Elliot Lake and Greater Sudbury are the safest cities in Northern Ontario, according to a Maclean's Magazine survey compiled using information from Statistics Canada.
Sudbury ranked 115th of 305 communities with 10,000 people or more in terms of overall crime rate, with Elliot Lake finishing a little better than us at 128. Sudbury's crime severity index is 64, compared to 353 in North Battleford, Sask., the community that finished first on the list with the most severe crime problem in Canada.
North Battleford was the only community to have an index rating above 300. Second-place went to Thompson, Man, who had a rate of 284, followed by Prince Albert, Sask. (244) and Williams Lake, Alta. (222).
On the low end of the scale, New Brunswick's Kennebecasis Region was rated the lowest on the index, at 22, followed by Hamilton and Peterborough, both tied at 22.
Communities were rated according to type of crime and given an average score. The number of homicides, assaults, break and enters, sexual assaults, impaired driving and youth crimes all fed into the ranking.
Sudbury had a higher ranking for certain types of crime, such as robberies (67th), break and enters (78th) and youth crime (93rd). But we were 174th for fraud, 171st for homicides, 129th for assaults and 196th for impaired driving.
The northern city with the highest overall crime rate is Temiskaming Shores, which finished at 25 in the ranking, followed by Timmins at 56, Thunder Bay at 58, Kenora at 80, Sault St. Marie at 81, Sturgeon Falls at 102 and North Bay at 108.
Read the full story and see the detailed survey here.
