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TORONTO – Scott Cresswell was behind the wheel of an unmarked white police truck as he drove across the Greater Toronto Area looking for compounds that might be used to hide stolen vehicles.

The York Regional Police detective entered a crowded commercial zone in Mississauga, Ont., where dozens of cars were parked, scanning for suspicious signs. He then drove to a neighbourhood outside the Halton Hills region, where a large, isolated home sat near farmland, surrounded by a fenced yard.

After inspecting the property from the outside, Cresswell said he had strong reason to suspect it could be a “cool off” site where stolen vehicles are kept for a few days to ensure they aren’t being tracked.

“That is the spot,” Creswell told his colleague over the phone. “This is a dynamite spot.”

The country has an auto theft problem so severe the Insurance Bureau of Canada has called it a “national crisis.” The issue is particularly acute in the Greater Toronto Area, where police forces have been refocusing efforts on tackling the situation.

In York Region, made up of nine communities north of Toronto, Cresswell’s unit of 10 officers is on the front lines of attempts to combat auto theft. The unit is tasked with surveillance, tracking and arresting suspects. The team also aims to return stolen vehicles to their owners.

While driving from site to site on a surveillance mission, Cresswell said dozens of criminal groups are involved in auto theft across southwestern Ontario, motivated by what he called a massive supply of high-end vehicles parked on easily accessible driveways.

“The issue is that the cars are super valuable,” he said. “They’re very easy to steal, they’re in high demand overseas.”

That creates a “perfect situation” for thieves, the detective said, particularly as stolen vehicles can fairly easily be taken to the Port of Montreal and shipped out of the country.

Most stolen cars head to countries in Africa and the Middle East, where Toyotas and Hondas as well as luxury brands such as Lexus and Range Rovers are in demand, Cresswell said. Electric vehicles often aren’t targeted because of a lack of charging infrastructure in those countries. A small percentage are disguised as new cars and resold in Canada, he said.

More than 70,000 private vehicles were stolen across Canada last year, with more than 30,000 taken in Ontario, according to the Équité Association, an anti-crime organization funded by insurance companies.

Those statistics have been noticed internationally: in a report published earlier this year, Interpol said Canada was among the top 10 worst countries out of 137 for stolen vehicles, based on data collected between February and May.

The overall picture might be looking slightly better this year –the first six months of 2024 saw a decline of 17 per cent in auto theft over the same period in 2023, according to the Équité Association.

But a new problem has emerged.

“There has been a decrease in overall car theft,” Cresswell said. “But there has been an uptick … in carjackings as well as overnight break-and-enters for car keys.”

Last month, York Region’s police chief said the force had seen 64 violent carjackings this year, a surge of 106 per cent over the same period in 2023 and a 400 per cent jump compared to 2019.

The force announced it would form a task force specifically to combat carjackings.

In Toronto, police said in June that there had been 149 carjackings, a hike of 86 per cent compared to the year before.

Mark Mendelson, a former police officer who now runs a consulting firm in Toronto, said the rise in carjackings is worrying because those are far more “traumatic.”

“When you’re stealing a car from somebody’s driveway at four in the morning, yes, it’s a violation to the victims but there was no threat of violence,” he said.

“When you are the victim of physical violence, like a robbery in an intersection or a shopping mall parking lot, it’s very, very different.”

Auto theft has surged dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with thieves donning masks and hoodies and using devices to clone key fobs before breaking into parked cars and driving off.

Car owners are now trying to safeguard their vehicles with steering wheel locks, Faraday pouches for their keys to hide fob signals and air tags to track vehicles.

The barriers might have prompted thieves to resort to more brazen attempts, Mendelson said.

“They realized that sometimes the simplest method is to follow the vehicle that they wanted, wait until they got to a red light or a stop sign … where people are not on guard,” he said. “The next thing you know people were running up to the vehicles armed with knives and firearms.”

A multipronged approach involving all levels of government, law enforcement and auto manufacturers is needed to address the issue, Mendelson said.

The federal government convened an auto theft summit in February, urging closer collaboration between law enforcement, border services, the insurance industry and automakers.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada has said the cost of insurance claims for stolen vehicles surpassed $1.5 billion in 2023, which was 20 per cent more than 2022.

The situation is making it more expensive for car owners to insure their vehicles. In Ontario, the bureau estimates auto theft adds around $130 to the average annual premium.

“If you drive one of the vehicles on the high theft list, there is a chance you’re going to be paying a little bit extra for your insurance,” said Morgan Roberts, vice-president of insurance at Ratehub.ca.

The incredible pace of technological advances has contributed to the evolution of car thefts, said Cresswell, the York Region detective.

“They could still break into the car, reprogram a key, but it would take them 10 minutes, seven minutes,” he said about theft in the past. “Now they do it in one minute.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

RED DEER, ALBERTA, CANADA – A Calgary city councillor’s plea to have permanent residents be given the right to vote in municipal elections, an idea long dismissed by Premier Danielle Smith as unconstitutional, has been defeated.

Coun. Courtney Walcott made his case to fellow municipal officials from across the province this week during the Alberta Municipalities annual conference.

In an emotional and lengthy debate, mayors and councillors from municipalities big and small implored one other to reconsider who exactly they represent in office.

Walcott’s resolution needed a majority to pass but only got about 42 per cent support in the end — 46 votes short.

If the votes were in his favour, Alberta Municipalities, the organization that represents villages, towns, and cities throughout the province, would have adopted the motion and lobbied the provincial government to make the necessary changes to the Local Authorities Election Act.

Those with permanent residency status hold many of the same privileges as Canadian citizens — individuals can work, own property, pay taxes and more — but they can’t vote in elections or obtain a Canadian passport.

The debate on Walcott’s proposal Thursday was the longest of all 21 resolutions up for discussion as officials from over a dozen municipalities weighed in.

Concerns about “watering down” the privileges of citizenship were expressed, a passport was used as an argumentative prop and tears were shed.

Barrhead, Alta., town councillor Rod Klumph argued that giving permanent residents the ability to vote in municipal elections would “diminish the right of Canadians to rule themselves.”

“The people who have permanent residency also retain their citizenship in the country they left, and that’s what concerns me,” he said.

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who is also a former member of Parliament, disagreed with the implication that permanent residents aren’t engaged or loyal to Canada.

“It took me about 10 years to gain citizenship because of various reasons … but I have been loyal to this country from the day I landed here,” said Sohi.

“I volunteered for politicians. I made donations to politicians. I went door to door to convince Canadian citizens to vote for a politician. But as a permanent resident for 10 years while I was doing that, I was not able to have my right to vote.”

Sam Munckhof-Swain, a councillor in Beaumont, Alta., echoed Sohi, saying his path to citizenship was also prolonged.

“That took years, and all that time I paid taxes in my municipality, and I never had a chance to vote for the people who I wanted to make my community better,” said Munckhof-Swain.

“It’s not taking anything away from you. It’s giving more rights to people and making our communities more welcoming.”

When it was his turn to speak, Penhold, Alta. town councillor Cam Galisky held up a Canadian passport and said it was one of two “sacred” privileges of being a citizen.

“The other most sacred and most fought over was the right for the citizens to control their own destiny through their own votes,” Galisky said.

“This will diminish that sacred right.”

Edmonton city councillor Aaron Paquette, who is Métis, said through tears that Indigenous people were long denied the right to vote in Canadian elections, and he didn’t want to see history continue to repeat itself by denying permanent residents that same right.

“It wasn’t until the 1960s that Indigenous people in Canada were finally granted the full right to vote without having to give up our identity,” Paquette said. “There were people at that time who felt that granting Indigenous people the right to vote would water down or dilute that sacred responsibility.

“They were wrong, and they could not have been more wrong.”

Other personal connections to the issue were shared during debate to argue both for and against the resolution,

Charis Aguirre, the mayor of Clyde, Alta., said she was married to a permanent resident, but she was against the proposal.

Airdrie, Alta., councillor Heather Spearman cited her stepmother, and said that since her stepmother’s tax money was just as valuable as a Canadian citizen’s, she should have the right to vote on how it’s spent.

The debate, to some extent, was already a moot point.

In the spring, Smith rejected the idea shortly after Calgary city council approved the resolution for consideration at the Alberta Municipalities conference.

She said on social media at the time that while non-Canadian citizens are welcome to work and live in Alberta, only citizens should have the right to vote.

“That’s how it works,” she said.

Walcott said Thursday that he knew his resolution would generate a hearty discussion.

“I knew that the discussion would be about citizenship on (a) grander scale, but I was hoping that the nuance of local government would win out,” he said.

“We are not talking about provincial governments. We are not talking about the federal government. We’re talking about your neighbours.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

FREDERICTON – David Coon is in his fourth election campaign as leader of New Brunswick’s Green Party, but he says this race feels different.

With polls showing the incumbent Progressive Conservatives and Liberals locked in a tight battle, Coon is well aware his party could end up with unprecedented clout if the vote on Oct. 21 ends with a minority government.

Still, Coon remains cautious about his position in the electoral spotlight.

“My focus right now is to form government, and that’s what our campaign is focused on,” the former environmental activist said in a recent interview after canvassing in his riding of Fredericton-Lincoln.

“Anything can happen during an election campaign. We saw parties in the past go from third place to form government because of a change during the election campaign.”

At dissolution, the Progressive Conservatives held 25 seats in the 49-seat legislature. The Liberals held 16 seats, the Greens had three, there was one Independent and there were four vacancies.

J.P. Lewis, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, said Coon is getting more attention than the leader of a small party usually would.

“Coon has always played an outsized role,” Lewis said in an interview. “But as much as they’re on the cusp of possibly playing this kingmaker role, he needs to win a seat …. These ridings have been redrawn and that’s made that seat more competitive than it was previously.”

Since the beginning of the campaign on Sept. 19, Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs has warned voters that if the Tories win a minority of the seats, the Greens could forge an alliance with Susan Holt’s Liberals and assume power.

Higgs, who is seeking his third term as premier, likened such an arrangement to the now-defunct partnership between the federal Liberals led by Justin Trudeau and the New Democrats led by Jagmeet Singh.

“We cannot let Susan Holt and David Coon do to New Brunswick what Trudeau and Singh have done to Canada,” Higgs said minutes after calling the election. He did not elaborate.

But Coon remains unfazed by the comparison.

“Jagmeet Singh is an honourable federal politician and is well respected, but I’m my own man,” he said. “It didn’t even occur to me that there was any comparison.”

As well, Coon dismissed speculation that he is drawing up a list of demands for a possible alliance with the provincial Liberals.

“(Higgs) made that up. That came from his brain, or maybe Steve Outhouse’s brain,” he said, referring to the Tory campaign manager.

“There’s nothing like that going on. It’s consistent with (Higgs’s) … fearmongering and rage-farming to get people worked up over things that aren’t true. This is just another example of his effort to get people upset over something that doesn’t exist.”

While the Greens and Liberals have a number of campaign promises in common, such as implementing a rent cap, Coon said his party has a long slate of other issues to focus on. That includes what he considers to be the most important issues facing New Brunswickers: health care, affordable housing and climate change.

“We want to implement what’s in our election platform,” he said. “That’s the goal. I think I’m an open book.”

In the 2018 election, the incumbent Liberals tried to hold onto power even though they had won one less seat in the legislature than the Tories. At the time, Coon said his party was willing to negotiate some kind of arrangement with either the Liberals or the Tories.

But the three Green members of the legislature eventually decided not to align themselves with either party. And on Nov. 2, 2018 — more than a month after the election — the Conservatives and the People’s Alliance party combined to defeat Premier Brian Gallant’s Liberal minority government in the legislature.

When Higgs was sworn in as premier a week later, the three members of the People’s Alliance had committed to supporting the Tory government on votes of confidence for at least 18 months, but they did not sign any formal agreement. Higgs won a majority government in 2020.

Lewis said that with three weeks left in the 2024 campaign, anything can happen.

“With the polling data, I don’t think it gives us a good sense of where the race is at,” he said. “We can assume it’s relatively close … and the Green Party is in an interesting spot.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.