THUNDER BAY - The city of Thunder Bay once again had one of the highest homicide rates in the country, along with increases in violent crimes including sexual assaults and robberies, which has the acting Thunder Bay Police Service chief calling for more supports to take a preventative rather than reactive approach to crime.
“When you dig into violent crime and the complexity of violent crime, you have to look at what’s related and what’s related is societal issues, including addiction issues,” said acting police chief Dan Taddeo.
Earlier this week, Statistics Canada released its national crime data for 2021. According to the data, Thunder Bay had a homicide rate 5.63 per 100,000 people, just below Regina, which had a rate of 5.67 in 2021.
There were seven homicides in the city of Thunder Bay in 2021 and there has been 10 so far this year.
Thunder Bay has often held the notorious title of the murder capital of Canada with a leading homicide rate of between 5.57 and 7.15 between 2016 and 2020.
The city also experienced an increase in violent crime in 2021, with the rate of sexual assaults increasing by 48 per cent to a rate of 142 per 100,000 people, the worst rate in 35 urban areas included in the Statistics Canada report.
The robbery rate in the city also increased by 44 per cent, second only to Winnipeg.
The Violent Crime Severity Index in Thunder Bay for 2021 was 176, twice the national average.
One area the city did see improvement was in reported hate crimes, which fell in 2021 to 8.0 reported hate crimes per 100,000 people from 11.1 the previous year.
Taddeo said one of the statistics that was not included in the report is the number of opioid related deaths in the city of Thunder Bay, which is approximately four times higher than the provincial average.
“That is unacceptable. Where do we go from here?” he said. “Police are part of the solution in so far in what we can offer, but the bigger picture has to be other agencies and government providing facilities to assist these people so they don’t become victims of crime and that people with the skill set to do that.”
Taddeo did point out the higher clearance rate of the Thunder Bay Police Service in solving homicides and violent crimes, but there still needs to be more of a preventative approach to crime rather than strictly a reactive one.
“We tend to react to violent crime and the investigations, so what is the deeper dive?” he said. “It’s addictions, it’s other societal issues, it’s situation tables we participate in. We need to be a participant, but maybe not the leader. I believe there has to be proper facilities.”
“There has to be real dollars and not just conversations that become just footnotes and then we move on to other subjects,” Taddeo added. “We have to have capacity in Thunder Bay to deal with the issues of people needing assistance for their issues before they either become victims of crimes or decide to commit crimes to support their issues.”
The recent influx of Southern Ontario gangs taking advantage of a lucrative illicit drug trade in the region has also brought increased gun violence in the city.
According to Taddeo, the police service will continue to advocate to the province for more assistance in addressing the issues of guns and gangs.
“There needs to be real solutions in the city of Thunder Bay and a recognition that there is a guns and gangs problem here so the dollars are put to the issues in Thunder Bay and focused as opposed to being spread out from a more non-defined enforcement,” he said.
