Is Toronto One Of The Most Dangerous Cities In Canada?

Toronto can be a scary place at times, a city with troubled neighbourhoods, homelessness, poverty and ever disturbing stories of random shootings and attacks on the innocent. To read all those reports, you might think it’s one of the most dangerous places to live in all of Canada.

But according to a new study by Maclean’s Magazine, you’d be wrong.

Researchers looked at a variety of crime stats from major cities with populations of 50,000 or more across the country, measuring incidents involving gangs, gun violence and other sins. Toronto didn’t even make the top 10. In fact, this city is way down the list for the most dangerous in all of Canada, coming in at a very sedate 26th place.

“A lot of the crime is concentrated in small pockets in places in Toronto , whereas the vast majority of the community is safe,” said Ken MacQueen, Vancouver bureau chief for Maclean’s.

“We’ve weighted them all equally because, while you’re very unlikely to get murdered, it’s not at all unlikely that you might get your car stolen or you might get robbed. So we wanted to look at things that would affect people.”

So if we’re still Toronto the Good, who is Canada the Bad? The answer may surprise you.

Regina, Saskatchewan came in first as the place with the highest per capita crime rate of all the major hometowns profiled in data taken from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, a division of Stats Canada. The figures are based on 2006 numbers, the most recent available.

Just as disturbingly for that province, Saskatoon ranks second.

In fact, the top 9 cities on the dubious list all share one thing in common – every one of them is in what appears to be an increasingly wild west and four are located in British Columbia.

Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Victoria all share high billing and so do such unlikely places as Prince George, B.C. and Chilliwack. The only eastern province on the most dangerous list: Halifax at number 10.

Montreal, the country’s other largest metropolis, also seems more immune to the ravages of big city crime. It only ranks 19th.

So what separates first from last and how do they add it all up?

“The reasons a city makes the top 10 list vary,” the magazine explains. “Winnipeg leads in auto theft at more than 334 per cent above the national average. Robberies plagued Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Regina, all at more than 200 per cent above average. Residents of Chilliwack, Victoria and Regina endured break-ins at rates more than 100 per cent above average. Regina and Saskatoon led in aggravated assault; Saskatoon in sexual assault. (Arthabaska, Que., which sits halfway between Montreal and Quebec City, was Canada’s murder city, 2006, but ranked 21st in the overall rankings.)

So if those are the worst, who’s the best? You don’t have to go far to find what the results show is the safest city in Canada. It’s Caledon, which came in at number 100, last on the list but first overall for safety.

“It is, at least by the most recent numbers, a larger, real-life equivalent to such fictional television inventions as America’s Mayberry, or Dog River, Sask., of Corner Gas fame – an idyllic world of carefree kids and unlocked doors, or more likely, of very good security systems,” the article explains.

“Caledon’s policing district of almost 71,000 residents comes by its reputation honestly (naturally), with no murders or aggravated assaults in 2006. Caledon has the third-lowest level of robbery among the 100 areas and the lowest rates of break and enter, sexual assault and auto theft, combining for an overall crime rate of 107 per cent below the national average.” 

To read the Maclean’s article, click here.

Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities In Canada

1. Regina 
2. Saskatoon
3. Winnipeg
4. Prince George
5. Edmonton
6. New Westminster
7. Chilliwack
8. Victoria
9. Vancouver
10. Halifax

Other Ontario cities

15. Thunder Bay
26. Toronto
35. Sudbury
36. Chatham
37. Windsor
43. Peterborough
47. Barrie
55. Sarnia
57. Ottawa
58. Woodstock
59. Niagara Region
71. Waterloo Region
72. Peel Region
93. York Region
100. Caledon

To see the entire list, click here.

Source: Maclean’s Magazine and the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics