THUNDER BAY – A spokesman for the Thunder Bay Police Service says the underlying root causes of crime must be tackled if the city wants to remove itself from the top of the crime severity index’s most dubious lists.
The report, issued last week by Statistics Canada, shows Thunder Bay in 2019 was once again the murder capital of Canada with seven homicides, an average of 5.6 per 100,000 residents, Winnipeg was second, with 55 total, for an average of 5.3 per 100,000.
The city was second to Winnipeg on the violent crime severity index, with a score of 145.9, about 28 points behind the Manitoba capital. Saskatoon was third, at 134.7.
“The numbers are what they are and they show a consistency, unfortunately, for the community as far as violent crime goes,” said Chris Adams.
‘When we look back at 2019 and it really is an unfortunate situation. There are obviously a number of people who have been affected by violent crime in our community, and will continue to be until we collectively start addressing some of the bigger issues that are affecting crime and fueling it,” Adams said.
Those issues include addiction, poverty and the increasing presence of out-of-town gangs looking for larger and larger shares of the city’s lucrative drug trade.
Adams said the inroads are there to tackle the problems and plenty of people already making a difference, providing programming to keep youth on the straight and narrow, safe injection sites that provide a better environment for users and housing programs that make it more affordable for lower-income people to live.
However, the programs don’t mean many people still aren’t forced into questionable lifestyle choices, feeding an addiction or trying to stay afloat financially.
“We have to recognize as a community that we need even more help to do that. It probably isn’t fair to solely put that burden right on the municipality and expect it to be perfectly funded,” Adams said. “It’s a case, really, that both the province and the federal government have to continue to step up on to provide the support mechanisms.
“We’re not just talking about crime, we’re talking about health issues, when you really think about it – mental-health issues with addiction. The results are what they are. They have a cause and effect.”
Adams acknowledged the growing gang problem is also having an impact on violent crime statistics.
He said organized crime has always been a factor in Thunder Bay, but it’s gotten worse. Every community deals with it at some level, but the city has experienced a dramatic increase. Police have been given the go-ahead to expand their guns and gangs unit, but have yet to fill the positions.
Thunder Bay’s isolation also plays a role.
“If you look at organized crime in southern Ontario, it’s very fractionalized down there, and that, unfortunately, has made its way up here,” Adams said. “There’s a demand for illegal drugs and these folks from southern Ontario recognize that opportunity and they’re willing to take any chance they deem fit to get inside this drug market.
“That’s what we’ve seen, a consistent increase in trafficking, coupled with the fact the people who are in the drug trafficking business are much more violent and they’re willing to use firearms. They’re willing to put a lot of very vulnerable people in our community in serious jeopardy.”
He added the more crime police deal with, the less time officers can spend on the streets.
