Ottawa city council has voted unanimously to call on the Ontario government to strengthen legislation around vehicle-related crimes, like theft and stunt driving.
A motion from Coun. David Hill at council Wednesday called on Mayor Mark Sutcliffe to write a letter to the solicitor general, asking to explore solutions to address vehicle crimes.
The motion notes that 370 stunt driving charges were laid in Ottawa in 2024, and that more than 1,700 vehicles were stolen last year.
The 2024 figure is nearly double what was reported in 2019, but it is down overall from the more than 600 stunt driving charges laid in 2021.
The motion proposes several ideas, including writing new legislation to allow police to use sound detection technology that can target illegal exhaust modifications, strengthening of relevant legislation for vehicle theft and stunt driving, in particular for multiple offences, and introducing an Assigned Vehicle Identification Number program, modelled after the system Alberta and Saskatchewan use, to crack down on the sale of stolen vehicles within Ontario.
“Stunt driving is a reckless crime that puts the driver, other road users and members of the public at large in danger and disrupts our communities with noise violations in the middle of the night, which can be debilitating for seniors and children,” says Hill’s motion.
In recent years, Ontario has introduced stronger penalties for stunt driving, including an immediate licence suspension of 30 days and a vehicle impound of 14 days upon laying the charge, and lowering the threshold on what is considered stunt driving on roads with speed limits below 80 km/h.
