Toronto the safest
Rahman Mohamed

With the continuous coverage and new revelations in the Mayor Rob Ford Crack-Cocaine Scandal, with CBC reporting today that Mayor Ford saying he was “prepared to take some downtime” after admitting to smoking crack-cocaine and being advised to take time off by his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, it’s not just politics that’s on the mind of many Torontonians; drugs and crime is there too.  But compared to other cities in Canada, Toronto is one of the safest in terms of crime.

After an investigation that began in June 2012, CP24 reported on 17 June 2013 that 44 people were arrested, $570,000 in cash, 42 firearms, more than 100 rounds of ammunition, a Taser, and more than 175,000 grams of drugs were seized by using 42 tactical teams from 17 law enforcement agencies executing 83 search warrants on June 13.

But according to the Police-Reported crime reported statistics in Canada, 2012 on Statistics Canada, Canada saw almost 36,000 fewer crime reports than 2011, its lowest police-reported crime rate since 1972.  The Crime Severity Index (CSI) – the seriousness of crimes even saw a decrease.

Provincially Ontario saw a 4% drop in crime, second to Saskatchewan (-7%).

City wise, Toronto came out number 1.  It reported a decrease in police-reported crime for the 6th year in a row, this year 7%.  Vancouver was the only of Canada’s big three to report a crime-rate higher than the national average; Montreal reported a decline, the fourth highest drop in Canada, but still had rates well above Toronto.

2012 not only saw national homicide rates drop, but assault, robbery and impaired driving.  Reported drug use dropped from the decrease of the use Cannabis (or marijuana), what accounted for 2/3 of drug related incidents but other drug related incidents saw a rise, reports of cocaine rising the most by 89%.

The question now is what will happen to the crime and criminals that already exist.