Methodology & Data Sources
Where our numbers come from, how we calculate them, and what they can and cannot tell you.
Data sources
All crime statistics on this site come from Statistics Canada's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey, which collects police-reported incidents from every police service in Canada, and from the Homicide Survey. We use these public tables:
| Table | What we use it for |
|---|---|
| 35-10-0177-01 Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations (Canada, provinces, territories, CMAs) | Incident counts and rates per 100,000 by offence |
| 35-10-0178-01 Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, police services | Incident counts for individual police services and cities |
| 35-10-0026-01 Crime severity index and weighted clearance rates | Crime Severity Index (overall, violent, non-violent, youth) and weighted clearance rate |
| 35-10-0068-01 Number, rate and percentage changes in rates of homicide victims | Homicide counts and rates by province and CMA |
| 35-10-0071-01 Number and rate of homicide victims, by CMA | Homicide counts and rates for metro areas |
| 35-10-0069-01 Homicide victims, by method used | Homicide methods (Canada-wide only) |
Population figures and community profiles come from the Statistics Canada Census of Population. Place descriptions come from Wikipedia and are labelled as such.
Data year and updates
Statistics Canada publishes police-reported crime data once a year, usually in late July, for the previous calendar year. The latest year available on this site is 2025. Earlier years can be selected on each city and province page.
Statistics Canada sometimes revises previous years when police services resubmit data, so a figure here can differ slightly from an older news story.
Crime Severity Index (CSI)
The Crime Severity Index measures both the volume and the seriousness of police-reported crime. Each offence is weighted by the average sentence courts hand down for it, so a homicide counts far more than a minor theft. The index is set to 100 for Canada in 2006. A CSI of 120 means crime was about 20% more severe than Canada's 2006 level. We show the overall, violent, non-violent and youth indexes as published. Read more about the CSI.
Clearance rates
An incident is "cleared" when police identify a suspect and lay a charge or clear it another way. We show two different measures:
- Weighted clearance rate (table 35-10-0026-01): clearances weighted by offence seriousness, the same way as the CSI. Solving serious crimes raises it more than solving minor ones.
- Incidents cleared (tables 35-10-0177/0178): the plain share of incidents that were cleared, with every incident counted equally.
The two numbers measure different things, so they are not expected to match.
Geography
Statistics Canada reports crime for several kinds of areas, and we keep them separate:
- Provinces and territories.
- Census metropolitan areas (CMAs), such as the Toronto CMA, which include surrounding suburbs.
- Police services, which cover a city, a region or an RCMP detachment area. A city's figures come from the police service that serves it.
Each page uses one area only. We never add numbers from overlapping areas together, because that would count the same incidents twice.
Limitations
- Police-reported data only includes crimes reported to and recorded by police. Many crimes, especially sexual assault, are under-reported.
- Rates per 100,000 can swing sharply in small communities, where a handful of incidents changes the rate a lot.
- Places with many visitors or commuters (downtowns, tourist towns) can show high rates because incidents are counted against the resident population.
- Changes in police practices, reporting rules or Criminal Code definitions can cause jumps that do not reflect real changes in crime.
- Homicide methods are published for Canada as a whole only. When a city page shows methods, they are labelled as Canada-wide shares.
Found a number that looks wrong? Tell us and we will check it against the source.