Statistics Canada says that after five years of increases, police-reported crime in Canada was down in 2020, but incidents of hate crime increased sharply. According to the monitoring agency, stay-at-home orders and other restrictions from the pandemic meant fewer people were out publicly, reducing opportunities for many types of crime. At the same time, Canadians increasingly turned to the Internet to stay connected, increasing the risk for criminal offences related to the Internet.

Police-reported crime in Canada, as measured by the Crime Severity Index (CSI), decreased 8% in the first year of the pandemic—falling from 79.8 in 2019 to 73.4 in 2020. The CSI was 11% lower than a decade earlier in 2010.  In Saskatchewan, the Crime Severity Index fell six per cent. In Saskatoon, it was down 10 per cent.

Statistics Canada’s 2020 Crime Severity Index shows a decrease in both violent and non-violent crimes in Prince Albert, ranking the city 7th overall for cities with a population of more than 10,000 people. The Prince Albert Police Service notes that the community is ranked 5th in violent crime for 202, which is an improvement from being ranked third the previous year. Police chief Jonathan Bergen says the numbers represent the lowest overall ranking and lowest non-violent ranking for Prince Albert in ten years, and violent crime is at its second lowest level in the last decade.

The CSI measures the volume and severity of police-reported crime in Canada, and has a base index value of 100 for 2006. The police-reported crime rate, which measures the volume of crime, also fell 10% in 2020 to 5,301 incidents per 100,000 Canadians. In Saskatchewan, the rate fell seven per cent. In Saskatoon it fell 11 per cent.

In contrast, the number of police-reported hate crimes in Canada increased by 37% during the first year of the pandemic. This marks the largest number of police-reported hate crimes since comparable data became available in 2009. Police-reported hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity almost doubled  compared with the previous year, accounting for the vast majority of the national increase in hate crimes.

The CSI declined in eight provinces in 2020 but rose in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Approximately 40% of the increase in Nova Scotia was due to the mass shooting that occurred in April 2020.

Similar to the national and provincial trend, the CSI declined in 27 of the 35 census metropolitan areas (CMA) in 2020, led by Regina (-20 per cent).

According to a crowdsourcing initiative conducted early in the pandemic, those belonging to visible minority groups were three times more likely to have perceived an increase in race-based harassment or attacks compared with the rest of the population. This difference was most pronounced among participants of Chinese (30%), Korean (27%), and Southeast Asian (19%) origin.

The number of police-reported hate crimes in Canada increased by 37% during the first year of the pandemic, rising to 2,669 in 2020. This marks the largest number of police-reported hate crimes since comparable data became available in 2009. Police-reported hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity almost doubled (+80%) compared with the previous year, accounting for the vast majority of the national increase in hate crimes.

Much of the rise in police-reported hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity was the result of crimes targeting the Black population (+318 incidents or +92%), the East or Southeast Asian population (+202 incidents or +301%), the Indigenous population (+44 incidents or +152%), and the South Asian population (+38 incidents or +47%).

In 2020, police reported the highest number of hate crimes targeting each of these population groups since comparable data became available.

The homicide rate increased 7% in 2020, and marked the fourth consecutive year where the rate exceeded the average for the previous decade.

As has been the case with provincial comparisons historically, rates were highest in Saskatchewan at 5.09 homicides per 100,000 population.