Crimes reported to police jumped last year for the first time in more than a decade in Canada, an unusual leap that appears to be driven by a major spike in crime in Alberta’s two biggest cities.
The traditional police-reported crime rate, which measures the volume of police-reported crime relative to the population size, increased three per cent in 2015. The national crime severity index (CSI), a separate measurement that considers the volume and severity of crime, rose five per cent last year.
It’s the first time that the police-reported crime rate rose in Canada since 2003. Statistics Canada says that approximately 1.9 million “criminal code incidents” occurred last year -- about 70,000 more than 2014.
That leap may have something to do with Alberta. Calgary had the highest CSI increase of any Canadian city in 2015 with a 29 per cent jump from the previous year, while Edmonton saw a 16 per cent rise.
From a provincial standpoint, Alberta saw one of the largest-ever increases to a province’s CSI at 18 per cent last year. There have only been three other times a province has seen a one-year increase above 10 per cent since Statistics Canada began recording CSI information.
Why Alberta?
Researchers at Statistics Canada say this jump could stem from an increase in break-and-enters, thefts under $5,000 and motor vehicle thefts across Alberta.
But Edmonton’s top cop has a different theory. As Alberta’s energy-dependent economy continues to suffer from falling oil prices, Edmonton’s police chief drew a direct link between the sputtering oil industry and rising crime.
“Our rates are all driven by property crime, and they are significant,” Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht told CTV Edmonton on Wednesday.
“And I talked about it 18 months ago when we said there seems to be a correlation between the drop in the price in oil and the increase in crime in Edmonton.”
Alberta is hardly alone. Eight of the 13 provinces and territories reported increases in their crime severity indexes for 2015. New Brunswick saw a 12 per cent rise while Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories both experienced jumps of 10 per cent. Ontario saw a two per cent rise in its CSI, a fact that Stats Canada attributes to an increase in police-reported fraud.
P.E.I, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Nunavut and the Yukon all reported lower CSIs in 2015.
Researcher: More data needed to establish trend
And while the numbers show a statistical rise in reported crimes, some experts say it’s too soon to declare increasing criminal activity a national trend. Warren Silver, a researcher from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, pointed out that crime in Canada has consistently dropped year after year.
“The last few years we keep reporting that crime is at a 30-year low. So before we make any judgements about whether this is a change or not, I think we need to see more years of data,” Silver told CTV News Channel on Wednesday.
“Even though we have seen an increase in crime this year, I think it’s important to keep in mind that this has generally been decreasing every year since 1991.”
On a lighter note, Statistics Canada reported a sizeable drop in crimes committed by youth and drug-related offences across the country.
On a city-by-city basis, Calgary’s historic 29-per-cent jump was followed by CSI increases in Moncton (20 per cent), Victoria (16 per cent) and Abbotsford-Mission, B.C. (14 per cent). Cities with the largest declines in CSI were Thunder Bay (11 per cent) Quebec City (six per cent) and Sherbrooke (six per cent).
As for types of violent crime reported to police, the number of attempted murders across Canada was up 22 per cent last year. Homicides saw a 15 per cent increase, while robberies were up 5 per cent and sexual assaults up 4 per cent.
