Can you guess how crime rates changed under Harper and Trudeau?
March 26, 2025
What do the numbers show us about crime rates in Canada while Justin Trudeau was prime minister? How do these compare to the period Stephen Harper was in office?
Draw lines in the charts below to show how you think things have changed.
Then, hit the submit button to see how your guesses stack up against the actual data.
Of course, these numbers only tell part of the story, so check out the analysis at the end. But let's start here to test your perception against what these data points show.
The numbers shown aren’t totals, but the number of crimes per 100,000 people. This data is released yearly. The most recent data is from 2023.
Measuring crime rates is a challenging endeavour. The data below only shows crimes that come to the attention of police, either through reporting by the public or proactive policing. A 2019 study by Statistics Canada showed that only a third of crimes were reported to the police. For sexual assaults, that falls to six per cent.
Experts warn that long-term crime trends are explained mainly by social, economic and demographic changes. For example, property crimes partly decreased because Canadians kept less cash at home, and alarm systems became more affordable.
All crimes
Homicides
Violent crimes
Property crimes
Motor thefts
Crime rates depend on too many factors for a simple narrative of why they change over time, but there are some events, social changes and policy decisions that can help explain changes in some crime statistics.
During Justin Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister, crime rates steadily rose, with the exception of 2020. Health restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic impacted every part of the economy — including organized crime.
"Organized crime is essentially crime for business. It's a big, big business and it's treated as a business," said Laura Huey, a criminology professor at Western University.
Outside of the pandemic, a number of factors — including social and legal ones — come into play.
Violent crime and homicide rates heavily overlap, Huey said. And the reasons behind those crimes can vary.
"It starts at things like interpersonal violence in families and goes all the way up to organized crime-related murders," Huey said.
But a spike in crime rates in 2019 could likely be attributed to bail reforms implemented by the Liberal government that year, she said. Those changes made it easier for some people accused of crime to get released on bail, altering the "risks and reward ratio," Huey said.
The government has since put in further bail reforms to address those concerns, but some are still calling for changes.
Auto thefts in the wake of the pandemic have become such a problem that the federal government held a national summit last year to attempt to address the "unprecedented" issue.
That spike is slightly easier to explain. It has largely been attributed to supply chain issues brought on by the pandemic. The global shutdown made new and used vehicles harder to find, creating a lucrative and low-risk opportunity for thieves.
In many cases, cars were stolen to be shipped and sold overseas. The CBC’s Marketplace tracked down one Toronto man’s stolen car all the way to Ghana in West Africa.
Stephen Harper notably took a “tough-on-crime” stance during his time as prime minister, but experts have suggested in the past that his policies likely didn’t contribute to the downward trend in crime rates.
Do these numbers match your reality? Do you have a story you would like to share? Is this an issue you’ll be voting on in this election? Send an email to ask@cbc.ca.
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How we got the numbers
The data comes from the Statistics Canada Uniform Crime Reporting Survey. The data reflects crimes reported to the police. More than 1,000 police detachments respond to the survey, comprising approximately 180 police forces. Rates are calculated using the population estimates released on July 1 by Statistics Canada.
The charts use the aggregated figures from the "Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2023" article, released by Statistics Canada on July 25, 2024, which is based on data from the Crime Reporting Survey.
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