Q&A: Senator explains why Canada needs stronger penalties for copper wire thieves

Increasingly, copper wire theft is causing downed telephone and internet signals across the country — which Alberta Sen. Paula Simons says inconveniences businesses and individual Canadians alike. The Senate’s transport and communications committee, of which Simons is a member, recently wrapped its study on copper theft and recommended the federal government strengthen criminal penalties for those caught pulling wires from the ground. In an interview with The Wire Report, Simons explained why the committee decided to examine this issue, how Bill C-14 incorporates some of the study’s recommendations, as well as why it was "refreshing" to contribute to a more pragmatic Senate report. Can we start with why the committee felt copper theft was an issue that needed studying? This is a chronic problem all across the country. As the price of copper goes up and up and up, the amount of opportunistic copper wire theft goes up and up and up. And, this isn’t like stealing cars or stuff from a house because you’re stripping it out of critical infrastructure. LAST WEEK’S INTERVIEW: National Film Board chair wants her organization’s productions to air on CBC We’re the transport and communications committee, so we were looking primarily at the impact of the telecommunications system. If people are stealing this, it brings down phone lines or makes your internet not work. That’s more than an inconvenience, it’s potentially an emergency problem. If there’s a time at which copper wire theft and a local emergency happen at the same time, you can extrapolate what the problems are going to be. Also, we’ve been lobbied, if one can put it that way, and encouraged pretty heavily by the telco sector to look into this. I know the telcos care deeply about this issue, but it sounds like this study could have implications for individual Canadians as well? Absolutely. I don’t know if there's been a specific incident where there was copper wire theft and, as a result, a 9-1-1 call didn’t go through, or a community couldn’t evacuate in the face of a wildfire, or a business lost a major contract, but we are so dependent on our telecommunications that the prospect of putting them at risk has really serious consequences. The other reason people wanted us to look into this is to look for possible solutions, and one of the tactics people dealt with is the fact that copper wire theft is dealt with as a relatively minor crime under the Criminal Code. You don’t get major jail time for stealing stuff, right? But these crimes are opportunistic, it’s not largely an organized crime. Oftentimes, it’s people who are feeding a drug habit or dealing with gambling debt or people dealing with situational poverty. It’s a low-hanging fruit. So, the question is — how do we do something that signals to people that this is not a good plan? And, what people were really lobbying for was to increase the criminal penalty to be proportionate to the damage, as opposed to just the property loss. If you’re mucking with critical infrastructure, there should be higher consideration for that. Bill C-14, the government’s proposed law for bail reform, includes a measure that would strengthen penalties for disrupting essential infrastructure, which includes copper wire theft. Did you know that was coming? And, what was your reaction to that bill? As a result of prorogation and the election, we did all the work for this report in 2024. So, we heard all the evidence and did the public hearings in December 2024. I don’t want to pretend that Mark Carney read our minds because there were a number of different people working on this file at the same time, but the suggestions we end up making in the report have been somewhat overtaken by C-14. Now, the bill hasn’t passed yet, but we were very happy to see C-14 was in alignment with our recommendations. Would it be fair to say the Criminal Code is the federal government’s main tool for dealing with this issue? I ask because another one of the committee’s recommendations asks Ottawa to encourage the provinces to better regulate the sale of scrap metal. There’s limited options because theft and trespass are provincial jurisdiction, as is the regulation of scrap metal. As senators, we’re sensitive to the fact that it’s our job to offer advice to the federal government. It’s not really our job to sit in Ottawa and tell provinces what to do. As an Albertan, I can tell you that provincial governments and provincial citizens don’t love it when the feds trespass into areas of provincial jurisdiction. There’s definitely an argument to be made for provincial coordination because different provinces are tackling this problem differently. We felt it would be helpful advice that, if people pooled their knowledge, there might be some smart things they could learn from one another. Your final recommendation asks the federal government to appoint a task force on metal theft. Do you see that happening? It might be useful, but, frankly, I think the changes in C-14 are probably the most substantive. Is there anything else you’d like to highlight about this study or report? Some Senate studies are very broad and deal with profound existential questions, so it was refreshing to work on a straight-up report about a tangible problem and offer specific solutions. We know this report isn’t just going to be a bookend. I think it’s fair to say that most Canadians don’t understand everything the Senate does, so it’s nice to do something where people can go, ‘okay, I know about the problem of copper wire theft and I’m glad to see the Senate is engaging with this problem.’ dlegree@thewirereport.ca Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q&A: Senator explains why Canada needs stronger penalties for copper wire thieves

People |
By Davis Legree
|April 17, 2026

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Q&A: Senator explains why Canada needs stronger penalties for copper wire thieves

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