Property and Violent Crime Rates Now Higher in Canada Than US

Police tape in a file photo. A new report says Canada's property and violent crime rates have now surpassed that of the United States. Mark Makela/Getty Images

Property and violent crime rates in Canada have now surpassed that of the United States, according to a new report.

The Fraser Institute pre-released a paper this week with details from its upcoming report comparing crime rates in Canada and the United States.

The paper notes that between 2014 and 2022, Canada’s violent crime rate increased by 44 percent, to 434.11 violent crimes per 100,000 people. During the same time period, the violent crime rate in the U.S. increased by just 5 percent, to 380.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people.

When it comes to property crime, Canada had 2,491 crimes per 100,000 people in 2022, marking a 7 percent increase over 2014. Canada’s rate of property crime is 27.5 percent higher than that of the United States, which saw a 24 percent drop in its property crime rate between 2014 and 2022. The U.S. recorded 1,954.4 crimes per 100,000 people in 2022.

“This idea that Canada is much safer than the United States is not supported by the data as rates of property and violent crime in Canada are now higher than south of the border,” said Livio Di Matteo, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and author of the upcoming study, in a Nov. 28 release.

The report also noted that homicide rates in Canada have been on the rise. In 2014, Canada’s murder rate was 1.5 crimes per 100,000 people. That number jumped to 2.3 crimes per 100,000 people in 2022—a 53 percent increase.

“Crime rates in Canada, which are still historically low, are nevertheless rising and, in some cases are higher than in the U.S., which should concern Canadians,” Di Matteo said.

In the U.S., the homicide rate remains higher than in Canada, with 5.8 murders per 100,000 people in 2022—marking a 49 percent increase from the country’s 2014 statistics.

The numbers were released in a pre-report introduction of a larger study that compares crime rates in Canada and the United States. The full report will compare rankings in violent and property crime rates in major urban areas in both countries, Di Matteo said in the paper.

“This is designed to place both Canadian and American urban areas within a North American context to facilitate comparisons and provide rankings both overall as well as regionally,” he wrote. “These comparisons are done given the ongoing debate about rising crime rates in both countries.”

The Fraser Institute has not yet announced when the full study will be released.