Some are not impressed with Canada’s new justice minister appearing to downplay concerns about crime rates.
“I think that empirically it’s unlikely, … but I think there’s a sense coming out of the pandemic that people’s safety is more in jeopardy,” he said, while acknowledging that people are feeling more at risk.
Conservative MP Dan Albas said Mr. Virani’s comment is an “example how out of touch this Trudeau Liberal government is.”
And the head of the Toronto Police Association (TPA) said there is no question that crime is going up in parts of the country, including Canada’s largest city.
“I think the reality is, here in Toronto, violent crime has gone up,” TPA president Jon Reid told The Epoch Times. “I think the reality is, the crimes are becoming more violent and more brazen.”
However, Mr. Reid added that perception is also part of the issue—because people in Toronto do not feel as safe as they used to.
“If ... [Justice Minister Arif Virani’s] constituents here in Toronto don’t feel safe, … that is a problem, and that’s one of the key pieces I think he will have to look at in his assessment on how he’s going to proceed next," he said.
Recently released numbers back up that perception of more crime—whether looking at the short term or the long term.
On July 27, Statistics Canada released the annual crime severity index (CSI), with component indexes indicating the trends for violent crime, non-violent crime, and youth crime.
And looking at the 10-year average, from 2013 to 2022, the violent crime severity index nationally rose from just over 74 to over 97—a jump of roughly 32 percent.
That trend can be seen in various parts of the country.
In Toronto, for example, the violent CSI jumped 15 percent in 2022, although it had dropped about that much during the pandemic. And since 2013, the overall rate of violent crime in Toronto has been trending up—from a severity index of 68 in 2013 to over 75 in 2022.
For police, the types of crime they see are also changing.
Mr. Reid pointed to the death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat, who was killed by a stray bullet in Toronto on July 7.
“We’ve had a mother of two, minding her own business going about her daily routine, shot and killed. Over in Danzig [Street], we had two individuals involved in a gunfight and another bystander shot that fortunately did not pass away. There are some of the things we really have to look at,” he said.
And often, Mr. Reid said, they find out that the suspects were released on bail.
“All too often, we end up in situations where the individuals who are involved in these crimes, they’re already out on bail, whether it be a gun bail, or for another series of violent events, and I think this is where we do really need to focus a lot of our energy as far as the bail reform goes,” he said.
In the Reuters interview, Mr. Varini was quoted as saying he will consider bail reform.
In July, Canada’s premiers called for bail reform during their meeting in Winnipeg.
For Mr. Reid, it cannot come soon enough.
“Right now, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of repercussions. We have individuals involved in violent crime, they know that they’re going to get bail,” he said. “So it’s not a big deal. There really needs to be some consequence.”
Mr. Reid said the TPA plans to keep lobbying and engaging with governments, so the issue is not forgotten.
“I think the important piece is to keep raising awareness,” he said. “I feel sometimes that unless somebody is directly affected, it almost appears normal these days, these shootings and murders, which we cannot allow to become normalized.”
