Many North American cities fell into a spiral of decline in the 1960s and 1970s when worries about crime and disorder took hold. They have bounced back, but what happened before could happen again.Doug Ives/The Canadian Press
A man is shot dead when masked thieves invade his home.
A gunfight breaks out near a high school, wounding a woman who is simply driving by.
A boy aged 12 is charged with attempted murder after a man is injured in a shooting.
An 11-year-old girl dies when a home goes up in flames. Investigators suspect arson.
A shocking series of violent events have unfolded in and around Toronto lately. Governments are scrambling to react. The sooner the better. The safety of the public is one of their most basic responsibilities. Many Canadians believe they are falling down on the job.
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Home invasions, transit attacks, auto thefts, porch pirates, open drug use – all of these are eroding their confidence that authorities can protect them. In one particularly nasty form of crime, thieves approach older people, ask them for directions or contrive to get them into an argument and then walk away with a wallet or necklace. Toronto police said this week they have recorded 374 such robberies this year, up from 28 in all of 2024.
No wonder people are feeling vulnerable and frustrated. “I’m lost for words for who controls this, who is in charge, what’s being done,” Naeem Farooqi, the grieving brother of the man killed in the home invasion in Vaughan, north of Toronto, said at a news conference this week.
His cry from the heart reflected a growing sense, especially in big cities, that things are spinning out of control. That is dangerous. Many North American cities fell into a spiral of decline in the 1960s and 1970s when worries about crime and disorder took hold, leading to a flight to the suburbs and the hollowing out of inner cities. They have bounced back, but what happened before could happen again.
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Fears about crime can have dire political impacts, too. Right-wing populist parties with a mean-spirited, anti-immigrant message are leading the opinion polls in Europe’s three biggest economies (Germany, Britain and France). Party leaders promise to fight crime and restore order. Despite data showing crime rates are down in many American cities, Donald Trump is threatening to send in the National Guard to fight gangs and defend citizens, as he did in Washington.
If Canadians become convinced the justice system is failing, some will simply take the law into their own hands. Populists like Doug Ford and Pierre Poilievre have jumped on the case of a Lindsay, Ont., man who was charged with aggravated assault for allegedly stabbing a crossbow-wielding intruder. Mr. Poilievre wants Ottawa to change the law to make it clear that householders have the right to self defence. But they already enjoy that right, so long as their response is reasonable – in other words, not wildly out of proportion to the threat. In most cases, police say, people faced with armed intruders are best advised to avoid confrontation.
To escape all of these consequences, governments need to persuade the public that they are taking concerns about crime seriously. One thing they can do is to make sure that the police and courts are well funded and staffed. The Defund the Police movement that spread across North America after the George Floyd protests led many cities into a wrong turn. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow was wise to give police the funding hike they wanted in last year’s city budget.
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Another thing is to focus on the repeat offenders who seem to be responsible for so much crime. The CBC reports that the crossbow intruder in the Lindsay case had many encounters with police, “including charges of failure to comply with a probation order and failure to attend court.” Court records showed he had “seven separate criminal cases pending against him.”
The boy of 12 charged with the shooting in the Toronto suburb of Markham was out on bail, facing accusations of committing other violent offences. Police Chief Jim MacSween called for “legislative measures which ensure violent and repeat offenders are kept off the streets, while also focusing on rehabilitating our youth.”
None of this will be easy. Governments will have to proceed with caution as well as urgency, respecting the rights of the accused and avoiding knee-jerk measures that will overwhelm the already-crowded jails. But action is needed – visible and robust action.
Ottawa seems to understand that. On Friday Prime Minister Mark Carney promised to change the Criminal Code to make sure that those involved in things like organized crime, gun violence and home invasions “pay the price.” He said he was working with the premiers, including Ontario’s Mr. Ford, on reforming bail rules to ensure that those accused of serious crimes are not in a position “where they commit a crime one day and they’re arrested and then out of jail − out on bail − the next.”
Good.