by Harvey Oberfeld
April 7, 2025
It’s no wonder downtown city streets in some many Canadian cities are seeing fewer shoppers, diners and retailers.
Shoplifters, muggers, druggies and crazies have taken them over … not just at night, but even during daytime … thanks to our incompetent justice system that handcuffs/punishes more law-abiding citizens than criminals!
Why?
Because FEDERAL bail and sentencing laws for years, have favored those who commit crimes over their victims.
Crime is destroying Canada’s urban areas … and yet, so far in this election, the issue has not received the attention it deserves.
It’s time ALL the leaders/candidates are called on the carpet and forced to confront the problems with specific solutions.
Vancouver recently reported shoplifting incidents in 2024 were up 11.7% from the year before … topping 7,600 cases. And police acknowledged the actual figures were even higher … but don’t get reported.
In the city’s downtown core, theft was up 40% … in just one year!!! (Read the full story here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/retail-security-task-force-city-of-vancouver-1.7500441. )
And how’s this: 200 of those actually caught and arrested for shoplifting, police say, had 4,695 prior convictions!
The impact on Vancouver’s downtown of crime/homelessness/druggies and crazies all but taking over (thanks largely to the provincial NDP buying up/transforming Granville area hotels into an extension of Hastings/Main) has been HUGE: https://vancouversun.com/business/fewer-shoppers-more-vacancies-whats-behind-downtown-vancouver-slump.)
But the spread of urban crime is now a national issue.
In Toronto, when Crime Stoppers focused on shoplifting for three months, they “saw 425 reports filed – an average of 4.5 reports daily – totaling $190,876 in stolen goods”, the Toronto Sun reported.
“Since Crime Stoppers Toronto’s last campaign on this issue in 2023, retail theft has grown from $5 billion to “a staggering $9.1 billion retail crisis for Canadian retailers annually as estimated by the Retail Council of Canada,” said the Sun. (You can read their full article here: https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/toronto-crime-stoppers-offers-500-reward-for-retail-theft-tips-this-is-no-longer-shoplifting.
And this is just retail theft. Time and space doesn’t allow for full details here of how bad/widespread more serious crimes have also become … muggings, major thefts, robberies, stabbings, murders.
The bail system is a joke … to criminals …. and when convictions occur, the sentences are far too often a bigger joke … and an insult/tragedy for victims!
Canada’s urban areas have become criminal sanctuaries … and the biggest problem is our courts!!!
Judges have failed to protect our citizens; federal laws, rules and precedents have made it almost impossible for true justice to be handed down, let alone be respected.
The federal parties … especially the Liberals (in power for 10 years) should have to answer for Canada’s criminal decline … which we are ALL paying for, in many, many ways.
Let’s hope some true journalists start confronting Carney and Poilievre SERIOUSLY on the urban recidivist crime/violence issue and WHAT SPECIFICALLY they will do to solve it?
And maybe an entire section of the televised debates should be devoted to how Canadians no longer feel safe walking in our own downtowns … or even our own neighbourhoods!
