New crime data shows Montreal is safer than Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver

Have you ever wondered just how safe Montreal really is compared to the rest of the country?

Decades ago, it carried nicknames like “Sin City” and the “bank robbery capital of North America.” But a new report from Statistics Canada just gave us a pretty clear answer on where things stand now, and the city comes out looking pretty good.

The report, released Wednesday, tracks police-reported crime across Canada using two main measures. There’s the conventional crime rate, which simply counts incidents per 100,000 people, and there’s the Crime Severity Index, or CSI, which weighs in how serious those crimes were rather than just how many happened. Nationally, both numbers dropped in 2025. The CSI fell 5% to 75.01, marking a second straight year of decline, while the overall crime rate slipped 2% to 5,585 incidents per 100,000 people.

Montreal did better than that national average on both fronts. The city’s CSI landed at 61.3, down 5% year over year, and its crime rate came in at 3,641 incidents per 100,000, also down 5% from 2024.

How Montreal stacks up against other big cities

Montreal posted better numbers than most of Canada’s big cities.

Vancouver posted a CSI of 83.5 and a crime rate of 5,672 per 100,000. Winnipeg’s numbers were rougher still, with a CSI of 113.4 and a crime rate of 7,899. Calgary’s CSI, at 61.7, sits almost identical to Montreal’s, but its crime rate, 5,038 per 100,000, runs noticeably higher.

Toronto’s numbers complicate things a little. Its CSI actually came in slightly below Montreal’s, at 55.0, suggesting the crimes reported there trend a bit less severe on average. But its crime rate, 3,950 per 100,000, is higher than Montreal’s, meaning more incidents happen there relative to population, even if fewer of them tend to be serious. Outside of that one exception, Montreal comes out ahead on both measures against every major city it’s compared to here.

Quebec versus the rest of Canada

Zoom out to the provincial level, and Quebec holds up well too. The province posted a CSI of 61.6, down 5% from last year, with a crime rate of 3,673 per 100,000, down 4%. Only Ontario, with a CSI of 57.2, scored lower among Canada’s larger provinces.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan sat at the other end of the spectrum, with CSI scores of 130.0 and 146.6 respectively, by far the highest in the country. Alberta and British Columbia also came in well above Quebec, at 90.6 and 92.4.

A few other numbers worth knowing

Canada’s homicide rate dropped 16% in 2025 (the biggest year-over-year decline since 1986), bringing it down to 1.61 per 100,000 people. Break-ins kept falling as well, down 11% and now at a multi-year low, and motor vehicle theft dropped 16%, a second consecutive year of decline after three years of steady increases before that.

Not everything moved in the same direction, though. Shoplifting under $5,000 climbed for a fifth year running, up 11% in 2025 and up 79% since 2015. Fraud dipped 4% compared to last year but remains 61% higher than it was a decade ago. Hate crimes fell 3% nationally, though the total is still more than double what it was back in 2018.

You can explore the entire StatCan report here.