Copper theft is the silent blight upon the Canadian economy

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  Copper theft is a growing issue across Canada that is endangering public safety, creating economic risk and compromising essential infrastructure. It’s not a victimless crime; it’s become a threat to people’s safety and is costing the Canadian economy.

These real-world implications were illustrated on a fall day in 2024, when connectivity was knocked out by thieves in Miramichi, N.B. Residents and local businesses in the town of 20,000 couldn’t connect their devices to the network, 911 access was disrupted and the airport was offline for a day, snarling some operations.

The target of that crime? A section of telecommunications copper cable estimated to be worth $100. Repairing that section of cable cost $30,000, but the overall cost to the community was higher when taking into account the impact on nearby stores and workplaces.

These crimes are happening multiple times every day in communities across the country. Thieves target telecommunications cables to harvest copper and sell it as scrap metal, driven by recent record-high values of the metal – which have tripled in the past decade. Whole bundles of cables can be severed, including adjacent fibre-optic connections, as copper is pulled from the casing.

Thefts caused widespread, repeated outages in Gatineau, after 350 metres of Bell’s copper cable was severed and stolen in January. It’s also the reason other telecommunications providers experienced day-long outages after a spate of thefts in Western Canada this spring.

The situation continues to escalate. Canadian Telecommunications Association analysis shows a jump in these crimes across the industry year-over-year. In 2024, Bell Canada saw 915 instances of theft, attempted theft and vandalism of our copper network infrastructure. As of the end of May, we’ve seen 801 incidents so far in 2026, which is an 84-per-cent increase compared with the same time last year.

Each theft means homes, businesses and services are disconnected. These complicated repairs can take anywhere from 12 hours to several days for companies to fix, which equals tens of millions of customer outage minutes each year, according to the CTA. Copper theft disrupts emergency response including 911 calls, threatens critical services such as hospitals and government services, and affects people working or studying from home.

There’s been some early momentum in tackling this issue. The telecommunications industry has put more resources into protecting its infrastructure. Law enforcement agencies in hot spot areas, such as Southern Ontario and Quebec, are partnering with industry on special operations and education campaigns, as well as engaging with metal recyclers to disrupt the resale of stolen copper. This kind of crackdown has shown results in other jurisdictions, including in Britain, where a special law enforcement operation cut copper theft incidents in half.

But co-ordination like this has not yet happened in regions with a disproportionately high number of incidents, like New Brunswick.

This spring, Parliament amended the Criminal Code to make the targeting of essential infrastructure, such as telecommunications assets, an aggravating factor in sentencing. That House of Commons work is complemented by a Senate committee calling for provinces to review their scrap metal sale policies and for law enforcement agencies to establish better information-sharing practices.

But more needs to be done. Courts need to pursue charges and order stiff financial penalties to be paid to the companies whose infrastructure was damaged. As it stands, criminal charges are usually limited to the monetary value of what was stolen, often meaning the maximum penalty for perpetrators is for theft under $5,000.

The repair price tags exponentially outweigh the value of the stolen metal – and those figures don’t capture lost revenue and productivity to local businesses. More serious legal consequences are an important deterrent for would-be copper thieves and provide a strong symbol of the economic value residents and businesses lose when these crimes occur.

This is a pivotal time to disrupt these patterns of crime. We are at a turning point.

We need governments to keep up the pressure, law enforcement and the courts to work in tandem and members of the public to report suspicious activity when they see it. If Canada is committed to building critical infrastructure, we need to be equally serious about protecting it.

Stopping copper theft is a shared responsibility to preserve the essential connections Canadians rely on every day to reach their families, do business and access help in an emergency. This is a national issue that requires an all-of-Canada approach to protect public safety, vital connectivity and economic success.

Courtesy: www.theglobeandmail.com