City rates vary widely Like crime in general across the country, auto theft was down again in 2004, according to crime rate reports released by Statistics Canada today.Notwithstanding that good news for the country, the car theft rate varies wildly from province to province and city to city.In total, police forces across the country reported nearly 170,000 stolen motor vehicles last year, which is a decrease of four percent. Since its peak in 1996, the car theft rate has declined every year but two.Looked at another way, this means there was a stolen car for 530 for every 100,000 Canadians, or about one theft for every 200 people.Cars accounted for just over half of all vehicle thefts, StatsCan reports, while trucks, including vans and sport utility vehicles, comprised a further 34 percent. The rate of stolen cars dropped four percent, while truck thefts fell two percent.Ontario (-12 percent) and British Columbia (-6 percent) reported the largest declines in vehicle thefts, while Newfoundland and Labrador (+52 percent), Nova Scotia (+24 percent) and Manitoba (+23 percent) recorded the largest increases. Manitoba continued to have the highest rate among the provinces, primarily due to the high rate of thefts in Winnipeg.Measuring the auto theft per 100,000 people by census metropolitan areas (CMA), the findings are:Winnipeg: 1,932Abbotsford: 1,529Regina: 1,351Vancouver: 1,104Edmonton: 1,018Montreal: 663London: 611Saskatoon: 590Halifax: 540Hamilton: 540Sherbrooke: 526Greater Sudbury: 489Kitchener: 459Calgary: 457Windsor: 455Trois Rivieres: 367St. Catharines/Niagara: 354Saguenay: 337Victoria: 336St. John's: 325Toronto: 325Thunder Bay: 323Ottawa: 316Gatineau: 304Quebec: 277Kingston: 233St: John: 135
Car theft rate drops again across Canada City rates vary widely