Did removal of N.B.’s front licence plates make solving crimes harder?

When a historic bell was stolen from a Fredericton church after Christmas, a security camera from a neighbouring property caught a photo of a pickup truck.

Fredericton police later shared the photo, but the camera could only catch the front of the truck, so “unfortunately, it didn't include the licence plate,” said the church’s former minister, Ross Hebb.

“And I guess if we had the licence plate, you'd be down by the court covering a slightly different story."

While a piece of the bell was recovered, the identity of the thief or thieves still remains unknown.

The theft is just the latest case to raise the question of the effectiveness of removing front licence plates, a change made in 2019 by the former Progressive Conservative government. 

At the time, then-public safety minister Carl Urquhart said that if the change led to a “big rush” of crime, bringing back front plates could be considered.

So has New Brunswick reached that big rush? The province's current government says no, although one frequently hit business would disagree.

Not far from the church, a business in Hanwell has had its fair share of thefts in the past five years.

First it was catalytic converters from the company trucks or vans, and then another time it was the van itself. Most recently a 40-foot (12-metre) ladder was taken beside one of the outbuildings that the business built to house the van so it wouldn't be taken a second time.

Jodi Harrington said she does “a bit of everything” at Classic Stoves and Fireplaces, a family business. 

Vehicle licence plates were never visible on security footage, she said.

“So it felt like every time a theft happened, it would be a conversation we would have with the RCMP officer, where he or she would say, 'If only that front licence plate had been there.' Because we would have gotten a really great shot of it because they'd pull right up to the building and right in front of our new cameras.

“And so for the most part, we feel that if the front licence plate had been there, it probably could have helped at least narrow down a little bit.”

"Pretty much every RCMP officer” that’s come to investigate after a theft has made a comment about how front licence plates would have made it easier to catch the perpetrators, Harrington said.