Here's a fun fact no one mentions much, although CBSA is mandated to stop stolen cars from leaving Canada, they rarely persue it. I know, you're going to say that CBSA caught X cars leaving in such and such year, but that's just a tiny tiny fraction that is caught almost by accident. Have you noticed that all the stolen cars are caught by CBSA in the east, yet the Vancouver Port is the largest by volume in Canada and they've caught none? The issue is funding. You see in order to get a container from a dock, there are logistics and expenses. If I know a car is stolen and leaving and is sitting on a dock, I have to pay the dock fees such as storage and move fees( every time a container is picked up by a crane and moved in a stack or onto a chassis there is a fee), then I have to organize a truck to come get the container, that's not free, then I have to find a warehouse and labor to unload the car. CBSA looks at all these costs and thinks well who will pay, obviously not the criminal gang exporting, maybe the insurance company, nah they just get their property back, so now CBSA is on the hook for 5-7grand of recovery costs.
I am not sure of the enforcement costs but I found this cbc story from a few months back quite telling. They found car lots filled with cars that still had their Canadian paperwork in the glovebox, and the authorities in Ghana claiming their Canadian counterparts ignored requests to stem this export/import of these types of cars into Ghana for their associated criminality.
I mean, there should be punishment delivered before you even get to stealing your third car. Even if you down real bad you should still be able to afford bus fare before justifying theft. I'm not sure about mandatory minimum sentences but repeat offenders shouldn't just be allowed to walk free stealing as many cars as they want.
They don't steal the car for themselves, it's organized crime and they ship the cars overseas to where they are hard to impossible to track and return.
We want to stop this we need to stop organized crime, get the people at the top instead of the people on the street. We need to better support the people at street level so they don't fall in with organized crime to begin with.
CBC did some tracking of stolen cars, many ship out of Montreal and end up in various African countries. Here is a good video on it.