"Hooray! Now I only have 999,999,999 reasons not to live there! "

WINNIPEG -- While it doesn't quite rank as a "where were you when" type of day, March 3 was a special day for Winnipeg.

On that seemingly routine winter Tuesday, not one person in the whole city reported a stolen car.

Manitoba Public Insurance says that's the first time Winnipeg has gone an entire day without an auto theft in decades.

"Back in 2004, it wasn't unusual to see 40 or more cars stolen in a single day. Back then, it would have been difficult to envision a day with no auto theft," said Det. Sgt. Kevin Kavitch, of the Winnipeg police stolen auto unit.

"Seeing a day with zero auto theft really highlights how far we've come with our auto theft strategy. It's all been about decreasing the number of stolen autos, which reduces the chances of something bad happening on the streets."

The Winnipeg Auto Theft Suppression Strategy, which sees the most chronic offenders closely supervised and jailed for breaches, and MPI's mandatory immobilizer program are being credited with the success.

According to MPI, auto theft peaked in Manitoba in 2006, with 16,986 vehicles stolen across the province.

It has been drastically reduced over the past two years or so.

One 'every hour'

"It wasn't so long ago we were having one vehicle stolen every hour in Winnipeg," said MPI spokesman Brian Smiley.

There are now an average of five or six stolen every day in Winnipeg, Smiley said.

Kavitch said there have been several days in the past year when only one theft was reported, but when the figures for March 3 came in they did not go unnoticed.

"We all definitely took note of it," Kavitch said, adding there was no official toast or commemoration.

MPI does not have exact stats for the last time there was a theft-free day, but Smiley said it's safe to assume it has been decades.