Newly released data from Statistics Canada shows the number of violent crimes involving a firearm in 2024 dropped compared with 2023 in the largest yearly decrease since 2014.
However, the agency also says that despite that year-over-year drop, “the overall trend has been an upward one, both for total violent crime and firearm-related violent crime” since the mid-2010s.
There were 36 firearm-related violent crimes per 100,000 population in 2024, which was down 4.2 per cent from 2023 (37.6 incidents per 100,000 population).
But the rate of firearm-related violent crime in 2024 was still 44 per cent higher than 10 years earlier, when it stood at 25 incidents per 100,000 population.
In addition, 29 per cent of firearm-related violent crimes “attributable to gangs or organized crime involved a firearm” in 2024.
Statistics Canada states that from 2023 to 2024, “all census metropolitan areas (CMAs) in Alberta and most CMAs in British Columbia saw a large decline in the rate of firearm-related violent crime, which contributed to the decline at the national level.”
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The biggest decreases were in Prince Edward Island (-46 per cent), British Columbia (-22 per cent) and Alberta (-14 per cent).
However, the rate was up 12 per cent in Toronto, the country’s largest CMA. It was also the city’s highest rate of firearm-related violent crime (44.8 incidents per 100,000 population) in 15 years.
Newfoundland and Labrador (+31 per cent), Ontario (+6.3 per cent) and Quebec (+0.8 per cent) also saw increases.
The rate of firearm-related violent crime in the territories reached a peak in 2023 (184 incidents per 100,000 population), the highest rate since comparable data became available in 2009.
In 2024, this rate was down 14 per cent from its 2023 peak, driven by a 37 per cent decrease in Nunavut.
Statistics Canada notes that despite the 2024 declines across some rural areas and territories, “the rate of firearm-related violent crime was still much higher than it was 10 years earlier.”
“Compared with 2014, the rate of firearm-related violent crime was 167 per cent higher in the provincial rural north, 85 per cent higher in the provincial rural south, and 79 per cent higher in the territories.”
From 2023 to 2024, some of the specific violent crimes involving a firearm that decreased were hostage taking, kidnapping or forcible confinement involving a firearm (-15 per cent), sexual assault (-13 per cent) and robbery (-8.8 per cent).
Shooting homicides also decreased (-5.6 per cent) for the second consecutive decline.
In 2024, 49 per cent of firearm-related violent crimes in Canada involved a handgun, even though the rate of handgun-related violent crime fell.
This was the second consecutive annual decrease after hitting a peak at 19.7 incidents per 100,000 population in 2022.
In addition, Statistics Canada found that in 2024, 58 per cent of people accused of a firearm-related violent crime were “identified by police as the accused in at least one previous violent crime (involving a firearm or not) that occurred during the period from 2018 to 2024.”
That’s higher than the 39 per cent for persons accused of a violent crime not involving a firearm.
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