Manitoba homicide rates almost twice the national average

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This article was published 22/11/2017 (2887 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba homicide rates were the second highest among provinces last year despite a decline in murders.

There were 42 homicides in the province in 2016, or 3.19 per 100,000 people, a drop from 2015 when there were 47 homicides for a rate of 3.63 per 100,000, according to Statistics Canada’s latest survey on homicide rates released Wednesday.

By comparison, the national homicide rate came in at 1.68 per 100,000 people.

“You did indeed have the second highest homicide rate; however, keeping that in mind, it also was a decrease of 12 per cent from 2015. You were already high and you decreased,” Stats Can spokesman Warren Silver said by phone Wednesday.

Saskatchewan had the highest percentage rates of homicides in Canada last year with 54 homicides, or 4.69 per 100,000 people. In 2015, the province has 44 homicides for a total of 3.89 per 100,000 people, according to the document Homicide in Canada 2016.

Alberta also saw a dip in homicide rates compared with 2015, but among the provinces it was still the third highest, at 2.73 per 100,000, meaning the Prairie provinces held the top three spots nationally.

In 2016, police reported 611 homicides in Canada, two more than the previous year, but the national rate actually fell slightly by one per cent despite the two additional cases thanks to a small increase in the country’s population over 2015.

Homicide numbers and rates were higher for the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, although a drop in Nunavut homicide numbers actually made history, giving Nunavut the lowest homicide rate since it became a territory in 1999.

Statisticians generally separate out the territories because their small populations make for volatile jumps year to year in crime rates, even when the actual numbers change very little. That means crime rates in the territories don’t reflect demographic trends the same way the provinces do with their higher populations.

For example, three additional homicides in the Yukon sent that territory’s rates soaring to over 10 per 100,000 people in 2016, compared to a rate of just 2.6 per 100,000 in 2015.

Meanwhile, on a strictly numerical basis when percentages were removed, homicides involving Indigenous victims were highest in Saskatchewan in 2016 with 36, followed by Alberta with 31 victims and Manitoba with 27 victims.

Percentage wise, Saskatchewan’s rate of 18.8 per 100,000 Indigenous people was highest in the country, followed by Manitoba at 11.7 per 100,000 Indigenous people, Silver said, adding that despite the high numbers, they represented a substantial statistical drop from 2015.

“Even though Manitoba the second highest, it was still a 24 per cent decrease,” Silver said.

If you factor in the territories, the highest rates of homicides involving an Indigenous victim were reported in the Yukon, a rate of 22.3 per 100,000, followed by Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories with 12.6.

The picture changed dramatically where the accused was identified as Indigenous, the study showed.

In Manitoba, the number of homicides in 2016 where the accused was identified as Indigenous was 84.6 per cent, compared to 76 per cent in 2015. Nationally, that number was 35 per cent in 2016.

Winnipeg remained in fifth place among Canada’s metropolitan centres in homicide rates in 2016 with 25 cases, up slightly from the year before when there were 22 murders.

The highest homicide rate per population was in Thunder Bay, making it the country’s homicide capital proportionately speaking. That city saw eight homicides in 2016, compared to three the year before.

Edmonton, with 47 homicides in 2016, had far more, but by population its rate (3.4 per per 100,000 people) was nearly half that of Thunder Bay, which was 6.6 per 100,000. Regina had the third highest rate of homicide followed by Abbotsford, B.C.

The study showed that police reported an rise in gang-related homicides with 141 murders across the country attributed to gangs, 45 more than in 2015. The number represented a quarter of the year’s homicides, with most of the increase occurring in Ontario and British Columbia. Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa accounted for 42 per cent of gang homicides in the two provinces.

For the third year in a row, gun-related homicides rose, with 223 gun slayings reported in 2016. That was up less than one per cent, 0.61 per 100,000 population, but it was the highest rate since 2005.

Homicide rates for Indigenous women dropped nationally. A total of 142 Indigenous women and girls were murdered, down six from the 2015 when there were 148 Indigenous women murdered in Canada.

The proportion of Indigenous female homicide victims previously reported as missing also dropped.

In 2016, 10 per cent of Indigenous women and girls reported missing were found murdered, a drop from the year before when the rate was 17 per cent.

That’s also true of non-indigenous women and girls who accounted for 13 per cent of missing persons who were found to be victims of homicide, compared to 19 per cent the year before.

In 2016, there were 50 victims, including Indigenous and non-Indigenous women and girls, on record as missing at the time their homicides became known to police — eight per cent of all homicides.

Homicides remain relatively rare in Canada, accounting for less than 0.2 per cent of violent crimes police reported in 2016.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca