As for the relative safety of Canada vs the US: Here in Edmonton, we lock our doors. I know many people who have had their homes burgled. I’ve had vehicles broken into several times. A co-worker had his car stolen out of our parkade last year, and several more had their windows broken and their contents stolen. In fact, our offices were burgled for computers twice in the last three years. Home burglaries are reasonably common. But I think you’ll find the same thing you find in the U.S.: If you live in a middle-class neighborhood in the ‘burbs’, you’re reasonably safe. If you live in the inner-city, you’re not. It’s just that the U.S. has huge cities with large inner-city areas that drive crime rates up.
If you want to compare crime rates on an apples-to-apples basis, let’s try comparing Saskatchewan to Montana. Both midwest populations, both regions are roughly the same in population size. Saskatchewan has a couple of cities that are larger than the largest in Montana, but no huge metropolises with inner city problems.
In 2004, Saskatchewan had 15,159 criminal incidents for every 100,000 population. In Montana, the number in 2005 was 3,424. Saskatchewan had almost five times the crime rate of Montana. But how about all those gun-related murders? In Montana, where handguns are widely and easily obtainable, there were 18 murders. In Saskatchewan, where they are heavily controlled, there were 39. Over twice the murder rate, too.
The other thing we could do to examine apples to apples would be to take two cities of comparable size and demographic layout, and compare crime statistics. Let’s start with Edmonton.
Edmonton Crime per 100,000 population
Murder: 2.2
Robbery: 162
Break-ins: 1,020
Motor Vehicle Theft: 951
cite.
Now let’s pick a similar U.S. city, with a population around 800,000, with a strong economy and large middle class. How about San Jose, California:
2003 Crime rates for San Jose per 100,000 population:
Murder: 3.1
Robbery: 88.1
Burglary: 358.3
Vehicle Theft: 396.1
cite.
Well, what do you know - in a ‘safe’ Canadian city with a population just under 1 million, you’re far more likely to have your vehicle stolen, your house burgled, or to be robbed than you are in the dangerous American city of San Jose. The only stat that is worse in the U.S. is the murder rate, but that’s such a small number that annual differences can swing the ‘winner’ in either direction. In fact, if I had chosen 2005 for my stats, Edmonton would have ‘won’ that stat too, as we had 37 murders for a murder rate just over 4 per 100,000.
Now, let’s look at Detroit, Mi. Another city of roughly the same size as Edmonton and San Jose. But the numbers are horrid:
Crimes per 100,000 population:
Murder: 39.3
Robbery: 757
Burglary: 1698
Vehicle Theft: 2362
There’s your outlier. The difference isn’t between Canada and the U.S. The difference is between cities like Detroit and cities like San Jose or Missoula Montana. It’s not gun control. It’s not the nature of the Canadian people. It’s not a difference between the two countries at all. The answer is much more complex. But complexity isn’t a word in Michael Moore’s vocabulary. He’s rather play the demogogue and reach for simplistic solutions that happen to align with his political philosophy.
In Edmonton, the crime rate has been skyrocketing primarily because of the increase in gang activity and the deterioration of the inner-city areas. If we could take just the inner-city area of Edmonton and work out the crime rates, I’ll bet it would look a lot like Detroit. For example, the bulk of our murders happen in the inner city, even though it probably makes up 10% of the population or less.
I think you’ll find that if you map crime across the U.S., the pattern does not even remotely follow something as simple as gun control laws. It’s more about poverty, gang-related activity, local criminal enterprises, and other complex factors.
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