Another look at Toronto’s ‘record’ murder numbers

It is the plight of the columnist to occasionally be struck with a great idea — I’ve got to write about this! — only to discover that someone has not only beaten you to the punch, but probably done a better job of it than you would have. Such was my reality this week, when I read a column in the National Post by Colby Cosh.

My old friend and colleague Colby was writing about the fact that Toronto broke its long-standing record for homicides this year. The previous record, set by pre-amalgamation Metropolitan Toronto in 1991, was 89 homicides in a year. Earlier this week, Toronto hit 90 for 2018 (and then, shortly after that, 91). It’s anyone’s guess what the number will actually be by the time we ring in 2019, hopefully not with a barrage of gunfire.

READ MORE: Looking back at 1991, Toronto’s record year for murders

And he hit most of the salient points. But there’s a few left to make.

Critically, Colby then noted that Toronto’s tally for 2019, whatever it ends up being, should be recorded with an asterisk. Yes, Toronto has set a record, but no matter what the final number is, at least 12 — hopefully no more than that! — will be due to two random, presumably non-repeating mass casualty attacks: the van attack in North York in April and the Danforth shooting in July.

WATCH BELOW: Toronto’s deadliest year on record — a look back at homicides that happened in 2018

2:20 Toronto’s deadliest year on record: A look back at homicides that happened in 2018

I’m tempted to just stop writing here. But Colby was kind enough to leave a few points for me to make, so I’ll make them now: Toronto’s homicide numbers for this year are bad, but there are two other things worth recalling before we panic too much.

The first is that Toronto needed 27 years to top its old homicide total despite a much larger regional population. The city hasn’t grown as much as I would have expected from 1991 to now, if you only look at the city of Toronto itself: about a half million extra people, or growth of about 25 per cent. But the region around Toronto has absolutely exploded. It’s a bit tricky comparing 1991 to today, since some of the definitions have changed, but we can safely ballpark this by saying something vagueish like, “The Toronto area has virtually doubled in population since 1991.” The metro-area population won’t directly correlate with local crime figures in one part of that area, but it’s worth recalling nonetheless.

READ MORE: Montreal and Toronto homicide rates compared

One thing that has been suggested is that Toronto’s homicide rates (and the rates of any other city) would be much higher but for significant improvements in medical trauma care over the last generation. The theory goes that people are surviving the same kind of gunshots that would have killed them years ago, thus lowering the number of officially recorded murders even if the overall rate of violent crime remains stable. This has proven true with battlefield injuries, Colby noted in his piece, with soldiers more likely than ever to survive being shot during a war. But there hasn’t yet been a comparable statistically observable trend in civilian medicine, and that’s probably easy enough to explain. When a soldier falls on the battlefield, his or her comrades are at hand, with training and tools. Helicopters are on call to evacuate the fallen soldier to a hospital that focuses almost exclusively on battlefield trauma. Most civilians hit by gunfire aren’t so “lucky” as that.

The other issue I want to raise here is that the record-setting year isn’t particularly mysterious. Crime trends ebb and flow, and the reasons can sometimes be opaque, or clear only with historical hindsight. But what’s happening in Toronto this year (and last) isn’t complicated. It’s criminal gangs. This isn’t a secret.

READ MORE: Toronto mayor outlines community investments to curb gun and gang violence

John Tory, the mayor of Toronto, saw this clearly enough before he got frustrated and threw his political weight behind the ridiculous notion that a handgun ban imposed on highly regulated civilian owners will make a difference. At a conference earlier in the year, before his regrettable change of heart, he was very clear that gangs and the drug trade were overwhelmingly responsible for the shootings in Toronto. When referring to the 39 gun homicides Toronto experienced in 2017, Tory noted that two-thirds of them had known links to gangs. When all firearm homicides with links to criminal gangs and the drug trade were excluded, Tory said then, only two remained. Two!

WATCH BELOW: John Tory tackles gun violence in municipal election victory speech

2:10 Ontario Municipal Election: John Tory tackles gun violence in victory speech

You could also listen to the city’s chief of police, Mark Saunders. On Monday, after Toronto broke the murder record, the chief appeared on CP24, a local all-news TV station, and said bluntly that the “common denominator” driving the shooting homicide spike was gang activity. “When you take all of the years in policing history where there has been a large surge of gun violence, a large surge of homicides, they have all correlated. The one common denominator has been street gangs in the city of Toronto,” Chief Saunders said. “When we look at who is causing the violence, especially the gunplay, it is street gangs.”

WATCH BELOW: Chief Mark Saunders discusses Toronto’s homicides in 2018

3:18 Chief Mark Saunders discusses Toronto’s homicides in 2018

If you don’t believe either of those gentlemen, you can just read the latest Statistics Canada report on murder in Canada (figures current to the end of the last calendar year). Homicide is up in Canada. And that’s a drag. But, again, there’s no mystery — murders are up because of more shootings, and shootings are up because of more gang activity. StatCan reports that we haven’t seen this much gang activity in Canada since 2005, which is an interesting observation — 2005 is known in Toronto for its infamous “summer of the gun.”

So yes, by all means, take these numbers seriously. And make your proposals for improving the situation. But let’s not overreact to the numbers, or lose sight of the fact that we know full well what the problem is. Any politician who isn’t focused on dealing with the actual problem, and would rather just go after law-abiding people because it’s quicker and easier, needs to be seen as part of the problem, not part of any solution.

Matt Gurney is host of The Exchange with Matt Gurney on Global News Radio 640 Toronto and a columnist for Global News.