When the Vancouver Police Union launched its Vote Public safety campaign last week, the website prominently featured the claim that violent crime is “now at its lowest point since tracking began in 2022.” After CTV News asked about the data behind the claim, the website was updated to clarify that the 23-year low occurred in the first quarter of 2025—and was not reflective of either the year-end data for last year, or of data from 2026. “We’ve adjusted the wording on the website to make the reporting period clear and avoid any confusion,” a spokesperson for the union said in an email to CTV News. The source for the claim can be found in a Public Safety Indicators report presented to the board last year, which said data for the first three months of 2025 showed “the lowest number of violent crimes on record in Vancouver, going back to the implementation of PRIME in 2002.” PRIME, or the Police Records Information Management Environment, is a centralized database for crime used provincewide. A similar record-low was not cited in any other quarterly report last year, or in the year-end report. Quarterly reports that went before the Vancouver Police Board last week show violent crime in the city was up six per cent in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period last year. The Public Safety Indicators reports for Q1 and Q2 represent the first comprehensive crime data provided to the board and the public all year—delivered one month before the city’s election. The union is not endorsing a candidate or party in October’s municipal election, but the same claim about violent crime is featured on the website for Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC Party. “Under Mayor Sim and the ABC team, Vancouver has seen crime fall, with our city achieving its lowest violent crime rate in 23 years,” the website says. CTV News asked if the website would be updated, particularly in light of the latest data. “In 2025, Vancouver achieved its lowest violent crime rate in 23 years as a direct result of ABC’s decision to fully invest in our city’s police, fire, and mental health services,” a party spokesperson wrote. “Crime, especially violent crime, is down in Vancouver because of ABC’s investments in policing, but street disorder remains. This disorder is related to provincial drug and housing policies, which are increasingly leaving our most vulnerable people in distress on our streets.” When it comes to encouraging crime statistics, Vancouver is not unique. According to Statistics Canada’s most recent Crime Severity Index, police-reported crime dropped five per cent nation-wide last year when compared with 2024. “A decline in the CSI was observed across all provinces and territories in 2025, except in New Brunswick and Nunavut. Similarly, most of Canada’s census metropolitan areas also recorded declines,” according to StatsCan. When it comes to what municipal police departments are seeing in major cities, Vancouver recorded a drop of five per cent. Toronto saw a double-digit decrease of 12.6. In Montreal, the drop was 3.5 per cent. The Crime Severity Index is different from the so-called conventional crime rate, which measures “crime volume relative to population.” The Crime Severity Index measures the number of crimes but also assigns “greater weight to more serious offences,” according to StatsCan.
