NORTH BATTLEFORD - North Battleford may have an opportunity to shake its former unfortunate moniker of 'Crime Town' with Statistics Canada's latest Crime Severity Index report reflecting numbers from 2023 stats. However, the city did see a 6.58 per cent increase overall in its CSI weight for 2023.
The city advised that Statistics Canada has changed the way it releases its report starting this year, so it will not be ranking municipalities with a population of 10,000 to 100,000. North Battleford and other smaller municipalities had expressed concerns in previous years that they were pitted unfairly against much larger urban centres across Canada, including Toronto, in a wide category for municipalities with a population of 10,000 or more. That has since changed. The CSI data is still provided, but not in a ranked format.
"They have put an end to that [ranking system] as a result of issues our group of communities back in February had addressed with them," the city told SaskToday. "We've had some ongoing discussions with them, with our senior management since then, along with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. They have recognized that that ranking doesn't really serve any sort of purpose, so they are not doing it any longer."
The city said in its news release Thursday the removal of rankings, "adds context among the significant changes to Crime Severity Index reporting by Statistics Canada."
When the City of North Battleford organized a conference for several smaller communities in Saskatoon at the end of February, Mayor David Gillan had hoped that the "collective voice of multiple municipalities across four provinces would make an impact on Statistics Canada."
In response, Thursday’s data release for the 2023 Crime Severity Index by the federal body was significantly different.
"Gone are the CSI rankings published each year for communities with populations of 10,000 and 100,000 or more," the city said. "Gone are all references indicating the Crime Severity Index should be used as the measure of a community’s overall safety."
Instead, viewers of the data on the StatsCan website will now see contextual information which confirms what North Battleford and other municipalities have asserted – "the data is easily skewed and has not been properly interpreted since Statistics Canada began producing rankings some 15-years ago," the city said.
A new video provided by Statistics Canada provides a more detailed explanation.
“The steering committee, which was formed from our conference earlier this year in Saskatoon, has been working hand-in-hand with Statistics Canada’s senior officials and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police [CACP] since March,” commented Gillan. “Stats Canada has confirmed to our group that they have heard us ‘loud and clear’ and acknowledged the ‘unintended consequences’ the rankings have created for our communities and after today’s data release, we are very pleased to see that the concerns presented have been actioned. We extend our gratitude to Statistics Canada and the CACP for their collaborative efforts.”
Gillan said the CSI data is still readily available for public and community evaluation.
“Publication of the data is a legal requirement of Statistics Canada. We welcome the opportunity to look at the data that is pertinent to our community, and to confer with local RCMP to identify resource allocation and for planning. Statistics Canada has recognized that creating and distributing rankings on a single metric of data, using arbitrary guidelines, should not be used to rank communities throughout the country," he said.
How does this impact the Battlefords region?
The added information included by Statistics Canada in this year’s release provides important context for matters relevant to the Battlefords. The contextual information disproves previous assertions that North Battleford is an unsafe community, noting, “the CSI is not intended to be used in isolation and is not a universal indicator of community safety”, and, “other complementary sources of information, both within and outside the criminal justice system must also be considered to draw a full picture of crime and safety in an area.”
The city also noted Statistics Canada has included a valuable cultural component, which was completed in consultation with a variety of Indigenous communities and leadership, including Sweetgrass First Nation Chief Lorie Whitecalf. This component outlines why a cultural lens for viewing this data is important with respect to the impact this information has on Indigenous people and their respective communities across the country.
In relation to viewing the CSI through a diversity-focused lens, the data release states: “the CSI does not consider specific demographic characteristics of each area or how different groups of people in an area may experience harm and discrimination”, and, “the CSI does not account for particular socioeconomic context of an area or the presence or absence of community services that may influence police responses in a given area. It is therefore vital to consider additional context to better understand the lived experience of people in the area.”
North Battleford City Manager Randy Patrick noted, over time, these changes to the way Statistics Canada data is reported and contextualized will provide a broader understanding, serving to erase negative stigmas about the community and the region.
“These misconceptions about North Battleford were created over time, and likewise, it will take some time to rehabilitate the community’s image. However, long-term, as the data becomes better understood, our community is likely to see a population increase, to have an easier time with attraction of businesses and skilled professionals, and an overall renewal of pride in the community," he said. "No city is without its challenges, but certainly communities like ours have not received a fair evaluation when all factors, which have now been made public by Statistics Canada, have been taken into consideration.”
North Battleford CSI sees increase
The 2023 Crime Severity Index data for North Battleford shows a CSI of 598.48 overall in 2023 or a 6.58 per cent increase to the community’s overall CSI weight from 2022. In 2022 the city saw an overall CSI of 557.1 in comparison.
Mayor Gillan noted while the rates for 2023 indicate a slight increase he remains optimistic.
“We are encouraged to see that rate increases for the Crime Severity Index are slowing both locally and provincially," he said. "We anticipate with the province’s investments into a second Crime Reduction Team and a provincial drug treatment court in North Battleford, the numbers should decrease as these services become established.”
Battlefords RCMP Detachment Commander Jesse Gilbert said he was pleased to see that the increase to the community’s overall CSI was relatively small compared to the previous few years.
“The members of the Detachment and the Gang Task Force have been working tirelessly to combat crime in a preventative manner, and we believe that this slowdown is indicative of that success," he said. "In 2023 there was an additional homicide, and firearms offences were up slightly, which contributed to the increase in the violent CSI. For property offences, we saw a rise in break and enter complaints, but experienced a substantial decrease in both thefts, and thefts of motor vehicles. The slowdown from 2023 into 2024 has continued, as demonstrated by the quarterly stats presentation to North Battleford city council in April. I am also heartened by the contextual information provided this year by Statistics Canada as it speaks to many of the fine points that we have been trying to relay to the public each year when the CSI numbers are presented.”
