There have been a number of high-profile
homicides in Hamilton and surrounding parts over the last few months with
an estimated 12 homicides to date in Hamilton alone. With nearly three months to go, 2020 is shaping
up to see Hamilton’s largest homicide total since 2013 when there 15
homicides. This inevitably sparks
comparisons to other urban centres and Thunder
Bay inevitably comes to mind because of its recent issues with homicides,
but also because in many respects, the two communities share similarities.
Hamilton and Thunder Bay are both “lakeheads” with Hamilton
at the head of Lake Ontario while Thunder Bay is at the head of navigation on
Lake Superior. They both have histories as
gritty industrial towns, saw the shedding of middle-class industrial jobs and several
decades of economic hardship, and have social and poverty issues with segments
of their populations. Both have had
issues with inequality, racism, and the lack of housing for marginalized and homeless people.
However, there are also major differences. Hamilton is a larger urban centre clocking in
at over 500,000 people whereas Thunder Bay hovers at about 120,000. Hamilton’s population has been growing over
the last two decades while Thunder Bay’s has not. Hamilton’s economy has also been
undergoing a substantial period of economic rejuvenation that has been creating
jobs and investment. Building permits
have been up three years in a row and Amazon recently announced a new
distribution centre on the Mountain creating 1500 new jobs. Hamilton’s downtown is booming with construction
projects.
Prior to the pandemic, the Conference Board for 2020
projected strength in non‐residential construction, in professional services,
and in the finance, insurance, and real estate industry and expected real GDP
growth of 1.7 per cent in Hamilton in 2020. The projection for Thunder Bay by
comparison was for growth by 0.7 per cent in 2020, with only modest growth in
the manufacturing and construction sectors.
But coming back to the main event, is Hamilton going to
supplant Thunder Bay as the murder capital of Canada? Figure 1 plots the total
annual number of homicides in Hamilton and Thunder Bay over the period 1981 to
2020 as obtained from Statistics Canada (1981 to 2018) and from media reports
to date for 2019 and 2020. Being a much
larger city in terms of population, Hamilton can be expected to have more
homicides, but the gap has narrowed over time.
In 2012 and 2014, Thunder Bay actually managed more homicides than
Hamilton. Moreover, when a linear trend
is fitted to the data, Hamilton has shown a distinct downward trend over time
while Thunder Bay has shown the opposite.
The difference in the scale of the problems facing the two
cities is even more apparent when homicides per 100,000 of population are
examined in Figure 2. From 1981 to about
2007, the two cities track each other with a downward trend though Thunder Bay
often exceeds Hamilton once homicides are adjusted for population size. However, there is a strong divergence after
2007 with Thunder Bay’s homicide rate soaring while Hamilton’s essentially
flatten out based on the trend line (which is a polynomial fit this time to
take into account the U-shaped nature of Thunder Bay’s data). Indeed, the
estimated homicide rates for 2020 to date per 100,000 population are 2.1 for
Hamilton and 6.8 for Thunder Bay.
It
would appear that Hamilton is nowhere near wresting away Thunder Bay’s crown as
the murder capital of Thunder Bay this year. Of course, one wonders if policing
resource difference is factor, but that will be another post. Stay tuned and
stay safe.
