Not sure if this is intentional, but cherrypicking the last 1-2 years ignores the longer term trend shown above:
The good news is that crime fell again in 2025 in Toronto, in most categories - especially in Auto Theft.
If this lawyer's article is correct, it's way down in Toronto ... except for some reason theft over $5,000 ... presumably they count that different than auto theft.
Toronto crime statistics 2025 show dramatic drops in homicides and violent crime.
www.kruselaw.ca
edit at 9:45 pm, - TPS is now reporting there were 45 homicides in 2025 - so that would make the 2025 rate about 1.5 not 1.4. However I used a population of 3,000,000 off the top of my head, and Ontario is reporting about
3,300,000 in 2024 - which would make it 1.36).
Violent crime is up about 30% since 2013, this holds mostly true for urban areas across Canada. Yes, Toronto does tend to be one of the safest cities in Canada. But we're not debating relative safety compared to other cities, but whether or not crime is up.
Whether it's higher or lower 40, 50 years ago has little to no impact on public perception.
If you think comparing mid-to-late 20th century stats to the present is more representative of public perception, we can agree to disagree.
I think people notice violent crime, car theft, disruptive homelessness worsening in the last 10 years. They don't notice when reported Youth Criminal Justice Act violations have plummeted 90% since 2013. Or that reported drug crime is down 70% due to marijuana legalization, among other reasons.
Disruptive homelessness is subjective, but homelessness has increased by a lot compared to 10 years ago, e.g. the homeless rate has nearly tripled in Hamilton.
Number of individuals experiencing homelessness in Hamilton and their length of homelessness.
open.hamilton.ca
Nobody alive today has a strong perception or memory of how bad crime was in the 1980s, which are stereotyped as being a crime-ridden, crack-ridden era, fairly or not. Citing stats from back then or earlier ignores the last 10 to 20 years on many fronts.
On auto theft:
Yes, auto theft is down, but 2023 was an all-time peak, we're still seeing car theft rates nearly double that of 10 years ago.
When one considers how expensive cars are now, and the decline in car ownership rates, the problem is even worse than it appears.
CMA numbers are worse than City of Toronto. I assume due to more cars parked outdoors in the suburbs e.g. Halton, Peel etc.
Incident-based crime statistics (actual incidents, rate per 100,000 population, percentage change in rate, unfounded incidents, percent unfounded, total cleared, cleared by charge, cleared otherwise, persons charged, adults charged, youth charged / not charged), by detailed violations (violent...
www150.statcan.gc.ca
Assault is up 27% since 2014 (City of Toronto open data only goes back to 2014).
Look, crime is down /s:
City of Toronto crime stats:
https://data.tps.ca/pages/open-data
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710015201
Other reading:
none
www150.statcan.gc.ca
Crime is down, oh wait: "Claims costs had increased for insurers between 2018 and 2023 nationally by 254 per cent, and in Ontario, that number alone was 524 per cent,"
Indeed it was ... in 2013, 2014, 2015 ..... 2025. I 'd put money on there being a news story in 2026!
Your satire does not disprove that that national homicide rate was at 30 year highs in 2022. It was not at 30 year highs in 2013, 14, 15 or 2025.
Nor does it address the fact that violent crime has increased a noticeable amount in the last decade or so.
But also, looking at the Toronto numbers it's way down in almost all categories in 2025. And the (annualized) homicide rate for 2026 is about half what it was at this time last year in 2026 ... (murders in 2026, so annualized 18 a year, divided by 3,300,000 is homicide rate of 0.55 per 100,000 -- but for some reason, murders increase in the summer and fall, with a lot in December ... beath the Christmas rush I guess .... 4 months is too short).
Not sure if you've worked with stats in your job day-to-day (to be fair, most people don't), but saying crime is down in 2025 and the homicide rate is down after only 4 months of 2026 is borderline meaningless. That data is insufficient to make an inference about the underlying long-run trend. It's cherrypicking very anecdotal, short-term data.
Zang is 100% correct. Your graphs look pretty flat to me
You misread the line charts, they're not flat. I'll give you percentage increases.
And in case you thought auto theft is violent crime, it's actually classed under non-violent:
| Index | 2013 | 2024 | Increase | % increase |
|---|
| Canada - Crime Severity Index | 68.92 | 77.89 | +8.97 | +13.0% |
| Canada - Violent Crime Severity Index | 74.02 | 99.87 | +25.85 | +34.9% |
| Canada - Non-violent Crime Severity Index | 66.92 | 69.76 | +2.84 | +4.2% |
| Toronto - Crime Severity Index | 47.12 | 59.35 | +12.23 | +26.0% |
| Toronto - Violent Crime Severity Index | 67.99 | 82.66 | +14.67 | +21.6% |
How many decades have we been hearing that story. Clearance rates for the previous year are ALWAYS down for major crime, because it takes months to years to clear it! As the years pass, it increases.
You are slightly misinterpreting the stats. Do you think unsolved non-violent crimes from 2014 have any hope of being solved by 2024 or later? It's a different story for higher priority violent crime.
As a tangent, conviction rates are down, and charges being withdrawn or stayed are up too.
The general public is prone to media hysteria, and those who spread it. We shouldn't be spreading it, and cherry-picking data by not starting back in the 1950s, when I think we can all agree that crime was lower.
[...] But what are his motives ... the more he can hide drug issues and homelessness, the better it is for his associates in organized crime - who I'm sure he still has from the days when he was a mid-level drug-dealer (and kidnapper .... LOL!)
I don't pay too much attention to media headlines, I look at the stats.
Going back to the '60s and '50s is even more meaningless than the '80s and '90s. Most people alive in Toronto were not born before mid 1980s. Median age in Toronto is about 40 or born 1985, 1986.
In other words, most adults in Toronto became adults in the early-mid 2000s. Graduated college or university around the '08 Great Recession.
There is no collective memory of higher crime from the mid 20th century, when more crimes went unsolved due to poor investigative techniques and forensics.
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Again, as I've shown before, there is virtually 0 enforcement of the Controlled Drugs and Substances and Liquor Acts on the TTC (even though people shouldn't be thrown in jail for minor offences to begin with).
***The proposed change hopefully empowers TTC constables to arrest, then release disruptive people outside TTC premises, at their discretion.***
What are the chances a city prosecutor would waste time pressing a provincial offences charge on a high/drunk homeless person? Someone who was probably carrying at most, a tiny amount of drugs?
Also, you won't hear me defending the morality of Ford ever.
globalnews.ca
