Crime Statistics in Canada 2025 | Key Facts

Crime in Canada 2025

Understanding the landscape of criminal activity across Canada requires examining verified data from authoritative government sources. The year 2025 brings fresh perspectives on public safety, with the most recent comprehensive statistics released by Statistics Canada in July 2025 covering the 2024 calendar year. These figures represent the most current verified crime data available and provide crucial insights into how communities across the nation are navigating challenges related to law enforcement, property offenses, violent incidents, and emerging digital threats.

The criminal justice system in Canada operates under a unique federal structure where the power to establish criminal law resides with Parliament, while provinces share responsibility for law enforcement. This collaborative framework means that while laws and sentencing guidelines remain uniform nationwide, enforcement levels vary by region. The Crime Severity Index (CSI) serves as the primary metric for measuring both volume and severity of offenses, offering a more nuanced understanding than simple crime counts. For the first time since the pandemic began, 2024 witnessed a meaningful decline in overall crime rates, signaling potential success in coordinated law enforcement strategies and community-focused prevention initiatives.

Key Crime Stats & Facts in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

The data presented above reflects the most comprehensive and verified crime statistics available for Canada in 2025, drawn exclusively from Statistics Canada’s official July 22, 2025 release. These figures represent police-reported incidents from the 2024 calendar year and provide the foundation for understanding current public safety trends. The Crime Severity Index of 77.3 marks a significant improvement from recent years, representing a 4% decrease that breaks a three-year pattern of increases. This decline positions Canada’s crime severity at levels 34% lower than the peak recorded in 1998, demonstrating substantial long-term progress in crime reduction efforts.

Looking at the breakdown, the total of 788 homicides in 2024 translates to a rate of 1.91 per 100,000 population, reflecting a 4% decrease from the previous year. Meanwhile, motor vehicle theft saw dramatic improvement with a 17% reduction, bringing the rate down to 239 incidents per 100,000 people. However, challenges persist in areas like fraud, which maintains a rate of 436 per 100,000 population and stands 92% higher than levels recorded a decade earlier. The cybercrime rate of 225 per 100,000 population, while showing a 9% decrease from 2023, remains more than double the 2018 rate, highlighting the persistent evolution of digital criminal activity.

Crime Severity Index in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

The Crime Severity Index represents Canada’s most sophisticated metric for measuring criminal activity, accounting for both the volume of incidents and their relative severity based on court sentencing patterns. Unlike traditional crime rates that simply count offenses, the CSI assigns weighted values to each crime type, ensuring that serious offenses like homicide carry substantially more impact than minor property crimes. The 2024 overall CSI of 77.3 demonstrates meaningful progress in public safety, marking the second decline in a decade and reversing three consecutive years of increases that followed the COVID-19 pandemic.

Breaking down the components, the Non-Violent Crime Severity Index declined by 6% in 2024, serving as the primary driver behind the overall improvement. This category encompasses property offenses, drug violations, and fraud-related crimes. The 6% reduction follows a 9% increase observed between 2021 and 2023, suggesting that targeted law enforcement strategies and community interventions have begun yielding tangible results. Five specific violations contributed most significantly to this decline: breaking and entering, child pornography offenses, motor vehicle theft, theft under five thousand dollars, and mischief. Together, these violations accounted for 75% of the overall CSI decrease.

The Violent Crime Severity Index showed a more modest 1% decline in 2024, though this still represents an important reversal after three consecutive years of increases totaling 15%. Lower rates of sexual assault, extortion, robbery, attempted murder, and aggravated assault drove this improvement, collectively accounting for 80% of the decrease in the violent index. However, the violent index remains 6% higher than levels recorded a decade ago in 2014, indicating that while progress has been made, violent crime continues to demand focused attention from law enforcement and community safety programs.

Violent Crime Statistics in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

Violent crime in Canada during 2024 showed encouraging signs of stabilization and decline after several challenging years. The 788 homicides reported represents 8 fewer victims than in 2023, continuing a downward trend in what is considered Canada’s most serious violent offense. The national homicide rate of 1.91 per 100,000 population marks the second consecutive annual decrease, though rates vary dramatically by region and demographic group. Particularly concerning is the homicide rate among Indigenous peoples, which stood at 10.84 per 100,000 Indigenous population in 2024—approximately eight times higher than the rate among non-Indigenous populations.

Gender dynamics in homicide victimization revealed troubling patterns in 2024. While there were 34 fewer male homicide victims compared to 2023, there were 28 more female victims, resulting in a total that included more women than in previous years. Most significantly, the proportion of women killed by a spouse or intimate partner jumped dramatically from 32% in 2023 to 42% in 2024. This meant that women were approximately seven times more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner, with 42% of female homicide victims dying at the hands of spouses or partners compared to just 6% of male victims. These statistics underscore the ongoing crisis of intimate partner violence affecting Canadian women.

Sexual assault rates showed modest improvement in 2024, with Level 1 sexual assault incidents declining by 3% from the previous year. However, these police-reported figures significantly underestimate actual victimization, as research from the 2019 General Social Survey revealed that only 6% of sexual assaults experienced by Canadians aged 15 and older were reported to police. Extortion saw a notable 10% decrease in 2024 to a rate of 32 incidents per 100,000 population, reversing four consecutive years of increases. Despite this decline, the 2024 extortion rate remained over four times higher than the rate recorded a decade earlier, highlighting how this offense has evolved alongside technological advancement and cybercriminal tactics.

Property Crime Trends in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

Property crime represented the primary success story in Canada’s 2024 crime statistics, driving the overall decline in the Crime Severity Index. Breaking and entering—the most severe property crime based on CSI weighting—decreased by 11% to a rate of 293 incidents per 100,000 population. This offense alone accounted for 13% of the overall CSI, making it the single largest contributor to the index despite its decline. Every province except the Northwest Territories (+17%) and Nunavut (+1%) experienced decreases in breaking and entering, demonstrating broad-based improvement across most regions. The 2024 rate stood almost one-third lower (-32%) than a decade ago and an impressive 75% lower than the peak recorded in 1998.

Motor vehicle theft emerged as a major focal point for law enforcement action in 2024, with the federal government hosting a National Summit on Combatting Auto Theft and releasing a National Action Plan. These coordinated efforts produced dramatic results, as the rate plummeted 17% from 2023 to 239 incidents per 100,000 population. This reversed a three-year surge that had seen auto theft increase 40% from the historic low in 2020. The decline was most pronounced in Ontario (-18%), Quebec (-27%), Alberta (-9%), and British Columbia (-12%). However, the three Prairie provinces continued to report the highest provincial rates: Manitoba at 392 per 100,000, Saskatchewan at 386 per 100,000, and Alberta at 376 per 100,000, though all three saw decreases.

Shoplifting presented a contrasting trend, rising for the fourth consecutive year with a 14% increase in 2024. Police reported 182,361 incidents of shoplifting under five thousand dollars, translating to 442 incidents per 100,000 population. The shoplifting rate increased 66% over the decade from 2014 to 2024, representing significant financial losses for Canadian businesses. Online reporting mechanisms and increased retailer vigilance may contribute to higher reporting rates, though the underlying increase in actual theft activity remains a concern for the retail sector. In contrast, other theft under five thousand dollars declined 9%, with a rate of 848 per 100,000 population—roughly twice the shoplifting rate but showing a long-term downward trend of 59% from the 1998 peak.

Cybercrime and Fraud in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

Cybercrime continues to evolve as one of Canada’s most dynamic criminal challenges in 2025, despite showing a 9% decrease in the overall rate during 2024. The total cybercrime rate of 225 incidents per 100,000 population remains more than double the 2018 rate of 92 incidents, the earliest year with comparable data. This underscores how technological advancement and widespread internet access have fundamentally transformed the criminal landscape, creating new opportunities for offenders while simultaneously enabling more sophisticated law enforcement responses through digital forensics and online reporting mechanisms.

Fraud represents the single largest category of cybercrime, accounting for over half (55%) of all cyber-related offenses in 2024. The fraud rate held steady at 436 incidents per 100,000 population, though this figure excludes data from the Montreal Police Service due to transmission issues that will be corrected in the 2026 release. The combined fraud rate—including fraud, identity fraud, and identity theft—stood 92% higher than a decade earlier in 2014, when it measured 261 per 100,000 compared to 500 per 100,000 in 2024. About one-quarter (26%) of all fraud incidents involved a cyber component, highlighting how traditional fraud schemes have migrated to digital platforms. Significantly, only 11% of fraud victims report these crimes to police, according to the 2019 General Social Survey, meaning the true scale of fraud victimization far exceeds official statistics.

Identity-related crimes showed mixed trends in 2024. While identity theft remained stable at 14 incidents per 100,000 population, identity fraud increased 2% to reach 50 incidents per 100,000. Together with general fraud, these offenses cost Canadians substantial financial losses and emotional distress. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre reported that between January and June 2024, there were 15,941 reported fraud victims with $284 million lost to fraudulent activity in just six months. Given widespread underreporting, these figures likely represent only a fraction of actual losses, with some estimates suggesting Canadian fraud losses could approach or exceed $500 million annually.

Hate Crime Statistics in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

Hate crimes in Canada reached 4,882 reported incidents in 2024, representing a slight 1% increase from 4,828 incidents in 2023. This marks the sixth consecutive year that hate crimes have increased, with the total more than doubling (+169%) since 2018. These crimes target the fundamental aspects of a person’s identity—including race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, and other protected characteristics—and their impact extends beyond individual victims to affect entire communities. The psychological harm and sense of vulnerability created by hate-motivated incidents make them particularly concerning from both human rights and public safety perspectives.

Race and ethnicity emerged as the most common target of hate crimes in 2024, accounting for 48% of all incidents with 2,377 reported cases. This category saw an 8% increase from the previous year, continuing a troubling upward trend. Historical context reveals even more dramatic growth, with race-motivated hate crimes having increased 69% from 2022 to 2023, suggesting sustained escalation in racially motivated offenses. Religion-motivated hate crimes held relatively steady at 1,342 incidents, representing 27% of the total and showing essentially no change from 2023. Within religious categories, both Muslim and Jewish communities have experienced elevated targeting in recent years, though specific 2024 breakdowns await more detailed analytical reports scheduled for fall 2025 release.

Sexual orientation-motivated hate crimes represented one of the few bright spots, decreasing 26% from 2023 to reach 658 incidents in 2024. This decline reversed the dramatic 69% increase these crimes had experienced between 2022 and 2023, suggesting that heightened awareness and targeted interventions may be having positive effects. However, the 2019 General Social Survey revealed that only approximately one in five (22%) hate-motivated incidents are reported to police, meaning official statistics significantly underestimate the true prevalence. The survey estimated over 223,000 criminal incidents perceived as motivated by hate occurred in the 12 months preceding the survey, highlighting the substantial gap between experienced victimization and police reporting.

Provincial Crime Severity Comparisons in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

Regional variation in crime severity remains one of the most striking features of Canada’s 2025 crime statistics, with the Prairie provinces and Northern territories consistently reporting the highest rates. Saskatchewan maintained its position with the highest provincial Crime Severity Index, though specific 2024 values for all provinces await publication in detailed tables. The province has struggled with elevated rates across multiple crime categories, with RCMP jurisdictions in Saskatchewan experiencing particular challenges including 40 homicides in 2024 across RCMP-policed areas alone—the highest on record. Manitoba recorded the nation’s highest provincial homicide rate at 6.29 per 100,000 population, more than three times the national average, reflecting ongoing challenges with violent crime in urban centers like Winnipeg.

Alberta demonstrated mixed results in 2024, with the Alberta RCMP reporting a 6.9% decrease in the Crime Severity Index across their jurisdictions, representing the second-lowest CSI for the province since 2015. However, Alberta emerged with the highest per capita rate of motor vehicle theft nationally despite seeing a 9% decrease in auto theft incidents. The province has become what investigators call a “feeder province” for stolen vehicles, with organized crime groups increasingly using Alberta as a base for registering stolen and fraudulently documented (“re-VINed”) vehicles that are then distributed across Canada. Of all stolen vehicles in Alberta, 42% were trucks, reflecting the province’s vehicle preferences and the high value of pickup trucks in illicit markets.

Ontario and Quebec led the nation in crime reduction during 2024, particularly for motor vehicle theft. Ontario experienced an 18% decrease in auto theft, reducing incidents from approximately 30,000 in 2023 to under 25,000 in 2024, while Quebec saw an even more dramatic 27% decline with vehicle thefts dropping from 15,225 to 10,290. These improvements followed intensive law enforcement operations, increased border security at shipping ports, and coordinated task forces targeting organized crime networks. However, recovery rates for stolen vehicles remained concerningly low in both provinces—50.8% in Ontario and just 43.6% in Quebec—indicating that many stolen vehicles are successfully exported overseas or dismantled before they can be recovered.

Gang-Related and Organized Crime in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025); Équité Association reports

Organized crime remains a persistent driver of serious criminal activity across Canada in 2025, with gang-related homicides accounting for approximately 19% of all homicides in 2024. While this represents a slight decrease from 22% in 2023, it still means roughly one in five murders occurs within the context of organized criminal networks. Of these gang-related homicides, 79% were committed with firearms, most commonly handguns, highlighting the intersection between organized crime, gang violence, and illegal weapons. The concentration of firearm use in gang homicides far exceeds the proportion of firearm use in non-gang homicides, underscoring how criminal organizations drive gun violence in Canadian communities.

Motor vehicle theft has emerged as a critical revenue stream for organized crime in Canada, with authorities identifying sophisticated international networks responsible for the surge in auto thefts observed between 2021 and 2023. The Insurance Bureau of Canada reported that auto theft claims reached $1.5 billion in 2023, with over $1 billion in Ontario alone. These stolen vehicles are typically exported to international markets—particularly West Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe—or dismantled for parts, with proceeds funding other criminal activities including drug trafficking and weapons smuggling. The 2024 decline in auto theft reflects intensified law enforcement efforts, including the establishment of specialized task forces, enhanced port security at container terminals, and the Canada Border Services Agency’s interception of over 1,900 stolen vehicles in railyards and ports during 2024.

Cybercrime has become increasingly dominated by organized networks operating across international borders. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) models allow low-skilled criminals to access sophisticated hacking tools developed by organized cyber syndicates, primarily based in Russia, China, and other jurisdictions beyond Canadian law enforcement reach. These operations target critical infrastructure, healthcare facilities, and businesses, extracting millions in ransom payments while causing operational disruptions that can affect public safety. The National Cyber Threat Assessment 2025-2026 identifies state-sponsored actors from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as significant threats, leveraging advanced persistent threat (APT) techniques for espionage and disruption campaigns targeting Canadian government, military, and commercial entities.

Indigenous Peoples and Crime Victimization in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

The victimization of Indigenous peoples in Canada represents one of the most troubling aspects of the 2025 crime statistics, reflecting deep-rooted systemic inequalities and the ongoing impacts of colonization. Despite representing approximately 5% of Canada’s population, Indigenous peoples accounted for a disproportionate share of homicide victims, with a rate of 10.84 per 100,000 population—approximately eight times higher than the non-Indigenous rate of 1.35 per 100,000. Police reported 225 Indigenous homicide victims in 2024, representing an increase of 29 victims from 2023 even as the overall national homicide count declined. This overrepresentation has persisted every year since 2014, when complete Indigenous identity data for homicide victims first became available.

Indigenous women face particularly elevated risks, with 21 additional Indigenous women falling victim to homicide in 2024 compared to the previous year. This increase accounted for most of the overall rise in women homicide victims nationally, highlighting the intersection of gender-based violence and systemic discrimination affecting Indigenous communities. The crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) continues to demand urgent attention, with the National Inquiry’s Final Report calling for fundamental changes to address the systemic causes of violence. Factors including poverty, inadequate housing, limited access to services, substance abuse, and historical trauma from residential schools and forced assimilation policies create conditions where violence against Indigenous peoples—particularly women—occurs at devastating rates.

Geographic patterns reveal that Indigenous homicides are concentrated in certain regions, particularly northern communities and Prairie provinces. Saskatchewan RCMP noted that 22 of the 40 homicides investigated in their jurisdictions during 2024 occurred in the north district, with authorities acknowledging that “unfortunately, a lot of those are Indigenous communities.” Communities experiencing high rates of violence often face compounding challenges including substance abuse, mental health crises, inadequate support services, and limited economic opportunities. Addressing Indigenous overrepresentation in crime victimization requires comprehensive approaches that tackle root causes including intergenerational trauma, systemic racism in institutions, economic marginalization, and the need for culturally appropriate support services and self-determined solutions led by Indigenous communities themselves.

Child Pornography and Online Exploitation in Canada 2025

Data Source: Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2024 (Released July 22, 2025)

Child pornography offenses—officially being renamed child sexual abuse and exploitation material (CSAEM) under terminology changes taking effect in October 2025—showed a 15% decrease in 2024 following a dramatic 54% surge in 2023. Police reported 18,806 incidents at a rate of 46 per 100,000 population, down from over 22,000 incidents the previous year. The sharp fluctuations in reporting reflect complex dynamics including the forwarding of historical cases from specialized units, evolving public awareness, and changes in investigative priorities rather than simply changes in actual offense occurrence. Despite the 2024 decline, the rate remained 30% higher than 2022 levels and 12 times higher than rates recorded in 2008, demonstrating sustained long-term growth in both actual offending and detection capabilities.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre (NCECC) serves as Canada’s hub for coordinating investigations into online child sexual exploitation. The NCECC and specialized provincial Internet child exploitation units partner with local police services, forwarding cases for investigation and prosecution. This collaborative model means that current and historical cases may be batched and forwarded to local services at irregular intervals, contributing to the variability in annual statistics. In 2023, enhanced coordination led to a large influx of cases being forwarded, driving the 54% increase, while 2024 saw fewer such transfers as the backlog was processed. This system ensures comprehensive investigation but creates statistical challenges in tracking year-over-year trends.

The vast majority of child pornography offenses involve a cyber component, with 69% of incidents between 2018 and 2024 classified as cybercrimes. The Internet has fundamentally transformed this criminal category, enabling global networks for producing, distributing, and accessing illegal material while simultaneously providing digital forensics opportunities for investigators. In 2024, cyber-related child pornography incidents declined 27% while non-cyber incidents rose 25%, suggesting different enforcement dynamics across these categories. Making or distributing child pornography—the most serious category—accounted for 68% of incidents, with the remaining 32% involving possession or accessing offenses. Law enforcement continues to prioritize producers and distributors while also pursuing consumers who create demand for this deeply harmful content.

Auto Theft Prevention and Recovery Efforts in Canada 2025

Data Source: Équité Association Annual Report 2024; Statistics Canada; Canada Border Services Agency

The dramatic reversal in auto theft trends represents one of Canada’s most significant law enforcement successes in 2025, with 57,359 private passenger vehicles stolen in 2024—an 18.6% decrease from over 70,000 vehicles stolen in 2023. This marks the first annual decline since 2020 and breaks a troubling upward trend that saw auto thefts surge during and after the pandemic. The improvement reflects coordinated action across multiple levels of government, law enforcement agencies, border services, and the insurance industry. The federal government’s National Summit on Combatting Auto Theft held in February 2024, followed by the National Action Plan released in May 2024, provided frameworks for enhanced cooperation and resource allocation.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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