Nauman Kahn, who lives in Mississauga, a city just outside Toronto, started his own bumper installation business with his brother after his car was stolen.
One time, Mr Khan said, thieves broke into his home while his wife and young children were sleeping. They were looking for the keys to his Mercedes GLE, which was parked in front of the house, but he ran away after confronting them, he said.
After that “traumatic” experience, they sold all of their vehicles except for two “humble” family cars.
Through his business, Khan said he now hears similar stories from people across the Toronto area.
“It was very busy,” he said. “There were so many break-ins on the street that I had a client who hired a security guard to be outside his house every night, just because he didn't feel safe.”
Alexis Piquero, director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, says Canada's prevalence of auto theft is surprising given its small population compared to other countries, including the United States and Britain.
“Canada also doesn't have as many port cities as the United States,” Piquero said.
The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have all seen spikes in motor vehicle theft since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but the latest data from each country shows that Canada’s rate (262.5 per 100,000 people) is higher than England and Wales’ rate (220 per 100,000 people).
This is similar to the United States, where there are about 300 vehicle thefts per 100,000 people as of 2022 data.
The increase in recent years is partly due to increased demand for both used and new vehicles, driven by a global car shortage caused by the pandemic.
Elliot Silverstein, director of government relations for the Canadian Automobile Association, said auto theft is becoming a major source of income for organized crime groups, as the international market for certain car models grows.
But Mr Silverstein said the way Canadian ports operate makes them more vulnerable to this type of theft than in other countries.
“The port system places more emphasis on what's coming into the country than what's leaving the country,” he said, adding that once vehicles are packed into shipping containers at the port, they become more difficult to access.
Police recovered several stolen vehicles.
In October, Toronto police announced that they had seized 1,080 vehicles worth about $60 million during an 11-month investigation., Out This resulted in more than 550 prosecutions.
From mid-December to late March, border officials and police inspected 400 shipping containers at the Port of Montreal, discovering nearly 600 stolen vehicles.
But experts say this type of work could be difficult to accomplish given the volume of goods passing through the port., Out In 2023 alone, approximately 1.7 million containers passed through the Port of Montreal.
In most cases, port officials do not have the authority to inspect containers, and in customs control areas, only border officers can open containers without a warrant.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is suffering from chronic staff shortages, according to a report submitted to the government by the union in April., Out
