Maybe it's the freezing cold weather, but for the second year in a row Canadians are worried about Winnipeg.
Following the release of Statistics Canada’s annual crime status, the latest Mainstreet poll asked Canadian's their perceptions of safety for 15 major cities following the release of Statistics Canada’s crime status.
“With just a single exception in the City of Toronto, cities that are the seat of provincial government have a relatively higher perception of safety than other urban centres in their home province,” said Maggi Quito, president of Mainstreet Research.
“Victoria, Edmonton, Regina & Québec City all have higher perceived safety when compared to Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon & Montréal respectively. In Ontario where the nation’s capital continues to have higher perceived safety than Toronto, the pattern does continue but in this case, the city with the House of Commons outperforms the city with Queen’s Park.”
So which city do Canadians feel is the safest? That title once again goes to Ottawa, which was named the safest city in 2016. Polling showed more people voted the capital as the safest city, despite an increase in both its overall crime rate by 5% and Crime Severity Index by 10%.
Vancouver, meanwhile, has the fifth highest crime rate out of the surveyed cities. While crime rate decreased by 1%, and despite the ongoing opioid crisis, Maggi said that Canadians’ assessment of Vancouver has improved when it comes to safety.
“Vancouver is a big city and we would expect a lower score given the fact Vancouver has the 5th highest crime rate and plenty of media assets. 41 homicides took place in Vancouver in 2016, one less than Montreal, but only 45% of Canadians say Montreal is safe compared to 53% who say the same about Vancouver,” said Maggi.
“It may be that Vancouver has just done a better job than other cities at molding its public image across the country. When you think of Vancouver you could think about the opioid crisis or you might think about the latest TV or movie that’s filming there.”
As for the top five safest cities, the majority are in eastern Canada.
Do you agree with this ranking?
