Good morning to this committee and to you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for having me here today to discuss the ongoing problem of auto theft in Canada.

My name is Dan Service. I am the founder and CEO of VIN Verification Services. I founded this company after a 25-year career with the Edmonton Police Service, which included responsibility for the economic crime and commercial auto theft sections. After retirement from the service, I spent three years with the Insurance Bureau of Canada, concluding there as their national director of investigations.

VIN Verification Services has been the exclusive service provider to Alberta Transportation for vehicle examination and VIN issuance for the past six years and, since 2020, the exclusive service provider to Saskatchewan Government Insurance. In fact, we are the only company in Canada under contract to conduct VIN examinations and issue VINs on behalf of government. We have completed more than 21,000 examinations in Alberta and Saskatchewan since 2018 and have recovered over one million dollars' worth of stolen vehicles.

You heard in this committee that stolen vehicles have three possible end destinations. The first is the ports. This has been extensively discussed. The second is being chopped and salvaged for parts. The third and probably most troubling is vehicles being revinned, registered, given credibility by their provincial government registry and then resold to unsuspecting consumers within Canada.

What can be stated is that both provincial and federal governments have a responsibility to provide legitimate oversight to the issue of vehicle theft. While responsibility for the export of stolen vehicles rests with the Canada Border Services Agency, the legitimacy of vehicle registration and VIN issuance rests with the provinces. While every provincial government has the obligation to issue VINs as part of their vehicle registration process, not all provinces are created equal, nor have they approached the issue of VIN issuance with the same rigour and care.

VINs are the key to legitimizing stolen vehicles back onto the registry and into the consumer market. Our experience administering the program tells us that problematic VINs occur in approximately 1% to 2% of the vehicles annually registered.

In Alberta and Saskatchewan, we conduct roughly 4,000 vehicle examinations every year for a population of five million people and a total vehicle registration of approximately 140,000. The Province of Ontario registers roughly one million vehicles every year with a population of 14 million people. However, in Ontario, there is no exam process and no examination entity. For many provinces, there is simply no one to call.

Of the 1% to 2% ratio of problematic VINs expected in Ontario, we believe there are between 10,000 and 20,000 vehicles being added to the registry every year that, in other jurisdictions, would be required to undergo a mandatory exam. This is where stolen vehicles are being hidden, reintroduced onto the registry and given legitimacy by our provincial governments.

Of course, an assigned VIN program is only as effective as the registry's ability to require and conduct an examination. A rigorous assigned VIN program that utilizes trained professional VIN examiners to confirm vehicular identity at the point of registration and that has the authority to issue VINs to vehicles that qualify for them is crucial to stemming the flow of stolen vehicles within Canada. Making stolen vehicles harder to sell and increasing the likelihood of being caught reduces the criminal motivation to steal them.

As a starting point, every vehicle applying for a provincially issued VIN must be examined prior to VIN issuance. Every vehicle with a problematic VIN should be mandated to undergo examination. Any vehicle that gets registered by a province that does not have a rigorous assigned VIN program should undergo an examination. Lastly, if the top-10 list of stolen vehicles annually supplied by the insurance industry has credibility, the top three or top five vehicle types on that list should automatically be required to undergo VIN examination prior to registration renewal or ownership transfer.

Our outreach to the Government of Ontario, since 2020, has focused on how Ontario has become a breeding ground for this type of criminal revinning activity. They need to update their VIN assignment and verification processes to give their registry any credibility. Our message to other provinces without an assigned VIN program would be exactly the same.

The answer is clear. An assigned VIN program assures credibility of the vehicle registry systems in Canada, better protects Canadian consumers, benefits law enforcement by reducing calls for service, benefits the insurance industry by recovering vehicles and reducing payouts, and creates a deterrent to the sale of stolen vehicles.

Thank you for your time today. I look forward to answering any questions of the committee.

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