Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the members of the committee for inviting me to appear before you today.

My name is David Adams. I'm the president and CEO of Global Automakers of Canada, which is a national trade association whose members include 15 of the world's most recognized automakers, representing 25 different brands, including Canada's two largest vehicle producers: Toyota and Honda.

I would particularly like to thank MP Michaud for bringing forward the motion to undertake this important study.

It's important to keep in mind that what we're really talking about here is, in fact, organized crime in Canada, with auto theft being one of its most visible symptoms. Given the complex nature of this issue, Global Automakers of Canada has been advocating for this committee to undertake a study of this issue for some time, as well as advocating for a national summit on auto theft to bring together all relevant stakeholders and experts, which we participated in on behalf of our members earlier this month.

When we think back over the last two years and about why this issue has grown so rapidly, it's clear that theft has become increasingly highly lucrative for organized crime groups in this country. Indeed Canada has been, as you have heard, identified by Interpol as a source nation for stolen vehicles.

You're all well aware of the statistics. I won't go into those or repeat them, but the reality is that across Canada one vehicle is stolen every five minutes. In the hardest-hit parts of the country, Ontario and Quebec, we're seeing criminals increasingly resorting to violent crimes like carjackings and home invasions to steal vehicles.

We applaud the Government of Canada's recent announcements of increased funding for law enforcement resources, including for CBSA at Canada's ports; of starting to tackle the availability of car theft tools in Canada; and of the need for better coordination between various law enforcement agencies, both domestically and internationally.

We're seeing first-hand the impact of the $51 million committed by the Ontario government last year to establish a provincial auto theft task force with respect to both busts and recoveries, highlighting that resources, while not the only solution, do make a huge difference.

To support that work, we think the Government of Canada should consider setting up a national task force on auto theft to coordinate these efforts and to help cut through jurisdictional barriers to co-operation.

We also need to ensure that government policies don't undermine our efforts. While automakers are working to make their vehicles ever-more secure, we're also being asked by “right to repair” advocates to make more of our vehicle systems open to third parties. Legislation like Bill C-244, which is currently before the Senate, will make it easier for bad actors to find ways to bypass the technologies that automakers are constantly introducing to make it more difficult to steal vehicles. Collectively, we need to be smart. We need to be coordinated, and we need to be comprehensive.

Canada's automakers have been closely engaged in this issue for years and are ready and willing to co-operate with those who share our desire to mitigate auto theft.

What are we doing about the issue? Automakers are constantly reviewing and updating the security systems in our vehicles but are facing increasing odds against sophisticated, international organized crime rings that have identified Canada as a market opportunity for their crimes. Vehicles with similar security systems in other countries aren't facing the same kinds of challenges to the same degree from auto theft.

We're convening monthly meetings with other key industry trade associations, police authorities and auto theft task forces to share intelligence and map out advocacy initiatives on auto theft to determine how we can better knit together law enforcement with automakers to assist in interdicting vehicles immediately after they have been reported stolen.

We have been developing a website, which will soon be launched, focused on providing awareness on auto theft to consumers and auto theft prevention, and informational assistance to those who have had their vehicles stolen.

We've been meeting with Amazon and other online platforms to discuss the reality that tools and devices with apparently no legitimate purpose other than to facilitate auto theft are readily available on their platforms. Other jurisdictions like the U.K. are already moving to ban such devices.

We've also been encouraging all of our members to meet with police teams when vehicles are recovered to better understand how thieves have compromised vehicles to steal them so that this information can be supplied to global engineering teams.

We don’t have all the answers by any means, and auto theft is a very complex problem for which there are no quick fixes or silver bullets. However, we do believe there are some short-, medium- and longer-term initiatives that could be undertaken to address the auto theft problem plaguing our country right now.

We look forward to working with the committee to identify and implement these solutions.

Thank you very much for your time.