Senate of Canada report says copper theft is public safety threat, needs national plan

The Canadian Senate is calling for a national strategy on copper thefts.

A new Senate of Canada report says the federal government should immediately coordinate a strategy to stop copper theft across the country.

The report, titled ‘Stolen Signal: The Costly Consequences of Copper Theft in Canada,’ says there’s an urgency to act due to the impact of stolen copper on telecommunication outages, which sometimes leaves areas without phone and internet services, and no access to 911.

Senator Paula Simons says it’s “a little outside the box” for the senate’s transport and communications committee to look at a criminal law issue.

“But because copper wire theft has such a devastating impact on communications infrastructure across the country, we wanted to take a moment to see what we could do to bring an understanding of why this was such a problem and what could be done about it,” says Simons.

The Senate report makes three recommendations:

• That the Government of Canada amend the Criminal Code to impose more serious penalties for metal theft that causes damage to critical or essential infrastructure.
• That the Government of Canada encourage the provincial and territorial governments to regulate the sale of scrap metal, including by keeping a record of transactions and the origin of the met
• That the Government of Canada create a task force on metal theft to promote information sharing among law enforcement agencies.

The New Brunswick government says the sale of scrap metal, and records about who sold it, is already a requirement in the province.

Simons says more uniformity on regulations between all the provinces and territories would be a big help in combating copper thefts.

“There is an issue of people crossing provincial boundaries to sell in one province what they’ve stolen in another,” says Simons. “It’s really important that provinces have some form of coordination to tackle this problem, because it isn’t just a local crime.”

Amendments to Canada’s Criminal Code through Bill-C14 (which passed its third reading in the House of Commons in February, and is now working through the Senate) could create tougher consequences for crimes that also involve interfering with the functioning of essential infrastructure.

The Canadian Telecommunications Association estimated a 200 per cent increase in theft and vandalism incidents between 2022 and 2024.

More than 1,300 incidents of copper theft have been recorded by Canadian carriers since January 2022, according to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.

Bell Canada says incidents of copper theft increased by about 30 per cent in 2025 across Canada, with parts of New Brunswick remaining a hotspot for infrastructure damage. The telecommunications company – which owns CTV News – recorded more than 1,300 incidents of stolen copper last year, with the bulk of thefts happening in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.

Bell Canada says New Brunswick remains a hotspot for copper theft, noting a series of coordinated incidents in January 2026, and more recently a wave of cable thefts particularly in Fredericton area.

New Brunswick RCMP filed charges in January against three individuals accused of stealing about 90 kg. of copper wire in the Clarendon, N.B., area.

Last week, Cumberland County District RCMP said it was investigating several instances of “intentional damage to critical infrastructure” that appeared to be connected to the theft of copper wire.