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Crime in Canada: Just how safe is it? |
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By Ethan Caleb » A highly-publicized spate of murders in and around
Toronto over the last year or so may have many prospective immigrants
wondering just how safe Canada is.
The question of crimes involving guns even became a major election issue after the Boxing Day 2005 murder of a teenage girl on a street filled with shoppers. Stephen Harper's pledge to get tough on crime found resonance with voters, and was one of the reasons the Conservatives began pulling ahead of the Liberals in the polls.
The fact however remains that despite the surge in gun-related crimes in 2005 (52 of the 78 homicides in Toronto last year involved guns), overall crime statistics for Canada are among the lowest in the world. Even Toronto, despite the blip in violent crime statistics for 2005, posted a murder rate of about 3.1 per 100,000 - on par with the safest American cities.
Moreover, a great majority of those murders were the result of inter-gang rivalries and often took place in well-known troubled neighbourhoods. For the public at large, the threat of flying bullets while going about their business remains thankfully remote.
As a general comparison, crime trends in Canada are well below those of the United States, on par with Western Europe, and marginally higher than those in Japan.
Through the 1990s, the homicide rate in the United States was three times higher than it was in Canada, while the American rate for aggravated assault was double the Canadian rate. The rate for robberies was 65% higher in the United States.
Rates of property crime are more comparable with higher rates of motor vehicle and bicycle theft, though surveys reveal this may be connected to Canadians being more likely to report property crimes to police than Americans.
Only one third of Canadian murders involve firearms compared to two thirds in the States. In fact, many of the weapons used in gang-related crimes in Canada have been traced back to the US, a source of some irritation in this country which frowns on the easy availability of handguns across the border.
Weapon procurement is far tougher in Canada, where all guns must be registered with the government. The country's two biggest provinces, Ontario and Quebec have a long history of strict gun controls.
More than half the crimes reported across Canada are property related, including theft of cars, while about 13% were violent crimes.
The province with the lowest crime rate is Newfoundland. The other Atlantic provinces - Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick - are close behind.
The province with the highest crime rates is Saskatchewan and Regina is the city with the highest violent crime rate of major cities. The three northern territories have higher crime rates per capita than any province.
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