Mississauga the safest city
For 9th year running and Toronto is 2nd on list
By BRIAN GRAY, SUN MEDIA
Last Updated: 11th December 2008, 2:01am
Mississauga residents are safer at home.
Toronto’s western neighbour has taken top honours as the safest large city in Canada for the ninth consecutive year, according to data compiled by Proforma Consulting and released yesterday by Safe City Mississauga — a charitable organization that creates programs to promote crime prevention and keep people generally out of harm’s way.
The study focuses attention on the problem of crime, said Safe City’s executive director Teresa Burgess-Ogilvie.
“The report is intended to educate and stimulate discussion as well as reminding us to be vigilant and to look after our families,” Burgess-Ogilvie said.
The figures are taken directly from Statistics Canada data on crimes reported to police departments in 2007 from Canada’s nine largest metropolitan centres — Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. It looks at the number of offences committed per 100,000 people.
Mississauga topped the list for the lowest rates of violent crimes, with 436 homicides, robberies, sexual assualt and assaults per 100,000 people.
By comparison, Toronto had 709, Vancouver 989 and Winnipeg had the most at 1,082.
The total number of criminal offences, Mississauga’s rate per 100,000 people was 3,453, Toronto finished with the second least at 4,461 and Winnipeg, again, had the most with 9,644. Whether Mississauga holds on to the title next year is open to possibility.
Mayors in Peel Region, including Mississauga’s Hazel McCallion, called for an overhaul of the justice system in October after the region hit an all-time high of 24 murders. It has climbed to 26 since then.
Peel Regional Police Chief Mike Metcalf told the mayors not to “be alarmist” over the issue. He reminded them that since its incorporation as a region in 1974, Peel has averaged nine murders a year and 94% of them have been solved.
“Every time I go to a conference in relation to the chiefs of police, we’ve all been discussing this — the gang problem, the gun problem, the murder rate,” Metcalfe said at the meeting. “We’re all struggling with it, right from Vancouver to Halifax.”
SURVEY OF RESIDENTS
Burgess-Ogilvie said Safe City Mississauga is concentrating on making life in the city safer for everyone and is proposing to issue a survey of residents to find out what needs improvement.
“I want to know where people fear to go,” she said. “Is it the park because it’s not maintained or is the lighting bad in some places?”
“We need to protect the vulnerable and know what it is we have to do to make things safer for people who need our help,” Burgess-Ogilvie said.
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