mike Duheme. 

The 15 million dollars will be distributed as follows: 9.1 million will be allocated to provincial, territorial and municipal forces; 3.5 million will go to improve information sharing with the Interpol joint project on transnational car crime; 2.4 million will go towards continuing to support the government’s national and international partners.

Last February 7, the federal government announced an additional $28 million to combat the export of stolen vehicles from Canada: nearly $6 million to improve intelligence at the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), $3.5 million to increase container inspection capabilities, particularly on trains, $5.9 million for inspections at ports like Montreal and $4 million for new technologies.

A pool of millions, in short, to combat a phenomenon that has recently become of unprecedented proportions: in recent years, in fact, around 90,000 cars have been stolen in Canada every year, with a cost – for insurance companies and for Canadian taxpayers – of approximately 1 billion dollars. In Quebec, in particular, last year there were three times more cases of vehicle theft than in 2019, according to the director general of the Sûreté du Québec, Johanne Beausoleil, who explained that the port of Montreal is “the point preferred transit” for the export of stolen vehicles to Ontario and Quebec and that the majority of stolen vehicles are shipped to Africa and the Middle East.

Furthermore, it was recently discovered that one of the “transit” ports between Canada and the final destinations of the vehicles is the Italian port of Gioia Tauro, in the province of Reggio Calabria: there, a few weeks ago the Italian police forces intercepted 251 cars stolen in Canada and destined for African countries. There was no need, in Italy, to invest millions of euros for the police to intercept such vehicles: they simply did their job.

In the pic above, from left: Montreal Police Chief Fady Dagher; the Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante; the Minister of Public Affairs Security, Dominic LeBlanc; the Minister of Transport, Pablo Rodriguez; RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme (screenshot from the video of today’s press conference broadcast on the website www.cpac.ca)