“Bullets everywhere,” a woman screamed while feeling the scene of the mass shooting in Toronto’s Greektown neighbourhood Sunday night.
An 18-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl were killed following the events. This marks the 27th shooting in the city of Toronto in the last year.
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The cities homicide rate has jumped to over 50 deaths so far this year, In 2017 the numbers peaked to 66, according to police records.
Fifteen Montreal homicides have been reported by police in 2018.
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It wasn’t always the case, former Sûreté du Québec detective supervisor John Galiano said.
He remembers the days when Toronto was known as “Toronto the good” and Montreal was the city with more blood on its streets between the two Canadian cities.
In the 1970’s, when Galiano was on the force, 200 to 220 murders were in the province of Quebec, he says.
“Fifty per cent were on the island of Montreal,” Galiano said.
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He says organized crime was the main driver in Montreal high murder rate.
Technology and harsher penalties helped bring the rates down over the years, Galiano said.
He is impressed by the work done by provincial, federal and municipal police. He said there is a lot more cooperation between the police forces, unlike in his time.
Stricter gun laws in Canada have also played a role in the keeping murder rates down.
“It’s harder to get guns today. In the older days, in the 70’s, you had drug trafficking fire arms trafficking, more so than today,” Galiano said.
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Throughout Canada, 611 homicides were reported by police in 2016, according to Statistics Canada – two more than the previous year.
Alberta and Quebec saw a decrease in homicides, while Saskatchewan and Ontario saw significant increases.
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