On Shaman's Rock

Auto thefts hit epidemic proportions this year. The Ontario government reports that a vehicle is stolen in the province every 14 minutes. 

The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports 105,000 vehicles stolen in Canada in 2022. Auto theft claims last year totalled $1.5 billion, more than $1 billion in Ontario alone.

The bureau says these thefts cost us all money. That may be true but it is only part of the story. Auto theft has become an important part of our economy

Look at it this way:

You need a new car so pick one out at a local dealership and pay for it through a bank loan. The salesman is happy, the dealership is happy and the bank is happy to get the loan business. Government is thrilled, of course, because it gets a nice payday by collecting the tax on tens of thousands of dollars.

So, you drive home and park your new vehicle in the driveway. One morning you find the vehicle gone. It was stolen during the night.

Not much point calling the police. There is little they can do and they are busy dealing with a lot of other crime – much of it violent.  

The thieves have taken the vehicle to a car theft gang which pays $500 to $1,500 for vehicles, puts it into a rented container and ships it to some place like Ghana.  

So, we have a lot of happy people here – the car dealer, the thieves, the freight container and shipping companies and governments, which have collected taxes along the way. And, whoever owns your car now in Ghana is thrilled to have a new car at a cheap price.

You are not happy because you have to deal with the insurance company, buy another vehicle and start thinking about how to prevent it from being stolen.

The insurance company pays most, but not all, of the cost of replacing the stolen vehicle and contents but recovers its money easily. It raises everyone’s premiums.

More than 100,000 other Canadians go through the same scenario every year. Politicians babble about what might or might not be done to stop the auto theft epidemic. 

Nobody really wants to get serious about stopping it because it is a big business with little violence.

This is not just about stolen autos. Auto theft is a blaring signal of a collapsing society in which we see economic systems breaking down, violence increasing and natural disasters tied to human-induced climate change killing, injuring or displacing thousands of people.

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