Good afternoon.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the public safety and national security committee.

As we all know, community safety is a shared responsibility. We must work together to combat the organized crime that is impacting our communities. Toronto has experienced a dramatic spike in auto thefts over the last several years, more than anywhere else in Canada. In 2023, there were more than 12,000 vehicles stolen in Toronto alone.

Vehicle theft is an epidemic in this country. Twelve thousand cars amounts to approximately $790 million, and that is the value of the vehicles stolen in Toronto alone this past year. That is about 34 vehicles stolen every day. That is one every 40 minutes.

Just last month, a mother with two children in car seats had her vehicle stolen in a grocery store parking lot. Two young offenders drove those children around for 15 minutes. They are safe now, but this terrorizing criminal activity has to stop.

It leaves people feeling anxious, afraid and victimized while organized criminals get rich. Since 2018, Toronto police have recovered over 46% of stolen vehicles, totalling more than 20,000 vehicles, and we have arrested more than 1,300 offenders and laid over 5,000 related charges.

We know that, like other crimes led by organized crime networks, they do not care about borders or jurisdiction. A violent carjacking in Toronto can end up with an arrest in Hamilton. We know that these stolen vehicles often wind up leaving Toronto and end up sold around the world by organized crime groups. Stealing cars is lucrative. It is quick money with endless demand. With little skill and few consequences, they can steal a vehicle and get cash fast. What we all need to be talking about is the escalation of violence, threats and intimidation, where all sorts of weapons and firearms are being used to steal vehicles.

I am also concerned about the ability of the justice system to deal with repeat offenders. Whether it is a carjacking, a break and enter, or a home invasion, criminals are getting far too brazen in their methods to steal vehicles and are causing residents across Toronto an incredible amount of fear and anxiety. Realtors tell us the demand for homes with garages is rising because of this.

In Toronto, home invasions, break and enters, and auto theft occurrences rose by over 400% in 2023, with a total of 202 incidents. Carjackings have also seen a dramatic rise in Toronto, with 233 occurrences reported in 2023. That’s over 50% of all incidents reported in the GTA. In addition, since the beginning of this year, we've had 17 home invasions—that's double what we had last year at this time—and over 32 carjacking occurrences, which, again, is double what we had year-to-date this time last year.

This is why we are part of the provincial carjacking joint task force, with the support of the Government of Ontario and co-led by the Toronto Police Service and the Ontario Provincial Police. The task force is an excellent example of how working together with other law enforcement agencies and government agencies helps us in these complex investigations to disrupt this criminal element.

I believe we need a national strategy to have real impact on the rising number of auto thefts and the increasing violence. However, this is not just a law enforcement problem. We need to collaborate with all levels of government, along with our partners in private industry. Vehicle manufacturers, port authorities and shipping companies need to work with us to make it harder to steal and transport vehicles. We need to work in a coordinated manner to fight organized crime, stop the violence and keep our communities safe.

We welcome all efforts by manufacturers to better protect vehicles from being stolen and timely support for our investigators so that we can catch offenders and return vehicles to their owners. Police can make the arrests and provide safety tips, but we need others to do their part also.

Now is the time to be bold in developing partnerships with manufacturers, engineering experts and others to harness the rapidly developing technology that lies at the heart of the solution. Making vehicles harder to steal and making ports more secure from exploitation will help us reduce the growing number of carjackings.

The federal government is already playing an important role in bringing law enforcement and the private sector together, as we saw at the federal summit hosted in Ottawa about three weeks ago.

I also believe we need to be bold on justice reforms and work across all sectors to tackle repeat offenders and return a sense of safety to our communities.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. I look forward to working collaboratively with all of you to keep our communities safe.

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