Skyrocketing Copper Prices Drive Global Theft Wave, Crippling Critical Telecom Infrastructure
From eavestroughs off the local cathedral to brass plaques from nearby buildings, metal recycling business owner Charlie Gelinas said that prospective sellers have showed up to his London, Ont., shop with just about every type of scrap metal over the past quarter century.
But in recent years, one particular metal has emerged as a new source of concern for him: stolen copper.
The recyclable metal, widely used in telecommunications and hydro wires, plumbing, building construction and electronics, has surged in value with record highs in recent years, fuelled by demand from data centres, electricity grids and autonomous vehicles.
And as affordability has eroded in many of Canada’s cities, the instance of copper wire theft – from construction sites, hanging telecom lines and right out of cell towers themselves – has ballooned in recent years, up 200 per cent between 2022 and 2024, according to the Canadian Telecommunications Association.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and we didn’t see this kind of thing 25 years ago,” said Mr. Gelinas, the owner of Specialized Recycling Inc.
Scrap-metal business owners must now be more vigilant for stolen copper – including requiring identification, sending photos to police and turning down potential deals that don’t seem right, he said.
He hopes that pending legislation, in addition to a new report from the standing Senate committee on transport and communications, will help redirect the responsibility to law enforcement. “It’s fallen on us to be the gatekeeper. But we’re not the police, and we’re not capable of being perfect,” he said.
If passed, Bill C-14, which concerns bail and sentencing reform, will strengthen penalties for offences when they interfere with essential infrastructure, including telecom lines, by adding an “aggravating factor.” That bill is currently under consideration by the Senate, approaching its final reading.
For theft with a value of under $5,000, the Criminal Code currently imposes a maximum two-year sentence, with 10 years for theft over that amount. However, most copper theft falls under that threshold, Department of Justice senior general counsel Matthew Taylor told the committee. He noted that copper theft is typically a financially driven “crime of opportunity.”
Meanwhile, a private member’s bill introduced in March in the House of Commons is approaching the problem from the other angle – the scrap-metal buyers, whose existence and business makes copper theft profitable.
The legislation, proposed by Conservative Cambridge, Ont., MP Connie Cody, aims to make it an offence for scrapyards to traffic in stolen copper, with a fine of up to $10,000 and a jail sentence of as much as 10 years on first offence.
Meanwhile, a Senate committee report released in April recommended that provinces develop a more unified approach to regulating scrap metal dealers. The report followed a December, 2024, consultation with telecom companies and industry associations, which have been sounding the alarm on the rising instances of copper wire theft for years.
Not only does replacing wire and increasing security cost millions of dollars, theft also interrupts essential telecommunications services, including 911 calling, representatives for Bell Canada, Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. told the Senate committee.
And while thieves are often after just copper, they sometimes end up slicing into fibre-optic internet cables, too, the companies said, affecting internet service for tens of thousands of users.
RCMP officer Peter Tewfik told the committee that law enforcement face numerous challenges in cracking down on copper crime, including challenges linking stolen metals to their owner and gathering the evidence required for a conviction, in addition to the inconsistent provincial legislation.
For Mr. Gelinas, city bylaws passed in response to the issue now require him to snap photos for police and require multiple forms of official identification for each sale, he said. He now regularly turns people away who don’t provide proper ID or who can’t explain the source of copper. “If I’m not comfortable, then we’re not buying it, period,” he said.
He said he believes part of the solution will be better legal enforcement of existing laws, and an approach that takes into account vulnerable groups who depend on selling scrap metal as a legitimate form of income.
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
