A national auto theft summit will get underway in Ottawa on Thursday.

In 2022, vehicle theft rose by over 48 per cent in Ontario and over 34 per cent in Atlantic Canada.

Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc says the federal government can’t tackle this alone, “The only way to attack this is to have local police, provincial police working with the RCMP and border services.”

Also taking part, Chiefs of Police from some of the biggest cities in Canada,  the automobile industry, the insurance industry,  provincial colleagues from Ontario and Quebec, and several others.

One of the focuses is combatting the shipment of stolen vehicles across the border.

“What more the CBSA can do, obviously the ability for technology to properly examine what is inside all of these containers is a question we are going to talk about,” Leblanc adds. “It’s an opportunity for all of us to share concrete suggestions of what we can do to tackle this problem. The idea that there are simple solutions that you can X-ray every single container leaving is not realistic. That’s not an option. So I think it’s an opportunity for us to have a serious substantive discussion and come out of there with sort of to-do lists.”

The Summit is expected to identify short, medium, and long-term actions to combat auto theft to strengthen joint initiatives that are already underway.

“I’m very optimistic about the discussion today,” Leblanc adds.