Winnipeg victims of vehicle theft hope national summit leads to tougher penalties
Tougher penalties not always the answer, warns Winnipeg police Chief Danny Smyth
Some Winnipeg drivers whose vehicles have been stolen say they hope the federal government imposes tougher penalties for auto theft — an idea discussed this week at a national summit in Ottawa on the issue.
Morgan Lepak said she discovered her 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer had been stolen from her workplace, in a Linden Woods strip mall, on the morning of Feb. 1, after a co-worker noticed her vehicle wasn't in her spot.
"I couldn't believe it," said Lepak, who had arrived at work only about 45 minutes earlier.
"I came back in to my work. I checked my purse.… My keys are there," and there was no other key in the locked vehicle, she said.
Lepak, whose SUV hasn't been recovered, is now among the thousands of people affected by car theft in Winnipeg annually. While she has a rental car through Manitoba Public Insurance coverage, she had to reschedule appointments and find help to get her kids to school in the first days after the theft.
She also worries about the cost of finding a replacement, given current vehicle prices, if hers isn't recovered.
"It's not fair," Lepak said. "I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just driving my car and somebody decided to steal it."
Police say in Manitoba, auto theft is most typically a crime of opportunity.
But in some other provinces, like Quebec and Ontario, authorities say organized crime groups target vehicles, sometimes shipping them abroad and using the proceeds of crime to fund other illegal activities.
Manitoba justice department officials were among those who virtually attended a daylong national auto theft summit held in Ottawa Thursday, said Justice Minister Matt Wiebe.
"We're pushing and asking for them [the federal government] to move in the areas that they have control, whether that be working with manufacturers, working with border services," Wiebe said Thursday afternoon.
"I also hear that they're looking at mandatory minimum sentences. These are all moves that I think will help."
Wiebe said while Manitoba doesn't face the same organized crime issues other provinces do when it comes to vehicle theft, he wants to "ensure that sort of thing doesn't creep into Manitoba."
He said he supports mandatory minimum sentences for serial car thefts, or when organized crime is involved, but not in all cases.
"Here in Manitoba we need to understand exactly … the causes of somebody stealing a car," Wiebe said.
"We need to make sure that we're holding them to account, but we're understanding that where we can give some supports, we can make sure that's not an issue, that's the way we're moving."
'Crimes of opportunity': Winnipeg police
Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth, who serves as president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, also took part in Thursday's summit.
He cautioned stronger penalties aren't always the answer.
"Organized crime for sure, but there's different roles within organized crime. For example, the kids — and for the most part they are young people that are involved in the theft — I think we have to be in proportion on that," said Smyth.
"We're not in a position to be locking up 18-year-olds for extended periods of time when they may not even realize what part of the pecking order they're in there," he said.
"I think we want to try to get up the pecking order a little bit and not just hammer away at the youth that are involved."
Sgt. Trevor Thompson of the Winnipeg Police Service's financial crime unit said there were 3,660 vehicles stolen in the city in 2023 — down slightly from 3,749 in 2022.
However, that's higher than the number of thefts in 2018 (2,805), 2019 (3,462), 2020 (2,896) and 2021 (2,948) according to data provided by Winnipeg police.
Stolen vehicles in Winnipeg are often used in other offences, such as robberies or break-ins, said Thompson, but most are recovered.
The problem with auto theft is different in Winnipeg than in some other areas, he said.
"Upwards of 90 per cent of the motor vehicle thefts here are crimes of opportunity, and the vast majority of those are vehicles stolen using the owner's keys or key fob," he said in a phone interview.
Police here monitor national trends, he said, and find that in other jurisdictions, "the thefts of those vehicles are being done largely without the keys by leveraging technology — intercepting key fob transmissions between the key fob and the vehicle … and other types of technological attacks."
But Danny Fischer wonders how his 2005 Ford F-350 truck was stolen from outside his Winnipeg home in the early morning hours of Feb. 2 without access to his keys.
"My son and I parked the truck out in front of the house at about between eight and nine the previous night.… We came out at 11:30 the next day. Found it missing," said Fischer.
"I thought, 'There's something wrong with this picture.' I looked over at my son and I said, 'So where's my truck?' He turned around. He couldn't figure it out. He says, 'Great.'"
Winnipeg police found the truck somewhere within city limits, Fischer said. But he said officers have told him the tools he had inside the truck are gone.
While he's glad they found his vehicle, Fischer has yet to see it, as it's still in MPI's possession. He isn't sure what condition it's in.
He thinks auto thieves should face tougher penalties — in part because replacing a vehicle isn't easy.
"It means a lot to me, you know, that truck," Fischer said. "Because you can't afford another one."
Lepak also hopes the federal government cracks down.
"I think there needs to be harsher penalties for people who do this, because now I'm out a car."
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With files from Catharine Tunney and The Canadian Press