My fair city - Saskatoon

So, as I'm sure everyone has heard by now. My beloved home of Saskatoon is the most dangerous city in Canada. The list for the last few years has basically been a revolving door of Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Edmonton at the top. What surprised me the most, having spent 6 months there working last year, was Halifax being #7. This year, Saskatoon got it. Of course, the mayor of Saskatoon has talked about steps the city has made to deal with this and assure people that steps are being taken. Granted, Saskatoon (along with Regina, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and the other cities at the top of the crime rankings) are not without their problems. But I think a little perspective is in order. Being the nerd that I am, I decided to dig a little deeper into this. So, I went to Statistics Canada for some information. Some quick math showed some very small discrepancies in numbers, so I am going to assume that the sources are the same.

What the MacLean's study did, is look at the average for 6 categories - homicide, robbery, sexual assault, aggravated assault, breaking and entering, and vehicle theft. They then took the Canada wide average, and rated the various cities at above or below average. For instance Chilliwack B.C. had the highest ranking for breaking and entering - at 149.79% above the national average. My guess is thieves were stealing 70's Canadian classic rock albums.

Before I get into this, I want to make a few large observations. First, it is important to know that Canada's crime rate dropped in 2007, continuing a recent tred. Violent crime was down, as was property crime continuing a downward trend that started in the early 1990's. It is also important to point out that Canada is a very safe country, with crime rates similar to Western European nations like Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

A lot is always made of the "Murder Capital" of Canada. This is measured by murders per / 100000 people. The average in Canada for 2007 was 1.8, which is continuing a downward trend from the 1970s when it was around 3.0. This year, the capital was Port Coquitlam BC (and not because of Robert Pickton). The problem with this is that Canada has very few murders - 594 in 2007 nation wide, and a quarter of those are committed in Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto (The stats for metro Vancouver are split between lower mainland cities like Burnaby, Surrey, New West, etc...). So, that leaves a little over 400 murders to be spread out over the rest of the country.

Port Coquitlam has a population of around 60,000 people. They had 3 murders in 2007. I'm not a statistician, but I don't think 3 even be considered statistically significant. So in 2008 if there was only one murder you could say "Murders decreased 66% this year". I just don't think it means anything and I think that when you are dealing with such small numbers the results should be thrown out. If I remember my University days correctly, to be a statistically relevant sample size you need at least 20. Regina is another interesting example. In 2003-2006, Regina had the dubious distinction of either being first or second in homicides with 8-10 a year. In 2007, they had only 5 which dropped them to 17th. Great for Regina, but is a numerical drop of 4 an indicator that anything has improved? Was a number of 9 homicides the year an indicator that the city has a problem with homicides to begin with? Police say that homicides are very difficult to prevent, because the victims typically know each other and crimes of passion are frequently involved. Only the largest cities in Canada have enough homicides a year to do any kind of meaningful trending or analysis on. That's a good thing.

Let's do some comparisons with our friends to the South for 2007. Let's use Edmonton as an example, with around 32 murders in 2007 for a rate of 4.18 murders per 100,000. Edmonton had a population of around 764,000 that year. If you compare with Indianapolis Indiana, a city of comparable population. Their murder rate was 14.30. Over 3x as much. Columbus, Ohio is around 10. For alarm, I'll throw in two of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. stats - Baltimore and Detroit. Both had a rate around 45. I'm not trying to bash our neighbours to the South. In general, the United States is also very safe. New York City, considered one of the safest big cities in the world had a rate of 6.03.

What brought Saskatoon down was aggravated assault and robberies. Using robbery as an example, Saskatoon had 272 counts in 2007. If I was to put Saskatoon in a chart with comparable size U.S. Cities, Saskatoon would be towards the bottom of the pack - behind Irving and Lubbock, Texas and ahead of Yonkers NY and Spokane.

I'm not making any excuses, and I know that in the West the influx of gang influence that brings crime rates up needs to be dealt with somehow. But, overall, even the highest crime cities in Canada are great places to live.

Cheers.