Firearms-related violent crime has been rising in Canada, hitting the highest level since Statistics Canada began collecting data in 2009.
The data for 2022, published Tuesday, comes about six months after the agency reported the number of violent crimes were at their highest since 2007.
The new StatCan data — taken mostly from the Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey — found firearms accounted for nearly three per cent of violent crimes in 2022, with the rate per 100,000 population having risen by 8.9 per cent from the year before.
“It’s obviously upsetting and kind of shocking, because these are families and survivors that are going through this trauma or even death, when it comes to firearms,” said Jeffrey Bradley, a Carleton University legal studies PhD candidate, in an interview with Global News.
Depending on the province, the rate at which this category of crime varied.
However, Ontario was the largest driver, accounting for about 70 per cent of the increase in these incidents across the country. In 2022, police in that province reported 4,791 incidents, a jump of 1,016 or 26 per cent from the year prior. At 32.1 incidents per 100,000, the rate in the province also was 24 per cent higher than the year before.
British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick were also contributors to the rise in gun violence. B.C. had a 12 per cent rise in the rate per 100,000, N.B. rose by 24 per cent, and Alberta recorded an increase of nearly six per cent in firearm-related violent crime incidents per 100,000 people.
Statistics Canada also found rises in census metropolitan areas (CMAs), with Regina posting the biggest rate of 83 per 100,000. It notes there was a seven per cent decrease in these crimes from 2021 in Saskatchewan overall, but Regina still saw the same percentage rise in the CMA. Toronto followed second, also contributing to the Ontario increase, with 725 more crimes reported in 2022 for a total of 2,576.
'It's a safety issue': police
Police Association of Ontario president Mark Baxter said the numbers are concerning, but reflect what they’re hearing from communities.
“It’s a safety issue. Certainly, when folks are out in their communities, we want them to feel safe, and we want our police officers to be able to keep our members of the community safe in the safest way that they can,” he told Global News.
Homicide also is on the rise, with StatCan finding among violent crime overall, there were 874 victims of homicide in 2022, an almost 10 per cent jump compared to 2021.
Of this, firearms were used in 0.88 incidents per 100,000 people for homicides, the highest rate seen since 1991. According to the data, firearms have been the main method of committing such a crime since 2016. The 342 homicides caused by a firearm in 2022 represent a peak number since homicide data began being collected in 1961.
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Indigenous and racialized individuals were overrepresented among the victims of firearm-related violent crime, the data showed. First Nations, Métis and Inuit represented 17 per cent — more than three times higher than the proportion they comprise in the Canadian population at five per cent. That said, the numbers show this group also made up an even higher proportion of victims of homicide not using a firearm at 33 per cent.
Among racialized victims, who accounted for 48 per cent of victims despite representing 26.5 per cent of the overall population in the 2021 Census, Black individuals comprised 25 per cent of the firearm victims and 32 per cent of such crimes specifically involving handguns.
Handgun use in violent crime up by half since 2013
While all types of weapons saw a rise since 2013, handguns increased by 50 per cent when, by comparison, rifles and shotguns rose by 45 per cent, while the category of “firearm-like weapon or unknown type of firearm” went up by 76 per cent.
Between the years of 2009 and 2013, the rate of violent crime involving firearms saw a significant drop of about 30 per cent or 33.9 incidents per 100,000. But in the years since 2013, the rate of both firearm and overall violent crime has consistently risen, but while the latter has increased by 24 per cent, the former has jumped by 55 per cent.
Of the firearm-related homicides in 2022, Statistics Canada notes the firearms were rarely legal and used by legal owners. There were 113 homicides in 2022 that legal information was known about the firearms, and just 58 were originally obtained legally. Yet, among the 54 incidents in which the firearm was initially obtained legally, the accused was the legal owner in 44 per cent — 24 — of those cases.
Illegal firearms were found to be involved in 36 homicides, and of this number, 20 were sent for identification and none determined to have been Canadian in origin.
More work needed on issue: criminologist
With rising rates of firearm-related violent crime, Baxter argues that because municipalities are now considering their budgets, increasing police resources should be considered.
“We can beef up the front lines so that we can have more officers on the ground, responding to the needs of our communities and hopefully having a bigger presence in our communities in a proactive way,” he said.
Baxter added he believes more work needs to be done on the Canadian border, noting that it’s one location illegal firearms pass through, and that the federal government should “beef up security” to limit this further.
Bradley points to the federal government’s handgun ban, which was part of legislation passed into law in December 2023, as one example of tackling the issue but he said violence prevention is another key to the solution.
He pointed to anti-violence programs like “Cure Violence” in the U.S., which looks at “interrupting” potentially violent situations. Cure Violence Global, which is behind the program, says it does this by hiring community members who have “similar life experiences” and training them in methods to limit the spread of violent outbreaks, including mediation and behavioural change.
“There’s a lot of social support, there’s a lot of mentorship (and) conflict resolution,” Bradley said.
He added there are other issues to address that may be causes behind a rise in violent crime, including lack of housing and the “toxic drug supply” facing communities, and it’s why lowering rates of violent crime requires effort.
“There’s so many different avenues of intervention here that we can actually increase people’s quality of life and hopefully prevent them from going into this type of violence or engaging in that type of behaviour,” Bradley said.
“And those that are in it, there’s so much we can do to get them out of that and not just waiting until a police response or somebody has to go to prison.”
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