There are 26 Canadian metropolitan areas considered safer than Greater Sudbury.
This, according to a Rentola.ca rankings, which places Greater Sudbury 26 of 34.
Falling below Greater Sudbury are, in order, Trois-Rivières (Quebec), Saskatoon (Saskatchewan), St. John's (Newfoundland and Labrador), Halifax (Nova Scotia), Thunder Bay (Ontario), Kelowna (British Columbia), and Winnipeg (Manitoba).
The top five cities, in order, are Barrie, Brantford, Guelph, Toronto and Saint John.
Rentola used five metrics to determine the safety of metropolitan areas in Canada:
- Number of citizens per police officer, with the higher the number the safer the city
- Crime severity index, which measures the gravity of reported crimes within geographical regions
- Violent crime severity index, which focuses on violent crimes, such as homicide, sexual assault and robbery
- Non-violent crime severity index, which encompasses all crimes that do not resort to physical violence
- Crime-solving rate, which measures how effective police, the judicial system and other law-enforcement agencies operate
Despite one of the metrics relying on the idea that more police equates safety, the connection is murky. Locally, the overall crime rate has remained relatively unchanged for decades, while the number of sworn members increased by 33.
The authors behind a 2019 article in the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice found that “each additional Canadian police officer correlates with slightly fewer homicides and 13.3 fewer reported property crimes on average.” This, according to data they drew from almost 700 Canadian municipal police jurisdictions between 1998 and 2017.
A 2018 Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being article responded to conclusions such as this by suggesting “correlation does not imply causation.”
The number of police officers has been increasing throughout Canada, Lakehead University economist Livio Di Matteo noted in a 2014 Fraser Institute report. The number of police officers per 100,000 of population increased by 8.7 per cent between 2001 and 2012 while the crime rate declined by 26.3 per cent, according to Di Matteo’s report.
A 1985 article in Police Journal notes, “it is far more important how police are used than how many there are. Increased police strength alone does not make a difference. Rather, many other factors must be considered if police presence is going to impact crime rates.”
In the Rentola.ca rankings, the connection between the number of police officers and safety ranking is equally murky.
Although Barrie ranks No. 1 overall, it falls to No. 11 when it comes to the number of police officers per citizen.
Brantford is No. 2 overall (No. 5 for police), Guelph is No. 3 overall (No. 18 for police), Toronto is No. 4 overall (seven for police) and Saint John is No. 5 overall (No. 26 for police).
Winnipeg is dead last in the rankings, as Canada’s 34th safest metropolitan area, but is No. 12 in police officers per citizen. Regina has the most police officers per capita, but is ranked 15th safest.
Rentola.ca is a rental housing platform, and used Statistics Canada data to come up with their safety rankings.
