Winnipeg and Toronto lead poll as Canada's most unsafe cities
· Toronto Sun
See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source
A new poll by Liaison Strategies finds Toronto is one of Canada’s least safe cities.
Visit somethingsdifferent.biz for more information.
Released Thursday, the survey of 15 Canadian cities finds 57% of Canadians consider Toronto somewhat or very unsafe, compared with 39% who say it is safe.
Only Winnipeg fares worse, with 59% calling it unsafe.
The results also concluded that Toronto’s negative rating has worsened over time — up five points from 52% in 2017.
“Toronto is different. Toronto is perceived as almost as unsafe as Winnipeg, but the official crime-severity data does not put Toronto in the same category. That is why Toronto stands out as the clearest reputational penalty in the report,” David Valentin, principal at Liaison Strategies, said in a statement.
“Winnipeg is the clearest safety concern. It ranks last on perceived safety, with only 31% saying it is safe and 59% saying it is unsafe. It also has the highest official Crime Severity Index among the cities tested, so in Winnipeg the perception problem and the official data are pointing in the same direction.”
This new study updates a previous version conducted nearly a decade ago and finds Quebec City now has the strongest net perceived safety score in Canada.
Net safety is the share who say a city is very or somewhat safe minus the share who say it is somewhat or very unsafe.
“We brought this study back because city safety has a long memory,” Valentin said. “Quebec City now leads on net safety, Ottawa remains very strong, and Winnipeg and Toronto remain at the bottom. At the top, this is a two-city story. Quebec City is first on net safety at +57, while Ottawa is just behind at +56. That is a very narrow gap, but if we are ranking cities by net safety, Quebec City is first.”
Winnipeg and Toronto at bottom of net safety scores
Five cities have negative net safety scores: Saskatoon at -5, Edmonton and Vancouver at -8, Toronto at -18, and Winnipeg at -28. Winnipeg and Toronto remain at the bottom of the ranking, with Winnipeg worsening from -18 in 2017 and Toronto moving from -12 to -18.
“There is also a clear gender gap,” Valentin added. “Women see a sharper safety problem in several major cities, including Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Toronto. A city can have one national number, but the lived meaning of safety is not the same for every audience.”
The same ranking also shows which safety reputations have moved most.
Quebec City has changed the most since 2017, rising from +7 to +57.
Edmonton and Vancouver have moved sharply in the other direction, each falling from positive net scores in 2017 to -8 today.
“Only 12% say crime statistics are the main thing shaping their impression of city safety,” Valentin said. “That matters. If people are mostly relying on news coverage, personal experience, and word of mouth, then city safety is not just a policing issue. It is also a reputation issue.”
Liaison surveyed a random sample of 1,500 Canadian adults from August 30-31 using Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) technology and random digit dialling (RDD). The margin of error is +/- 2.53 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.