Canada is now a 'car theft capital of the world': report

Canada is fast becoming the car theft capital of the world. The figures for 2022 show that thieves stole more than 105,000 vehicles in Canada – or about one every five minutes, the BBC reports

Federal Justice Minister and Attorney General Arif Virani has had his Toyota Highlander XLE stolen three times. Canada made Interpol's top ten list for car thefts. There are 137 countries in the international police force's database and Canada only began sending its car theft data to it in February.

Car thieves usually have one of three objectives in mind when they run off with a vehicle: use it to commit a crime, sell it domestically or send if offshore for sale. 

Interpol reports that 1,500 cars have been illegally removed from Canada since February, with 200 more being added to that list every week. These vehicles are usually found at foreign ports. The Insurance Bureau of Canada has even described the car theft phenomenon as a "national crisis" that cost them $1.5 billion in claims last year alone, according to the BBC.

Many Canadians have lost faith in the ability of police forces to contain the lawlessness and are doing what they can to protect their property with private security or vehicle trackers. 

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged to fight car theft and frequently criticizes the Trudeau government's response to the problem in the daily House of Commons Question Period. He has said that car thieves should experience real consequences for their actions and not just be punished through house arrest "in their living room watching Netflix."

Poilievre has pledged to raise the mandatory minimum sentence for a third offense from the current six months to a minimum of three years while identifying any organized crime activity in the theft as an aggravating factor to further increase prison time.

"Today I'm announcing that a Pierre Poilievre government will go after the real criminals by restoring jail, not bail, for repeat violent offenders and career car thieves," he said last February at a Brampton, Ont. news conference.