Kelowna 6th most dangerous city

Kelowna remains one of the most dangerous cities in Canada according to one of the country's leading magazines.

Photo: Castanet Staff

MacLean's Magazine released its annual report on crime in Canada this week and it shows Kelowna to be the sixth most dangerous city in Canada in 2011 among the 100 highest populated cities.

The year previous, Kelowna ranked seventh.

The report, issued for the sixth time has drawn the ire of several mayors and police officials for the methodology used in compiling the data.

In terms of methodology, MacLean's says it utilizes annual crime data obtained from Statistics Canada for municipal police services serving the nation’s 100 largest populations, each encompassing a city or town of at least 10,000 people.

It takes rates per 100,000 people for six crime categories, homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, vehicle theft, robbery and breaking and entering, and calculates the percentage difference from the national rate.

The overall crime score ranking for the 100 communities was created in consultation with StatsCan, using its Crime Severity Index (CSI) score and calculating the percentage difference from the national score.

Maclean’s calculated the ratios by dividing population of the area by the raw number of crimes.

According to these ratios Kelowna is 65.95 per cent above the national average.

In terms of the six crime categories measured, Kelowna showed up in two of those. The city is ranked 10th for sexual assaults with 89.2 per 100,000 population and 11th in auto theft with 487.3 per 100,000.

The city was also listed number four for impaired drivers with 637.6 per 100,000 and 13th in marijuana possession with 318 per 100,000.

For the third year in a row, Prince George topped the list as the most dangerous city in Canada followed by Victoria, Regina, Saskatoon and Fort McMurray.

Half of the cities in the top 10 are in BC (Surrey 8th, Chilliwack 9th) while all top 10 cities are located in the four western provinces.