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Crime

Canada’s violent crime rate 14.0% higher than U.S. in 2022, and rising; property crime rate 27.5% higher

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From the Fraser Institute

By: Livio Di Matteo

Rates of both violent crime and property crime (population adjusted) have been increasing in Canada in recent years, and now surpass comparable crime rates in the United States, finds a new study published today by the Fraser Institute, an
independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think tank.

“This idea that Canada is much safer than the United States is not supported by the data as rates of property and violent crime in Canada are now higher than south of the border,” said Livio Di Matteo, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and author of an upcoming study Comparing Recent Crime Trends in Canada and the United States: An Introduction.

The chapter released today, the first of a larger upcoming study examining crime rates between the two countries, focuses on national comparisons. It finds that from 2014 (a year when crimes rates reached their lowest) to 2022 (the most recent comparable year of data), the violent crime rate in Canada increased by 43.8 per cent to 434.1 violent crimes per 100,000 people. That’s now 14 per cent higher than the violent crime rate in the U.S., which only increased 5.3 per cent over the same period to 380.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people.

Violent crime data in Canada differs from the United States, so adjustments were made to ensure as high a level of comparability as possible. The adjusted violent crime data includes murder, robbery, and assault with a weapon.

Additionally, the rate of population adjusted property crimes (e.g., burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft) is also now 27.5 per cent higher in Canada than in the U.S., with 2491.0 crimes occurring per 100,000 people in Canada in 2022—a 7.0 per cent
increase from 2014. By contrast, the property crime rate in the U.S. declined by 24.1 per cent over the same period to 1954.4 crimes per 100,000 people.

Crucially, homicides are also on the rise in Canada with the number of murders increasing from 1.5 per 100,000 in 2014 to 2.3 in 2022—a 53.4 per cent increase. The homicide rate in the U.S. remains markedly higher than in Canada at 5.8 per 100,000 people in 2022 and increased 49.4 per cent from 2014 to 2022.

“Crime rates in Canada, which are still historically low, are nevertheless rising and, in some cases are higher than in the U.S., which should concern Canadians,” Di Matteo said.

  • This is a pre-release of an upcoming study examining crime rates between Canada and the United States.
  • This first chapter focuses on national comparisons, and finds that from 2014 (a year when crimes rates reached their lowest) to 2022 (the most recent comparable year of data), rates of both violent crime and property crime (adjusted for population) have been increasing in Canada and now surpass comparable crime rates in the United States.
  • From 2014 to 2022, the violent crime rate in Canada increased by 43.8 per cent to 434.1 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
  • The violent crime rate in the U.S. increased 5.3 per cent over the same period to 380.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
  • Likewise, the rate of population-adjusted property crimes (e.g., burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft) is also now higher in Canada than in the U.S., with 2491.0 crimes occurring per 100,000 people in Canada in 2022—a 7.0 per cent increase from 2014.
  • By contrast, the property crime rate in the U.S. declined by 24.1 per cent over the same period to 1954.4 crimes per 100,000 people.
  • Homicides are also on the rise in Canada with the number of murders increasing from 1.5 per 100,000 in 2014 to 2.3 in 2022—a 53.4 per cent increase.
  • The homicide rate in the U.S. remains markedly higher than in Canada at 5.8 per 100,000 people in 2022 and increased 49.4 per cent from 2014 to 2022.

Read the full study

Livio Di Matteo

Professor of Economics, Lakehead University

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Alberta

Integrated Border Enforcement Team makes 189 kg cocaine bust at Coutts port of entry

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News release from Alberta RCMP

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers, working with the Integrated Border Enforcement Team (IBET) in Alberta, a joint force operation between the RCMP Federal Policing Northwest Region, CBSA and Calgary Police Service, seized 189 kg of cocaine following a secondary examination of a commercial truck seeking entry at the Coutts port of entry on Nov. 13, 2024. The drugs have an approximate wholesale value of $2 million.

“The safety and security of Canadians is the RCMP Federal Policing Northwest Region’s top priority. With the support of various law enforcement agencies, we’ve successfully prevented harmful drugs from entering Canada and harming our communities.

  • Supt. Sean Boser, Officer in Charge of Federal Serious Organized Crime and Border Integrity – Alberta, RCMP Federal Policing Northwest Region

“I want to commend our CBSA officers who prevent illegal narcotics from breaching our borders and disrupt crime networks. In cooperation with our law enforcement partners, the RCMP and the Calgary Police Service, this significant seizure serves as another example of how Canada’s borders are being secured and drugs are kept off our streets.”

  • Ben Tame, Director, Southern Alberta and Southern Saskatchewan District, Canada Border Services Agency

“Our efforts to combat drug trafficking rely heavily on working closely with our partner law enforcement agencies, including the CBSA and RCMP. This is a significant seizure that undoubtedly had the potential to cause serious damage to our community.”

  • Supt. Jeff Bell, Criminal Operations & Intelligence Division, Calgary Police Service

IBET’s mandate is to enhance border integrity and security along the shared border, between designated ports of entry, by identifying, investigating and interdicting persons, organizations and goods that are involved in criminal activities.

All partners are engaged in the ongoing criminal investigation.

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Crime

Biden’s ‘preemptive pardons’ would set ‘dangerous’ precedent, constitutional scholar warns

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From LifeSiteNews

By Bob Unruh

Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley warned that preemptive pardons ‘would do precisely what Biden suggests that he is deterring: create a dangerous immunity for presidents and their allies in committing criminal abuses.’

An expert who not only has testified before Congress on the U.S. Constitution but has represented members in court cases is warning about Joe Biden’s speculated agenda to deliver to his friend and supporters preemptive pardons.

It is Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and author of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, who wrote, “After years of lying to the American people about the influence-peddling scandal and promising not to consider a pardon for his son, Biden would end his legacy with the ultimate dishonesty: converting pardons into virtual party favors.”

There has been much speculation about those preemptive pardons from Biden, who lied about allowing juries and courts to determine the outcomes of son Hunter’s criminal gun and tax cases, flip-flopped and pardoned him.

Hunter Biden could have been ordered to jail for years for his felony gun convictions and his guilty pleas to felony tax charges.

However, Joe Biden handed him a get-out-of-jail free card, then followed up with hundreds and hundreds more commutations and pardons to a long list of those with criminal convictions.

The activity triggered a rash of speculation about those preemptive pardons, and Turley explains what’s going on.

“Democrats are worried about the collapsing narrative that President-elect Donald Trump will destroy democracy, end future elections, and conduct sweeping arrests of everyone from journalists to homosexuals. That narrative, of course, ignores that we have a constitutional system of overlapping protections that has blocked such abuses for over two centuries.”

Thus, the talk of preemptive pardons, but Turley said it wouldn’t work out.

“Ironically, preemptive pardons would do precisely what Biden suggests that he is deterring: create a dangerous immunity for presidents and their allies in committing criminal abuses,” he said.

He noted if Biden delivers those pardons, “he would fundamentally change the use of presidential pardons by granting ‘prospective’ or ‘preemptive’ pardons to political allies. Despite repeated denials of President-elect Donald Trump that he is seeking retaliation against opponents and his statements that he wants ‘success [to be] my revenge,’ Democratic politicians and pundits have called for up to thousands of such pardons.”

He explained there’s politics all over the scheme.

“After many liberals predicted the imminent collapse of democracy and that opponents would be rounded up in mass by the Trump Administration, they are now contemplating the nightmare that democracy might survive and that there will be no mass arrests,” he wrote. “The next best thing to a convenient collapse of democracy is a claim that Biden’s series of preemptive pardons averted it. It is enough to preserve the narrative in the face of a stable constitutional system.”

But there will be a cost to such a “political stunt,” he said.

“Preemptive pardons could become the norm as presidents pardon whole categories of allies and even themselves to foreclose federal prosecutions. … It will give presidents cover to wipe away any threat of prosecution for friends, donors, and associates. This can include self-pardons issued as implied condemnations of their political opponents. It could easily become the final act of every president to pardon himself and all of the members of his Administration.

“We would then have an effective immunity rule for outgoing parties in American politics.”

He noted that in the past, Bill Clinton pardoned both family members and political donors.

“Yet, despite that history, no president has seen fit to go as far as where Biden appears to be heading,” he said. Promoters of the plan, he said, “would prefer to fundamentally change the use of the pardon power to maintain an apocalyptic narrative that was clearly rejected by the public in this election. If you cannot prove the existence of the widely touted Trump enemies list, a Biden pardon list is the next best thing.”

Reprinted with permission from the WND News Center.

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