Saskatchewan sees vehicle thefts, but flipping and exporting a rarity

By Glynn Brothen

While Ottawa seeks to deliver a national strategy aimed at curbing auto theft and subsequent vehicle exports, police in Saskatchewan say when it comes to stolen vehicles in the province, few are being resold.

Further details were provided on the federal government’s plan last month, which gathered representation from police agencies, provinces, municipalities and other partners across the country. The Liberal government proposed Criminal Code amendments and reserved $28 million in its federal budget to prevent auto thefts. Approximately 90,000 vehicles were stolen in Canada last year, the conference heard.

In a statement, the Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police said to date they have not received any additional mandates from Ottawa on stolen vehicles but “welcome any renewed efforts provincially or nationally.”

Mitch Yuzdepski, the association’s executive director, said auto theft presents differently in the Prairies.

“Our experience in Saskatchewan is quite different than what has been an issue in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. where high-end vehicles have been stolen and shipped abroad,” Yuzdepski said in an email to paNOW.

A third of stolen vehicles in the province are the result of keys being left inside the vehicle, he said, noting many cars are recovered locally.

Anecdotally, he said many of the stolen vehicles in Saskatchewan are used for joyriding, dangerous driving or being used in conjunction with another criminal offence, such as break and enter.

SGI’s spokesperson Tyler McMurchy cited a former colleague of his: “When you have stolen vehicles, there are almost always guns and/or drugs,” he wrote in an email.

The province received 3,404 insurance claims for stolen vehicles last year, a decrease from the previous year’s 3,597, although not every theft results in an insurance claim, McMurchy said.

Prince Albert Police Chief Patrick Nogier noted Prince Albert’s statistics are in line with other cities.

“The context of the theft differs when compared to other areas of the country,” he said. “Anecdotally we don’t see a huge number of stolen vehicles making their way to the used market.”

Nogier said PA Police does not have a unit dedicated to stolen vehicles, nor the analytics to determine whether there were exports. Last year officers responded to 495 stolen vehicle files, which was a nearly seven per cent increase from 2022. Nogier said the more alarming statistic front line officers face is roughly 80 per cent of cases in which drivers failed to stop for a police officer involved stolen vehicles.

The upshot is thefts are trending downward for the police service and while prevention efforts continue, Nogier said the primary focus is reducing the threat to the public when thieves drive dangerously.

—With files from the Canadian Press