Safest Cities in Canada

Canada's safest cities ranked by the CrimeMaps Severity Score (CMSS), a severity-weighted crime rate modelled on Statistics Canada's Crime Severity Index methodology. Lower CMSS = fewer and less-severe crimes per 100,000 residents. Covers 5 Canadian cities with sufficient data coverage.

Top 20 safest cities in Canada (2026)

Safest cities ranked ascending by CrimeMaps Severity Score — 2026 data
# City Province CMSS Incidents Population Latest year
1 Medicine Hat AB 37,246 1,324 63,260 2026
2 Victoria BC 65,513 2,174 91,867 2026
3 Lethbridge AB 82,080 1,767 98,406 2026
4 Saskatoon SK 99,958 4,847 266,141 2026
5 Gatineau QC 383,372 14,388 291,041 2026

How we rank safest cities

Each city's latest-year CMSS is computed from incidents per category × Statistics Canada's published 2006-base severity weights, divided by 2021 Census population × 100,000. See the full methodology. Cities with fewer than 1000 reported incidents in the latest year are excluded from the ranking because their coverage is too sparse to compare fairly.

Related rankings

Frequently asked questions

What makes a city "safe" on this ranking?

A lower severity-weighted incident rate per 100,000 residents. We weight each category using Statistics Canada's UCR2 severity weights — a homicide counts for 7,042 weight-units while a minor theft counts for 37. Fewer weighted incidents per capita = a higher safety rank.

How does this differ from Statistics Canada's CSI?

Statistics Canada publishes CSI annually from the UCR2 survey. CrimeMaps Severity Score uses the same formula applied to municipal open-data sources at our own update cadence — we can publish monthly rolling numbers that StatCan's annual cycle cannot.

Why are some Canadian cities missing?

Cities with fewer than 1000 reported incidents in the latest year aren't ranked — not enough data to compare fairly. Every city with full data is indexed individually at /city/[name].