As Ottawa plans vehicle theft summit, what needs to be done?

Det. Scott Herriot says that the Ottawa Police Service have seen rates of vehicle thefts get progressively worse in the nation’s capital over the last five years.

“We saw an uptick in trends from 2018 where we saw about 70 vehicles being stolen in Ottawa. Obviously, progressively in 2019 we saw 125, in 2020 we were up to 218, then in 2021 we jumped to 420, in 2022 we were around the 1,289 mark, and 2023 we’re about the same. So, we’re running at about a 1,300 for the year,” Herriot said in an interview with Global News on Monday.

Ottawa is not alone in seeing this increase of vehicle thefts, and Herriot spoke following the news Sunday afternoon at the Liberal cabinet retreatthat Ottawa plans to launch a summit to tackle rampant vehicle thefts now being billed as a national “crisis.”

In 2022, vehicle thefts rose 50 per cent in Quebec year-over-year, with Ontario seeing almost the same increase. Atlantic Canada saw a 35-per cent bump in vehicles thefts.

On Monday, the York Regional Police, in association with Canada Border Services Agency and Équité Association, announced the recovery of 52 stolen vehicles worth more than $3.2 million and charged 11 people with a combined 96 offences.

Police named the investigation Project Mamba, which began last October. Police said the group targeted high-end vehicles across the Greater Toronto Area and southwestern Ontario with plans to ship them as far away as Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Brian Gast, vice-president of investigation services with Équité Association, tells Global News organized crime groups like this are driving the spike in auto-thefts.

“It’s really been the last two or three years since the pandemic that the numbers have really spiked largely because of organized crime, really