Most “most dangerous cities in Canada” lists you will find online are built on Numbeo, a website survey of how safe people feel, not on police data. When we compared Numbeo’s mid-2026 Canadian top 10 with Statistics Canada’s official 2025 Crime Severity Index, only 3 cities appeared in both top 10s: Lethbridge, Kelowna and Winnipeg. Chilliwack, the metro area with the highest police-reported crime in Canada, does not appear in Numbeo’s top 20 at all, while Hamilton, ninth on Numbeo, ranks 36th of 41 metro areas on official data.
Data: Numbeo Crime Index, mid-2026 North America regional rankings (user survey, 0 to 100 scale). Statistics Canada, police-reported crime statistics for 2025 (released 22 July 2026): Crime Severity Index by census metropolitan area (Table 35-10-0026-01) and by police service. Where a Numbeo city is not a census metropolitan area, we use the police service that covers it and say so. Ranks, counts and comparisons are our own arithmetic. Published 21 October 2026.
Key facts
- Only 3 of Numbeo’s top 10 Canadian cities are also in the top 10 by Statistics Canada’s 2025 Crime Severity Index (our comparison).
- Three of the four metro areas with the highest official crime severity, Chilliwack (134.3), Red Deer (114.4) and Thunder Bay (114.1), are not in Numbeo’s Canadian top 20.
- At least 5 of Numbeo’s top 10 had an official 2025 Crime Severity Index below the national 75.0: Greater Sudbury, Brantford, Hamilton, and the police services covering Oshawa and Brampton.
- Hamilton is 9th on Numbeo but 36th of 41 metro areas on official crime severity (54.8).
- Numbeo describes its own index as based on the perceptions of people who answer its online survey, which may differ from official statistics.
What is the difference between Numbeo and Statistics Canada?
Numbeo measures how safe people feel; Statistics Canada measures crime that police recorded. They answer different questions, and both are useful, but only one of them counts crimes.
| Numbeo Crime Index | Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index | |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Perceived crime and safety | Police-reported crime, weighted by seriousness |
| Source | Online survey answered by website visitors | Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, covering all police services in Canada |
| Who is counted | Only people who choose to answer; the number varies from city to city | Every incident recorded by police |
| Time period | Responses from the past five years, with more weight on recent ones | One calendar year (2025 in the latest release) |
| Scale | 0 to 100 (higher = more perceived crime) | Canada 2006 = 100; Canada 2025 = 75.0 |
| Main weakness | Small, self-selected samples; open to bias and manipulation | Misses crime that is not reported to police |
The Crime Severity Index (CSI) gives each offence a weight based on the sentences courts hand down for it, so a robbery counts for far more than a shoplifting incident. Our Crime Severity Index guide explains how it works. Numbeo, by contrast, asks respondents questions such as how safe they feel walking alone at night and how worried they are about car theft or muggings, and converts the answers into a score.
Fact-checkers in several countries have pointed out the same limitation when Numbeo rankings went viral: the index reflects the opinions of website visitors, not recorded crime. That does not make it worthless. Perception matters, and it shapes where people choose to live. It just should not be presented as a crime ranking.
How do Numbeo’s most dangerous cities compare with police data?
Numbeo’s 20 highest-scoring Canadian cities only partly overlap with the cities that have the most police-reported crime. The table puts both side by side. The official rank is out of Canada’s 41 census metropolitan areas (CMAs), where 1 is the highest crime severity.
| Numbeo rank | City | Numbeo Crime Index (mid-2026) | Official CSI 2025 | Official rank (of 41) | Above national 75.0? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Surrey | 64.4 | 89.05* | Vancouver CMA: 14th (83.5) | Yes |
| 2 | Lethbridge | 63.1 | 107.7 | 6th | Yes |
| 3 | Greater Sudbury | 62.5 | 64.9 | 24th | No |
| 4 | Kelowna | 61.6 | 103.7 | 9th | Yes |
| 5 | Brantford | 61.0 | 72.1 | 19th | No |
| 6 | Winnipeg | 60.2 | 113.4 | 5th | Yes |
| 7 | Oshawa | 60.2 | 43.18* | Not a CSI metro area | No |
| 8 | Sault Ste. Marie | 59.9 | – | Not a census metro area | – |
| 9 | Hamilton | 55.6 | 54.8 | 36th | No |
| 10 | Brampton | 55.6 | 59.41* | Part of Toronto CMA: 34th (55.0) | No |
| 11 | Kamloops | 54.5 | 126.2 | 2nd | Yes |
| 12 | London | 53.7 | 66.0 | 23rd | No |
| 13 | Regina | 53.5 | 87.4 | 13th | Yes |
| 14 | Nanaimo | 52.9 | 106.0 | 7th | Yes |
| 15 | Saskatoon | 49.9 | 98.9 | 10th | Yes |
| 16 | Moncton | 49.3 | 105.6 | 8th | Yes |
| 17 | St. Catharines | 46.8 | 53.8 | 37th | No |
| 18 | Edmonton | 46.8 | 95.6 | 11th | Yes |
| 19 | Windsor | 46.4 | 55.4 | 33rd | No |
| 20 | Mississauga | 43.9 | 59.41* | Part of Toronto CMA: 34th (55.0) | No |
* Police-service figure, because the city is not a census metropolitan area of its own: Surrey RCMP (the Surrey Police Service recorded 85.39), Durham Regional Police for Oshawa, and Peel Regional Police for Brampton and Mississauga. Statistics Canada does not publish a metro-area CSI for Oshawa because police and metro boundaries do not match. Sault Ste. Marie is a smaller census agglomeration, not a CMA, and is not in our dataset.
Which dangerous cities does Numbeo miss?
Numbeo’s Canadian top 20 leaves out three of the four metro areas with the highest police-reported crime severity in 2025. These are the cities that official data ranks highest, with their Numbeo position:
| Official rank | Metro area | CSI 2025 | Numbeo rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chilliwack, B.C. | 134.3 | Not in top 20 |
| 2 | Kamloops, B.C. | 126.2 | 11th |
| 3 | Red Deer, Alta. | 114.4 | Not in top 20 |
| 4 | Thunder Bay, Ont. | 114.1 | Not in top 20 |
| 5 | Winnipeg, Man. | 113.4 | 6th |
| 6 | Lethbridge, Alta. | 107.7 | 2nd |
| 7 | Nanaimo, B.C. | 106.0 | 14th |
| 8 | Moncton, N.B. | 105.6 | 16th |
| 9 | Kelowna, B.C. | 103.7 | 4th |
| 10 | Saskatoon, Sask. | 98.9 | 15th |
The most likely reason is sample size. Numbeo only lists a city once enough people have answered its survey there, and smaller regional centres such as Chilliwack, Red Deer and Thunder Bay attract fewer respondents than Surrey or Hamilton. A city with no Numbeo score cannot appear on lists built from Numbeo, however much police-reported crime it has.
Which cities feel more dangerous than they are?
Several Ontario cities score high on Numbeo but sit below the national average on official crime severity. In 2025:
- Greater Sudbury is 3rd on Numbeo, but its CSI of 64.9 ranks 24th of 41 and is about 13% below Canada’s 75.0 (our arithmetic). Its CSI fell 2% in 2025.
- Hamilton is 9th on Numbeo, but its CSI of 54.8 ranks 36th, among the lowest in Canada.
- Oshawa is 7th on Numbeo, while Durham Regional Police, which covers it, recorded a CSI of 43.18, one of the lowest of any large police service in Ontario.
- Brampton and Mississauga are 10th and 20th on Numbeo; Peel Regional Police recorded 59.41. Peel’s CSI has risen every year since 2021, which may explain part of the worry, but it is still below the national figure.
The gap between feeling and data is not new. A Mainstreet/Postmedia poll of 2,050 Canadians, reported by CP24, found Toronto was seen as one of the least safe of 15 large cities even though it had the lowest crime rate of the group in 2016. High-profile incidents, media coverage and visible disorder shape perception far more than annual statistics do.
Which cities are more dangerous than they feel?
Some metro areas rank much higher on police data than on Numbeo. Kamloops has the second-highest crime severity in Canada (126.2) but is 11th on Numbeo. Moncton (105.6, 8th officially, and up 11% in 2025) is 16th on Numbeo, and Edmonton (95.6, 11th) is 18th. Saskatoon and Nanaimo also rank several places lower on Numbeo than on the official index.
At the safe end of the table the two sources agree more closely. Numbeo’s five lowest-scoring Canadian cities are Québec City, Burlington, Ottawa, Montréal and Guelph. On official data, Québec (55.0), Ottawa (50.6), Montréal (61.3) and Guelph (57.8) are all well below the national average, and Halton Regional Police, which covers Burlington, had the lowest CSI of any large Ontario police service (30.61).
Didn’t Maclean’s already rank Canada’s most dangerous places?
Yes. For years Maclean’s magazine published an annual ranking of Canada’s most dangerous places built on the same Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index, covering more than 200 communities of 10,000 people or more, and it was widely quoted by Canadian newspapers and broadcasters. The latest edition we could find was published in 2020, using 2018 data. Since then, most of the “most dangerous cities” lists that rank in search results have switched to Numbeo.
Our most dangerous cities in Canada ranking and our crime rate by city table use the same official source as the Maclean’s ranking did, updated with the 2025 figures released in July 2026. Journalists and researchers can reuse our tables with a link; see our data and embed page.
Which ranking should you trust?
Use Statistics Canada’s Crime Severity Index to compare how much crime is recorded in different cities, and treat Numbeo as a rough measure of how people feel. If you are choosing where to live or study:
- Start with the official numbers: the crime rate and CSI for all 41 metro areas.
- Check the trend, not one year: small metros can move 10% or more in a single year.
- Go down to the neighbourhood. City averages hide large differences between streets. In Toronto, for example, see our crime rate by neighbourhood for all 158 areas.
- Use perception as a prompt, not a verdict. If a city scores high on Numbeo, look at what people are worried about (car theft, downtown disorder) and check that specific type of crime in police data.
Both sources have limits. Police data misses crime that is never reported: in 2019 only about 29% of victimizations were reported to police. And Statistics Canada itself says the CSI is not a universal measure of safety. But a ranking of recorded crime and a ranking of online opinions are different things, and should not carry the same label.
Want this on your phone?
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Numbeo vs Statistics Canada FAQ
Is Numbeo reliable for crime rates?
No, not as a measure of crime rates. Numbeo’s Crime Index is built from an online survey of how safe respondents feel, and Numbeo itself says it may differ from official statistics. For recorded crime in Canada, use Statistics Canada’s Crime Severity Index and crime rate.
Why is Surrey number one on Numbeo?
Surrey has many survey respondents and a high-profile extortion problem that has drawn national attention. On official 2025 data, the Surrey RCMP recorded a CSI of 89.05, above Canada’s 75.0 but below British Columbia’s 92.4 and well below Chilliwack’s 134.3.
What is the most dangerous city in Canada according to official data?
Chilliwack, B.C., with a Crime Severity Index of 134.3 in 2025, followed by Kamloops (126.2) and Red Deer (114.4). See our most dangerous cities in Canada ranking.
Is Hamilton dangerous?
Not by Canadian standards. Hamilton is 9th on Numbeo, but its 2025 CSI of 54.8 was 36th of 41 metro areas and about 27% below the national average (our arithmetic).
Can I use your comparison in an article?
Yes. Please credit Canada Crime Map with a link to this page and cite Statistics Canada as the original data source. Our data page has ready-to-paste tables.
Related: most dangerous cities in Canada, safest cities in Canada, the Crime Severity Index explained, most dangerous cities in Ontario, most dangerous cities in B.C., is Canada safe?, our methodology. In an emergency call 911.