The Crime Severity layer in Safety App shades 419 Canadian cities, towns and regions by how their official Crime Severity Index compares with the national average. It covers areas where about 29.9 million people live, or 80.9% of Canada’s population, and it fills the gap in places where police services do not publish street-level incident data.
Coming soon. Safety App is not in the Canadian app stores yet. This page describes how the Crime Severity layer works in the version being prepared for launch. Safety App is our own product, made by the company that runs this website.
Data: Statistics Canada, Crime Severity Index by police service, 2025 (released 22 July 2026). Levels and smoothed values are our own calculations. Updated 26 October 2026.
Key facts
- Safety App’s Crime Severity layer maps 419 police-service areas where 29.9 million people live, about 80.9% of Canada’s population (October 2026).
- Each area’s value is a 3-year weighted average of its official Crime Severity Index: 50% for 2025, 30% for 2024 and 20% for 2023 (our calculation from Statistics Canada data).
- Places with fewer than 10,000 people use the simple average of the last 5 years, because a few incidents can swing a small town’s index.
- Areas are shown in 4 levels compared with Canada: below average (under 0.75 times the national value), about average, above average and well above average (over 1.75 times).
- Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa and Halifax show street-level police incident data instead of the city-wide shade.
- Example: Victoria, BC has a smoothed value of 160.35 (well above average), while neighbouring Esquimalt has 42.57 (below average).
What the layer shows
Safety App uses two kinds of crime data on the same map, and the legend keeps them apart:
- Recent police incidents. In cities whose police services publish open incident data under a licence that allows it, such as Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa and Halifax, the map shows where reported incidents cluster, street by street.
- Official city-wide index. Everywhere else that has data, the map shows one semi-transparent shade for the whole area served by a police service. The shade tells you whether that area’s Crime Severity Index is below, about, above or well above the Canadian average.
Where incident data exists, the app shows incidents and hides the city-wide shade, so the two are never stacked on top of each other. The shade is visible when you are zoomed out to city level and fades away as you zoom in to individual streets, because a single number for a whole city says nothing about one block.
The “Your area” card
When there are no incident hotspots near you, the app’s area summary card shows the city-wide level instead: the name of the police service, its level compared with Canada, and the years of data behind it. That way you still get an answer in a town without open incident data, rather than an empty map.
The four levels
Each area is compared with Canada’s national value, calculated the same way. The level depends on the ratio between the two:
| Level in the app | Area’s value compared with Canada |
|---|---|
| Below average | Less than 0.75 times the national value |
| About average | 0.75 to 1.25 times |
| Above average | 1.25 to 1.75 times |
| Well above average | More than 1.75 times |
A wide “about average” band is deliberate. Small differences in the Crime Severity Index from one year to the next are often noise, so the app only calls an area above or below average when the gap is clear.
How each area’s value is calculated
The starting point is the Crime Severity Index (CSI) that Statistics Canada publishes for each police service. The CSI weights every reported offence by how serious it is, so one robbery counts for much more than one shoplifting.
A single year can jump because of a few serious incidents, so the app smooths the last three years:
Smoothed value = 0.5 × latest year + 0.3 × previous year + 0.2 × the year before
If a year is missing, it is left out and the remaining weights are rescaled. For places with fewer than 10,000 people, where a handful of incidents can swing the index sharply, the app uses the simple average of the last five years instead.
Worked example: Victoria, BC
The Victoria municipal area, policed by the Victoria Police Department, has these official CSI values:
| Year | CSI | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 161.18 | 0.5 |
| 2024 | 152.17 | 0.3 |
| 2023 | 170.56 | 0.2 |
0.5 × 161.18 + 0.3 × 152.17 + 0.2 × 170.56 = 160.35. That is about twice the national value, so Victoria appears as well above average. Next door, Esquimalt, which the same police department reports separately, has a smoothed value of 42.57 and appears as below average. Two neighbouring municipalities with the same police force can look very different, which is why the layer follows police-service areas instead of painting a whole metro region one colour.
More examples
| Area | Value used | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Victoria, BC | 160.35 (3-year smoothed) | Well above average |
| Goderich, ON | 68.41 (5-year average, small town) | About average |
| Esquimalt, BC | 42.57 (3-year smoothed) | Below average |
| Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional, ON | 33.99 (5-year average, small town) | Below average |
For more city figures, see crime rate in Canada by city, safest towns in Ontario and safest towns in BC.
Coverage
- 419 areas are mapped, home to 29.9 million people, about 80.9% of Canadians.
- Each area is the territory of one police service, built from Statistics Canada’s 2021 census subdivisions. A city with its own police force is one area. A regional service, such as Peel, York or Durham in Ontario, covers all the municipalities it polices.
- On the island of Montréal, all 16 municipalities served by the SPVM share one value, and there the map shows SPVM incident data instead of the shade.
- Not yet covered: most rural areas policed by RCMP, OPP or Sûreté du Québec detachments, and about 40 police services whose territory cannot yet be matched reliably to municipal boundaries. In those places the app says “no data” rather than guessing.
What the layer does not do
- It does not change your route. Safer-route planning avoids recent incident hotspots only. A whole city is never avoided because of its index.
- It does not affect SOS. Alerts to your trusted contacts work the same everywhere.
- It does not rate streets or people. It describes reported crime across a police service area, not any neighbourhood, street or community within it.
- It does not include unreported crime. The CSI counts crime reported to police, and it is published once a year with a delay.
Updates
Statistics Canada releases new police-reported crime data each summer. The current layer uses the 2025 data released on 22 July 2026. The app’s server checks for the new release every day in August and recalculates every area as soon as it appears, so the shades in the app follow the official figures without waiting for an app update.
Source and licence
Adapted from Statistics Canada, police-reported crime statistics by police service, 22 July 2026, and 2021 Census boundary files, under the Statistics Canada Open Licence. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. The smoothed values and levels are our own calculations, not official statistics.
Read more on our methodology and data sources pages, or download the city figures from our data page.
FAQ
What is the Crime Severity Index?
It is Statistics Canada’s measure of police-reported crime that gives more weight to serious offences. Canada’s index was set to 100 in 2006, so a value of 50 means about half the severity-weighted crime of Canada in that base year. Our CSI explainer has the details.
Why does my city show a shade but no hotspots?
Because its police service does not publish open incident data that we are allowed to use. The shade is the best official information available for that city.
Why does Toronto show hotspots instead of a shade?
Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa and Halifax publish open incident data, which is more detailed than a city-wide index. Where that exists, the app shows it. See the Toronto crime map and Montréal crime by neighbourhood.
Is a “below average” area safe?
It means less severity-weighted reported crime than Canada as a whole, averaged over recent years. It cannot tell you about a particular street or moment. Use it alongside your own judgement, and in an emergency call 911.
Is this the same as the metro-area rankings on this site?
Not quite. Our city rankings mostly use census metropolitan areas, which combine a city and its suburbs. The app layer uses police-service areas, which are smaller and follow the boundaries of each police force, so the numbers can differ. Our methodology page explains the difference.
Learn more about the app’s other features, safer routes and SOS, on the Safety App page.