New report warns violent crime surging across major Canadian cities

Violent crime is rising in nearly all major Canadian cities, according to a troubling Macdonald-Laurier Institute report, with sexual assaults increasing in every major urban center.

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Violent crime is rising in nearly all major Canadian cities, according to a troubling Macdonald-Laurier Institute report, with sexual assaults increasing in every major urban center over the past decade.

A new report warns that violent crime is climbing in nearly all major Canadian cities.

The “Urban Violent Crime Report, Volume 2,” released last week, analyzes police-reported data from 20 census metropolitan areas, covering more than 65 per cent of the national population.

Drawing on Statistics Canada incident-based crime data and the Crime Severity Index, the study tracks long-term, medium-term and short-term trends across six key indicators: homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault and robbery.

While national crime statistics often emphasize declines from the highs of the 1990s, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) authors say the more relevant trend is the consistent climb in violent crime since the mid-2010s. They note this period is marked by constrained police resources, increasingly lenient bail and prosecution practices, along with growing public concern about disorder in urban centres.

Violent crime has increased across nearly all major urban centres over the past decade, indicating the trend is nationwide, not isolated to a few cities.

Sexual assault rates, in particular, have substantially increased across all 20 major metropolitan areas studied; in some cities, the rate has doubled over the last ten years.

No city is immune: even places previously with lower violent crime rates — like Windsor, Quebec City and Gatineau — have seen substantial increases since 2015.

While the crisis is national, geography does matter.

The Prairie provinces — Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta — bear the brunt. Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon and Edmonton consistently rank among the worst cities in the country for violent crime.

Winnipeg’s violent crime rate, for example, is twice that of Ottawa’s, and its severity index is 37 per cent higher than Saskatoon’s, which was the next most violent city in Canada. Robbery in Winnipeg is also more common than virtually anywhere else, clocking in at more than quadruple that of 16 other major metropolitan cities. Its homicide rate, for instance, dwarfs Quebec City’s by almost an entire order of magnitude.

Atlantic Canada isn’t faring much better: Moncton and St. John’s top the violent crime rate rankings in that region, with Halifax — the largest city among the Atlantic provinces — also showing a 24 per cent long-term increase in violent crime.

On Canada’s other coast in British Columbia, Victoria’s sexual assault rate is up a staggering 72 per cent over the last decade.

“At a time when governments and police services face resource constraints, uneven enforcement capacity, and shifting bail and prosecution frameworks, our report offers an evidence-based picture of where and how violence is intensifying,” the study’s executive summary reads.

“Canada is not immune to rising urban violence, and the latest evidence suggests that the problem is broader and more entrenched than many realize.”

“Policymakers can no longer rely on temporary explanations or regional anomalies. The challenge now is to restore public confidence and measurable accountability in how we protect our cities.”