A new survey from Équité Association has found that public safety concerns around auto theft persist even as national theft rates decline, with organized crime's shift to technology-based methods outpacing the security built into today's vehicles.
Équité's 2026 Canadian Auto Theft Impact Survey found that more than one-third of Canadians have been personally affected by auto theft, while only 18% of respondents believe vehicles sold today can withstand modern, technology-based theft tactics. Since 2023, national auto theft has fallen 33% as collaborative efforts under the federal government's National Action Plan to Combat Auto Theft have taken hold, but 55% of Canadians point to the evolving tactics of organized crime as reason for continued concern, and two-thirds now believe meaningful progress requires a coordinated response among governments, manufacturers, law enforcement and vehicle owners, up from 61% in 2023.
Bryan Gast, national vice president of intelligence and investigations at Équité Association, said the progress made so far proves coordinated action works, but that communities remain justifiably concerned about public safety and evolving criminal tactics.
"Canadians are telling us clearly that they feel security protections should be built into their vehicles, not sold to them as an after-market add-on," Gast said, noting that 72% of respondents shared that view.
Gast added that modern auto theft has moved well beyond simply locking a car door, with organized crime now relying on technology-based methods such as key fob relay attacks and reprogramming to bypass vehicle security systems.
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they worry about becoming a victim, concerned not only for their vehicles but for their families' safety, and Équité noted that each of the roughly 47,000 vehicles stolen last year represents an affected victim and community.
Équité is an industry-created not-for-profit, formed in 2021 through the merger of the Insurance Bureau of Canada's Investigative Services Division and the Canadian National Insurance Crime Services, known as CANATICS, which insurers had set up in 2015 to pool claims data following Ontario's Auto Insurance Anti-Fraud Task Force report.
That lineage matters for premiums. Insurers use the Canadian Loss Experience Automobile Rating system, which groups vehicles by loss history, including theft frequency, as one factor in setting rates, meaning a vehicle's real-world theft risk feeds directly into what individual policyholders pay.
That mechanism shows up clearly in regional claims data. IBC reported that 2022 marked the first year Canadian insurers paid more than $1 billion in stolen vehicle claims nationally, with the Greater Toronto Area alone accounting for roughly $500 million of that total, and claims costs in some GTA regions, including Durham and Halton, rising more than 500% over the five years to 2023.
More recent, comparably granular regional figures were not available at the time of writing, so that GTA-specific breakdown should be read as illustrative of the pattern rather than as current as the 2025 national totals below.
Transport Canada has taken steps to address the problem, including inviting industry input on proposed amendments to the Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations.
Équité contributed to that consultation, urging that the regulations mandate cybersecurity testing through UN Regulation 155 and ISO/SAE 21434, standards intended to make vehicles harder to steal in the first place rather than relying on after-the-fact recovery.
Équité's most recent Auto Theft Trend Report recorded an 18% year-over-year decrease in national auto theft in 2025 compared with 2024, yet estimated that insurance claims tied to auto theft still totalled around $900 million for the year, a national figure not directly comparable to the $1 billion 2022 total cited above, since the two come from different reporting periods and may reflect different scopes of claims data.
Criminal organizations have adapted alongside the decline, with Équité recording a 72% year-over-year increase in vehicle finance fraud detected at the ports of Montreal and Halifax, while the Canada Border Services Agency intercepted 2,277 stolen vehicles at its marine and intermodal ports in 2024 alone.
That combination, falling theft volumes alongside a persistently high claims bill historically concentrated in specific regions, is why Équité continues to press for cybersecurity requirements built into vehicles at the manufacturing stage rather than left to insurers and owners to manage after a theft has already occurred.
