OTTAWA, ON
September 24, 2024
On Sunday, September 22, the National Post released an article entitled, Vancouver police not reporting sexual assaults like other Canadian cities, study says based on MLI’s recent Urban Violent Crime Report.
The National Post article raises an important issue from the report – the lack of data cohesion between Vancouver’s reporting of sexual assaults and the other eighth urban centers studied. However, it fails to note that our report was not referring to Vancouver’s sexual assault reporting to all venues, but specifically to a disparity in the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD’s) reporting of sexual assaults to the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA), the data set relied upon throughout the report.
As stated in the report, “The MCCA is not the only location where municipal violent crime numbers are reported… and violent crime data are eventually reported in Statistics Canada’s provincial incident-based crime statistical tables.”
The MLI report also enumerated some of the benefits of the MCCA data relative to the available data in StatsCan. Among other benefits, the MCCA data is easily accessible, reported quarterly (not annually), and updated promptly.
The MCCA is a valuable tool for independent research, which is why Vancouver’s reporting practices for sexual assaults to the MCCA, compared to the other participating Canadian cities, leave researchers less able to easily evaluate Vancouver’s standing.
The authors of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute report have not taken the position that the Vancouver Police Department has been incorrectly reporting sexual assault data overall. They do, however, hope that Vancouver will join its Canadian counterparts and report to the MCCA in line with Canada’s definition of sexual assault.
