Manitoba is suffering — like many other provinces — from a rash of auto thefts, but unlike in some parts of the country, organized crime groups aren’t the main source, experts say.
With federal, provincial and municipal law enforcement agencies, border security, port officials and other stakeholders participating in a national auto theft summit Thursday, concerns have been raised over organized crime involvement in the epidemic of thefts.
In Manitoba, however, auto theft is seen more as a crime of opportunity, with car thieves taking advantage of vehicles left running in the cold winter months.
“We’re not seeing (organized crime) much in Manitoba,” Winnipeg police Const. Dani McKinnon told Global Winnipeg. “We certainly know that is an issue in the eastern provinces such as Ontario and Quebec — in their port cities, some of the higher-end vehicles are certainly being smuggled. We still have a decent recovery rate of stolen vehicles within Winnipeg.”
Ben Fosty of Champion Towing says his company can pick up as many as a dozen stolen vehicles for police per shift, and in many cases, it appears to be the result of a car simply being taken while its owner was waiting for it to warm up.
So far, it’s been the busiest year he’s seen for stolen car recoveries in more than two decades.
“These are the ones that are either left in a parking lot, left on the side of the road… something that the Winnipeg police have pulled over for a traffic infraction, and the vehicle has come back stolen,” Fosty said. “It is kind of a problem with a lot of people, especially in the colder weather. They want to be warm when they leave,” Fosty told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg.
Fosty said he’s seen a city-wide uptick in auto theft recently — everywhere from Transcona, to Bridgwater, to St. James.
That’s in line with the findings of a May 2023 report on the issue from the Canadian Finance and Leasing Association that says a vehicle is stolen every six minutes in Canada.
According to the report, vehicle theft rates have returned to their peak level after beginning to fall due to a focus on the issue by law enforcement and improvements in anti-theft technology.