May

Thank you, Elizabeth May. Thank you for being the only leader in last night’s debate to say unequivocally that overall crime rates — including violent crime rates — have been falling for decades and there’s absolutely no justification for adopting policies that violate the Charter rights of young offenders.

According to Statistics Canada, violent crime has been in decline since the mid-1970s. Violent crime rates in Canada’s biggest cities are also falling. And, on a per capita basis, Toronto had fewer homicides than Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Calgary.

But aren’t gun crimes going up? Nope. The rate of violent crime involving a firearm has been stable for the last 4 years. In fact, knives and clubs are more than three times as likely as guns to be used in the commission of a violent crime.