Police-reported crime in Ontario lowest in Canada: StatsCan

TORONTO -- Ontario police services reported the lowest crime rate in Canada for 2012, according to Statistics Canada figures released Thursday.

The agency reported four per cent drops in the province in both the severity of crime according to its Crime Severity Index (CSI) and the crime rate, compared with the national decline of three per cent in the same two categories.

The CSI has decreased in all listed Ontario cities except Brantford, Guelph and Windsor. But Guelph has the lowest CSI in the province and second lowest in Canada after Quebec City.

At the other end of the scale, Windsor had the highest increase of CSI at seven per cent while Brantford had a one per cent increase, giving it the highest overall CSI in the province at 92.2 per cent.

Toronto has the lowest crime rate of listed cities in Canada with a seven per cent drop in 2012, showing less crime than Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary and other major cities.

Thunder Bay, which has the highest crime rate in Ontario, also shows the highest drops in both crime rate and CSI, while Greater Sudbury and the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo areas also show significant drops in CSI.

Statistics Canada says police-reported crime in Canada has been on a steady decline since peaking in 1991 and has hit its lowest since 1972.