The volume and severity of police-reported crime in Canada decreased four per cent last year after three annual increases in a row, the national statistics agency said Tuesday.
Statistics Canada said non-violent crime had a significant effect on the decline in the overall crime severity index in 2024.
The non-violent crime severity index — which includes such crimes as property and drug offences — dropped six per cent last year, following a nine per cent increase from 2021 to 2023.
Among the factors driving that decline was a 17 per cent drop in the rate of motor vehicle theft since 2023, to 239 incidents per 100,000 people.
The reversal followed a three-year rise in police-reported car thefts following the historic low recorded in 2020, Statistics Canada noted.
The federal government convened a national summit on fighting auto theft last year and published a plan to curb the problem.
Liam McGuinty, vice-president of strategy at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, said “it’s pretty clear that we’re starting to gain traction” in the battle against auto theft due to concerted efforts by law enforcement and government.
“But it’s not time to rest on our laurels,” he said. “Overall, theft rates might be down year over year, but the number of theft claims, and the value of those claims, is still much higher than it was just a few years ago.”
The crime severity index was developed to address the limitations of a police-reported crime rate that is driven by high-volume — but less serious — offences.
More serious crimes are assigned higher weights in the index, while less serious crimes are assigned lower weights. As a result, more serious crimes have a greater effect on the index relative to their volume.
Statistics Canada said the violent crime severity index decreased one per cent in 2024 and had a comparatively smaller effect than non-violent crime on the overall picture.
The violent crime index had risen for three previous consecutive years and increased 15 per cent over that period.
The homicide rate declined four per cent in 2024 to 1.91 homicides per 100,000 people, down from 1.99 the previous year, Statistics Canada said.
Police reported 788 homicides in 2024, eight fewer than a year earlier.
There were 28 more women homicide victims in 2024 than a year earlier, and 34 fewer men, the agency said. There was also a large increase in the proportion of women who were killed by a spouse or intimate partner, rising to 42 per cent of women victims in 2024 from 32 per cent in 2023.
The number of police-reported hate crimes increased slightly to 4,882 last year from 4,828 incidents in 2023.
The total rate of police-reported cybercrimes declined nine per cent from the previous year.
“However, with advances in technology and widespread access to the internet, the incidence of cybercrimes had generally been increasing over time,” Statistics Canada said.
For example, despite the annual decrease, the rate of police-reported cybercrime in 2024 (225 incidents per 100,000 people) was over twice the rate in 2018 (92 incidents), the earliest year with comparable data, the agency said.
The federal Conservatives seized on the latest data, saying the Liberal government’s “reckless soft-on-crime policies” over the past decade have made Canadians less safe, criminals less afraid and streets less secure.
Neil Boyd, professor emeritus in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, pointed to polling figures that suggest more Canadians believe crime is rising in their neighbourhoods.
Boyd said that while the latest Statistics Canada data doesn’t reflect such a trend, the numbers do not capture phenomena people might see such as homelessness, mental illness and drug use.
“We’re not seeing things go off the charts, but we’re seeing something else about changes in our neighbourhoods,” he said.
“If you go down the street and you see somebody yelling and screaming, and you see people smoking crack, that may not represent any kind of violent crime, but it feels less safe to people.”
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