Homelessness in Ontario: Creative Solutions Needed, Not More Planning

 

Urban centres across Ontario and indeed all over Canada are experiencing a wave of homelessness as rents and home prices continue to rise.  The ranks of the homeless not only include those with mental illness with no family or support or urban foragers but working people who despite their incomes and work have been evicted as their units are renovated and higher rents charged and cannot find affordable housing. 

 

In Hamilton, tent encampments are dotting the city and as of December 2022 there are an estimated 1,509 people experiencing homelessness.  In Toronto a somewhat more dated estimates puts the number of homeless people at over 7,000. In Thunder Bay, well over 200 are experiencing homelessness while the number experiencing chronic homelessness is around 600 people.  Encampments in parks and assorted green space in or around downtown areas have become health hazards to the residents in the absence of proper sanitary facilities and in parks the prospect of taking children to play with tents nearby has become understandably  disconcerting for parent.

 

The approaches to dealing with the problem and the strong debates involved are highlighted by what is going on in Hamilton.  The most recent proposal has been a plan to “pitch” tiny homes on Strachan Street East just off the downtown area rather than have sanctioned encampments.  Hamilton councillors have given early support for this revised encampment protocol as a pilot with plans to ultimately set up six such sites that would accommodate about 160 people.   

 

There has of course been debate and opposition because quite frankly, the narrative around this process is misleading because you do not “pitch” a cabin, you erect or build one.  Once you physically build something, it is not temporary but likely to become permanent especially given the torpor and inertia that accompanies most government decision making these days at all three levels of government.  One only need visit other parts of the world to see what a poorly policed or implemented tiny homes program could devolve to: essentially urban shantytowns.

 

Of course, even if such a program is approved, one suspects that given the plethora of plans, regulations, and processes at assorted levels of government, it will take a long and expensive time to get anything done.  After all, Hamilton has been working on a housing and homelessness strategy of various sorts since 2004 and here we are 20 years later and we are still working on solving the problem. If one checks in on Hamilton Housing and Homelessness Action Plan, here is the progress:

 

    May 7, 2018: Housing and Homelessness Action Plan Update

    December 12, 2016: Council receives 2015 and 2016 Report to the Community

    June 24, 2015: Council receives 2014 Report to the Community

    December 9. 2013: Council endorsement of Phase Two

    June 11, 2012: Council endorsement of Phase One

    October 2010: Housing and Homelessness Planning Group was convened to provide guidance to staff in the development of the Housing and Homelessness Action Plan.

    2007: Council approved Everyone Has a Home: A Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness, Hamilton’s first comprehensive plan to address homelessness.

    2004: Council approved Keys to the Home: A Housing Strategy for Hamilton, first housing strategy for the city since amalgamation.

 

Planning as a substitute for action has become an affliction at all levels of government in Canada and Hamilton’s homeless action plan has probably been about as effective in dealing with homelessness as the myriad of northern Ontario economic development plans have been in jump starting the northern Ontario economy. And with three levels of government using federalism not as a cooperative apparatus to tailor programs to local needs but as an excuse for passing the buck, we are a long way from addressing homelessness and housing issues at a national level.

 

What to do? Honestly, there is no quick and easy solution, but solutions do require some creativity, a willingness to work together to solve problems and the will and capacity to move and get something done.  Sometimes that requires a crisis or natural disaster.  Case in point?  The Great Haileybury fire of 1922.  In the fall of 1922, a massive wildfire hit the town of Haileybury in northern Ontario and several surrounding communities killing 43 people and leaving thousands homeless just before the onset of a northern Ontario winter.  The solution, a quick and rapid improvisation that saw 87 streetcars from Toronto being sent up and fitted out with stoves and used as temporary accommodations.

 

Honestly, could such a solution work today?  One imagines that there a lot of retired VIA railcars, TTC streetcars and GO Transit cars lying about that could be repurposed and set up on some of the sites being proposed for permanent encampments or tiny home subdivisions.  Being streetcars rolled in and set up with sanitary facilities, heat, and air conditioning, they would look better than the myriad of tents or tiny cabins being proposed.  And being rail cars on wheels, one might be able to afford the illusion that they are indeed temporary even though all of us know they are going to be around for a long time.  However, being in built up urban areas, they might even be considered a little funky and eventually become part of the landscape in a more palatable way than tents willy-nilly and assorted mounds of garbage.

 

Mark my words, this is not a permanent solution nor should it be but in the absence of any real steps towards effective urban solutions, moving on a solution like this might be the best way to move forward in at least a limited fashion.

 

 

The Rancor of Vrancor

 

I was briefly in Hamilton, Ontario last week and the spillover from the GTA is starting to have an impact on Hamilton’s skyline downtown as new residential construction begins with many more proposed.   Along with some picturesque and redeveloped older buildings that retain their charm, there are entirely new projects on old sites such as the old Kresge building site downtown.

 

 

 

Some of them are indeed quite large with proposals for building ranging from a few to as many as 45 stories.  Many have attracted the rancor of residents in downtown residential neighborhoods as some of the proposed buildings are so large and dense, they effectively will more than double the population of some downtown neighborhoods and cast large dark shadows across leafy neighborhoods.

 

What is more interesting is that given the shortage of housing and the need for urban infill combined with the desire of many not to see valuable farmland filled up with subdivisions, the opposition is actually not anti-development or anti infill.  There is an acceptance that taller or more dense buildings with family sized housing units need to be built.  What is causing concern is that the proposed units violate height restrictions already in place – the scale and intensity of the development – as well as create units that really in the end are not family sized units but tiny condos destined for investors - domestic or otherwise.

 

Now there is a lot going on here and the issue is quite complicated but here is what seems to be going on with respect to several projects at the corner of Queen Street and King being both built and proposed by a company known as Vrancor which along with being a hospitality company is also property management and development company. First there a residence and hotel at the corner of Queen and King currently under construction which appears to have stalled because Vrancor now wants one of the buildings to exceed the height it had originally proposed.  The original proposal was for a 10-storey hotel and six storey apartment building. However, Vrancor has modified that to 12 storey hotel and now wants the six-storey apartment to increase in height from six to 25 storeys. The City of Hamilton has apparently approved the increase for the hotel but the other one is now at the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) and construction has been stalled since and now stands at a 12 storey hotel and a flat base with a construction crane.

 But then, as much as there is a building boom in Hamilton there are also some curiously stalled projects and empty lots with pictures of buildings that will probably never exist.

 

 

 

 

What is even more interesting is the proposal for the parcel of land immediately north of the Vrancor development under construction which is currently a parking lot.  Here the proposal for Vrancor Towers II is for four towers – two of 15 storeys and two of 27 storeys for a total of 762 dwelling units along with 1003 metres of commercial space and 369 parking spaces on top of a three to seven storey base.  Needless to say, this development will dwarf the adjacent residential area of single homes in the Strathcona neighborhood, effectively double its population, add to the infrastructure needs of sewer and water, cast large shadows, and generally create a spate of negative externalities.   

 

So the full scale of the development of four mega towers has attracted protest and debate. The City of Hamilton is apparently instructing its legal counsel to oppose these proposed developments at least at the scale they are intended because they do not comply with their own guidelines regarding transition, height, scale, massing, shadow, and density.  This will inevitably also end up at the OLT.

 

 

 

Given the sudden rush to add to housing stock, these types of situations will become more common across the country.  The need to intensify urban development to accommodate a larger population and preserve green space makes a lot of sense but the scale of what is being proposed seems to be a lot all at once that will overwhelm rather than complement existing uses.  Even politicians who are trying to rapidly “solve” the housing crisis after years of neglect must admit that development needs to increase density and be forward looking but it also needs to recognize the needs of existing residents who have already made investments in the area based on expectations of a certain style and quality of life.  And the residents of the area themselves are not opposed to apartment units but probably wonder why something more European in scope rather than modeled on 1950s Toronto might not be a better fit.

 

In the end, these buildings are not really family sized units but merely stacked little boxes for investors to buy and sell irregardless.  The only good thing is that for the next two years, foreign buyers are facing more restrictions and interest rates are going up.  Never mind pinning your hopes on the OLT to stop the project.  Higher interest rates alone may put an end to some of the more oversized development proposals that have been popping up in Hamilton. 

 

 

A Tale of Two Library Systems

 

As is occasionally my practice, I like to compare the two Ontario Lakeheads – Thunder Bay/The Lakehead at the head of Superior and Hamilton/Head of the Lake at the head of Ontario.  While Hamilton is about five times the population of Thunder Bay, it has a similar industrial and labour past albeit rooted in steel, has transitioned to a knowledge economy over the last two decades given the decline of its traditional manufacturing base, and has issues with poverty and homeless populations who have been setting up camps in local parks.

 

COVID-19 has of course affected both cities with Thunder Bay and its District to date seeing 3,348 cases and 64 deaths and the City of Hamilton itself seeing 21,866 cases and 404 deaths.  In per capita terms, Hamilton has been hit a bit harder than Thunder Bay and its District.  At present, Thunder Bay and its District has 5 active cases while Hamilton has 187.  Thus, the pandemic in Hamilton is seeing an upsurge that to date has not yet reached Thunder Bay.

 

Nevertheless, what is interesting is the different approaches of the two municipally funded public library systems to reopening and reengaging with the rate-paying public. The Hamilton system with its 22 branches beginning July 30 was open for browsing, holds pickup, computer access and use of printers, scanner, fax and Makerspace equipment. New branch hours were Tuesday-Thursday 11AM-7PM and Friday- Saturday 11AM-5PM. The library web site has additional details about services and safety protocols including capacity constraints.  And a stroll outside the main central library entrance in Jackson Square today revealed that patrons were indeed entering the facility.  While things are not normal, there is a semblance of normality back.

 

Which brings me to the Thunder Bay Public library system.  Thunder Bay released its reopening plans on July 27^th and will resume in-person services at two of its branches from 10am to 4pm daily – the two smaller ones – Mary JL Black and County Fair – on September 7th.  The two larger downtown branches are set to reopen with in-person services on September 27^th.  Part of the reason for the later reopening of the two downtown branches according to a statement from the Chief Librarian is because the pandemic has been used as an opportunity to “reset and reimagine” and there are renovations underway at the Waverly and Brodie Branches. 

 

Nevertheless, the slow pace of municipal service resumption in general in Thunder Bay is disappointing.  And in the case of the public library, it is even more disappointing given the importance of the library to the young and old and especially those unable to afford buying books.  Even if renovations are underway, there has been over a year to do them.  One can only imagine why everything in Thunder Bay generally takes longer ranging from reopening services in the wake of COVID to dealing with issues like traffic light synchronization which has been debated for twenty years and will now take four years to implement.    Is everyone off at camp enjoying the summer?  Is the City of Thunder Bay happier keeping its staff at home collecting the federal payments and saving the labour costs so it can add to its “positive variance?” Rather than making sure that services are up and running, the City of Thunder Bay is happiest planning for new initiatives and sending them off for study or hiring lawyers to make sure it does not have to bear any responsibility for the ongoing leaky pipe fiasco which continues to provide unique landscaping and ornament to lawns across the city.

 

Of course, in the case of public libraries, one could always make the case that the public has been well served during the pandemic by libraries going online and providing e-books and other resources.  In this regards, Hamilton is well served with e-resources of 91,864 books, 16,299 audiobooks and 3,444 magazines.  Moreover, through the Hamilton ebook system you can also apparently access ebooks at the Burlington Library and even Ottawa’s. Thunder Bay? Well, there seem to be a lot of magazines available but repeated searches for assorted book titles did not yield as much at least for me.  The stats for Thunder Bay show the same number of magazines but only 43 books and 5 audiobooks.  However this is on the Libby App and Thunder Bay Public Library apparently has another app for e-books.  So, my first foray into e-books found the Thunder Bay approach less streamlined.  Again, Thunder Bay lives up to its motto – Superior by Nature, Inferior in Practice.

 

Naturally, the immediate reaction of the more extreme Thunder Bay Patriot will be to blurt out that if you don’t like it here, you should move to Hamilton.  I would respond, in the age of remote work, that you should be careful what you wish for.

 

 

Employment Growth Snapshot: The Niagara Region

 

Ontario’s economy over the last decade has seen the GTA-Waterloo-Barrie triangle as the province's employment growth engine with the Ottawa region thrown in for good measure.  The rest of the province has seen more differential and often slower employment growth.  While many in northern Ontario might feel that all of southern Ontario is a cornucopia of economic growth it remains that even this  region is not homogeneous.  One interesting region a stone’s throw from the GTA is of course the Niagara region which can be subdivided into the Hamilton area at the head of the lake and St. Catharines-Niagara along the remainder of the Niagara peninsula.

 

Figures 1 and 2 show employment in these two sub regions of Niagara for the period 2006 to 2021.  After almost a decade of stability, Hamilton saw an employment boom after 2016 which saw about 30,000 jobs – an 8 percent increase – added literally overnight.  While there was a drop during the pandemic, the rebound has returned employment to almost where it was during the boom suggesting that this is a permanent expansion in its employment base.  Between 2006 and 2019, St. Catharines-Niagara added about 12,000 jobs – an expansion of 6 percent over a much longer term.  However, the pandemic rebound does not seem to have taken hold in the region and employment now is back where it was over a decade ago.

 

 

 

 

 

This differential performance between two sub-regions adjacent to the GTA is largely a function of Hamilton’s closer proximity to Toronto which is fueling a construction boom in residential development both detached and multi-unit.  The downtown area is seeing numerous high density condominium units and even the rest of the city particularly on the mountain fringe demarked by beyond Rymal Road is seeing residential development.  Of course the continued expansion of residential sub-divisions is causing concern as adjacent farmland is being taken out of service and urban sprawl proceeds.  This of course raises an interesting dilemma as on the one hand, housing has become extremely unaffordable in Hamilton over the last couple of years in part because of supply constraints in the face of increasing demand.

 

However, it is not just all residential construction.  There have been quite a few non-residential projects over the last few years including a new Amazon distribution center currently underway near the airport area, and expanding transport, retail and research facilities. The result is employment growth as Hamilton becomes increasingly integrated into the Mississauga Conurbation stretching from Oshawa-Whitby in the east to Hamilton with feelers stretching down to St. Catharines.  The launch of hourly GO-Train service into Hamilton this month is the final linchpin that will make the city a home to more Toronto based employees.  However, without an expansion in housing supply whether high density infill or new greenfield, housing prices will likely continue to rise.  This risks pricing local residents out of their own city - something that is already happening. 

Municipal Budgets, Facts, Debates and Bullying

 

The 2021 Thunder Bay City budget should finally be ratified this week and getting there has been an interesting process on a number of fronts.  First, is the sudden epiphany that struck city administrators by the fall that business as usual tax levy increases in the 3-4 percent range were not going to work this year given the push back from both business and residential ratepayers.  Second is the rather assertive tone of debate adopted by some councilors in response to presentations and discussion during the budget process.

 

With respect to the actual budget, the initial 2021 budget request came in with a proposed tax levy increase of just over 2 percent.  However, rather than go up from there, which has often been the case in past budget seasons, councilors have managed to whittle it down slightly to 1.83 percent.  Ratepayers in Thunder Bay however should not relax and assume this is a new era whereby the City of Thunder Bay has finally realized its limitations and will begin a new transformative vision of more sustainable municipal government.  Rather, one suspects the long game of the part of Administration is still that this is a short-term one-off event and next year with the pandemic subsiding, it will be time for larger tax increases to recover lost ground.  This will be a mistake given that Thunder Bay needs to engage in a major exercise to bring its costs especially for government administrative services and protection more in line with other jurisdictions.

 

As for the tone of debate, well here we were treated to the spectacle of one councilor effectively interrupting a presentation to vigorously challenge debate the presenter’s facts and opinions rather than ask questions in a manner more akin to a court proceeding rather than a council meeting.  In response to the presenter’s call for a review of police service spending which has accounted for half the tax levy increase since 2018, the councilor in question countered with the immense workload of the Thunder Bay police service in that it had responded to 5,000 incidents which “in his mind” equaled the amount that Toronto officers attended.

 

This in itself was an interesting empirical point given the data for 2019 comparing total criminal code violations excluding traffic reported in Toronto and Thunder Bay provided below in Figure 1.  Needless to say, the total volume of incidents in Toronto vastly exceeds Thunder Bay. However, perhaps the councilor in question was being more nuanced and meant incidents per 100,000 population in which case Thunder Bay comes in at 7,046 and Toronto at 3,471 – at double the rate.  In either case, where the number 5,000 came from and what it really means is probably best answered by the councilor.   

 

 

 

However, if the councilor was trying to make a case supporting the police service, he was certainly not doing them any favors in his presentation of the data and facts.  If one can be permitted yet another colorful marine metaphor, In launching argumentative torpedoes at presenters, the inability of councilors to effectively target and launch runs the risk of sinking their own ship.  While one may think they are conducting an in-depth analysis while floundering under the water, it is probably wiser to begin from well above the surface and first survey the potential hazards.

 

More serious however was the debating of the presenter rather than simply asking questions and what in essence amounted to a form of bullying and badgering the presenter.  Needless to say, this did not go unnoticed by several other councilors and to their credit they did attempt to rein the offending councilor in.  Needless to say, the presenters provide input and answer questions to provide clarification and it is the councilors who are then supposed to debate the evidence amongst themselves rather than engage in self-congratulatory speeches and grandstanding.

 

This is not just a Thunder Bay phenomenon at the municipal level. City councilors and administration in Hamilton, Ontario for example are developing a reputation for being rather pugnacious towards their ratepayers and have been called out for hostile attitudes towards residents appearing before council.   In Hamilton, there is a proposal supported by legal advice from their lawyers and administration to ban public letters critical of city council behavior from the public record of their meetings.  This has prompted concerns that councilors in Hamilton may be trying to shield themselves from criticism. 

 

Of course, in Thunder Bay, the response to criticism or questions on some matters - such as the leaky pipe sodium hydroxide fiasco – is simply to hide behind their lawyers and not answer questions.  It would appear that in both Hamilton and Thunder Bay, lawyers appear to be hard at work in making sure there is less democracy.  Coming on the heels of pandemic lock downs and social distancing that reduce personal and direct access to your representatives, it would appear we have entered a new era of government dictates from on high. And one gets the impression that many politicians do not seem to mind.

Why Makings Things Matters in the Age of COVID: A Tale of Three Cities

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has come with a huge cost in terms of employment loss with the retail, food and accommodation, and travel sectors exceptionally hard hit.  The employment impact in Ontario has been substantial also with total employment falling about 13 percent from February 2020 to June of 2020.  The rebound since June has been insufficient to make up all the employment losses and as of September total employment in Ontario was still about 6 percent lower than February 2020.  The impact has also varied across major cities in Ontario with Kitchener-Waterloo, Thunder Bay and Peterborough and Hamilton hit the hardest whereas Guelph, Brantford, Oshawa and London experienced softer blows.

 

The composition of employment seems to be a factor and this post drills down a bit into the employment composition by broad industry sector – goods and services. The goods sector consists of employment in agriculture, resources, utilities and oil and gas, construction and manufacturing. Everything else ranging from wholesale and retail trade and transport, finance and real estate, health and education to food and accommodation and public administration are the services. 

 

 

 

Figure 1 plots the composition of employment across these two industry sectors for three cities in Ontario: Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Guelph. What is quite interesting is despite their industrial, agricultural and resource extraction histories, Hamilton, Guelph, and Thunder Bay, are now all remarkably service intensive - part of the trend everywhere in high income economies. Hamilton’s goods production sector accounts for 21 percent of employment whereas Thunder Bay is the lowest of the three cities at 17 percent.  However, Guelph on the other hand still has a relatively large share of employment in goods production at 27 percent. 

 

 

 

Figures 2 and 3 plot the percentage change in employment for total, goods, and service sector employment for the three cities for two periods: the onset of the pandemic between January 2020 to May 2020 and the period of employment recovery as the first wave was brought under control from May 2020 to September 2020.  The data is non-seasonally adjusted three-month average monthly employment data from Statistics Canada.  

 

 

 

From January to May, all three cities saw a drop in monthly employment, but Guelph was hit half as hard with a drop of about 6 percent compared to more than twice that for both Hamilton and Thunder Bay.  What is also interesting is the employment hit was harder in Guelph for the goods sector with a 25 percent employment drop compared to 17 percent for Thunder Bay and 13 percent for Hamilton.  However, service employment dropped about 13 percent in both Hamilton and Thunder Bay during the first wave of the pandemic, but Guelph’s was essentially stable.

 

As for the recovery period from the first wave from May to September, all three cities saw employment grow: 4 percent for Hamilton, 9 percent for Thunder Bay and 8 percent for Guelph.  The performance across sectors is more interesting.  Employment in Guelph’s goods sector rebounded robustly growing 57 percent compared to only 21 percent in Hamilton and 26 percent in Thunder Bay.  Construction was the major source of the rebound in all three cities but manufacturing reinforced the rebound in Guelph whereas in Thunder Bay manufacturing employment continued to decline even from May to September.  Services did not recover as well as goods production in all three cities with Guelph actually seeing some service sector employment losses from May to September.  For whatever reason, the service sector job losses in Guelph were delayed compared to the other two cities.

 

What explains this?  Good question but one cannot help but wonder if the CERB played a role.  On average, foods sector jobs are higher paying than service sector ones though where the service jobs are is important- for example, retail and food and accommodation versus health and education.  The CERB kicks in during the pandemic and millions took advantage of it over the summer and into the early fall.  The CERB and its income support may have provided more of a disincentive to return. Having a large goods production sector relative to service sector did not insulate against employment loss in the first wave of the pandemic but may have slowed the rebound in the presence of the CERB. 

Thunder Bay's Exciting New Lottery

 

In its ongoing efforts to be innovative and trend setting, the City of Thunder Bay has inaugurated an exciting new lottery – Lotto Nightmare Pipe Dream.   The price of admission is simply being a property owner in the City of Thunder Bay and there is an annual top up fee known as a property tax.  To win?  You have to have a copper pipe leak either in your home plumbing or – if you are a really big winner – in the city water feed line to your property. The prize?  Well, the prizes range from 0$ - not winning - to up to minus $30,000 dollars or more depending on how big a winner you are.  The odds of claiming a prize are unknown but you can win from anywhere in the city though apparently the odds go up if you are lucky enough to live in the Northwood or Red River Wards.

 

Needless to say, the epidemic of leaky pipes in Thunder Bay in the wake of the introduction of sodium hydroxide to mitigate lead in the water has become the lottery from hell. Despite what might be considered to be the comforting biblical allusion of having a Mayor and 12 Councillors gathered in perpetual Monday evening supper time council meetings presiding over our welfare, they continue to remain silent on the issue with no prospect of the good news of salvation in sight.  Yet, based on the Facebook membership numbers in the Thunder Bay Leaky Pipe Club as well as numerous local media stories, nearly 1500 households have been affected.  The demonstration this week by affected residents is evidence of the growing problem.  And, the numbers will likely grow given that it is quite probable that all pipes in the city have probably had decades of life removed from them by the introduction of sodium hydroxide.  So, even homes in newer subdivisions can probably expect to see cases in years to come.

 

The Mayor and Council are refusing to make any public comment.  They are not even saying if they are studying the issue or collecting data or have hired a water/environmental consulting firm to advise them on the issue.  Simply saying absolutely nothing – which is what the Mayor did at his virtual town hall this week - because of potential legal issues is outrageous given that these are our elected representatives.  There needs to be accountability here – not just by the City of Thunder Bay- but also by the province which has mandated municipalities to take action on lead corrosion but oddly enough has not provided for a uniform approach to the problem.  However, the province  has been reported as stating other cities use sodium hydroxide with no pinhole leak issues suggesting they are washing their hands of the matter.  However, at least one of the cities mentioned by the province in the news report– Ottawa – does not seem to use sodium hydroxide but phosphates as its lead corrosion approach.

 

So, It turns out other cities have also had a lead problem – Toronto and Hamilton for example – but both dealt with it by introducing phosphates into the water supply.  In Toronto’s case phosphate was introduced in 2014 and was even endorsed by Toronto Public Health – to my knowledge there was no endorsement by public health officials in Thunder Bay for adding sodium hydroxide. If there was, I would like to see it.  Hamilton approved the use of orthophosphate in 2015.  Phospates apparently have a long history of use in the UK and along with Toronto and Hamilton, Sudbury and Winnipeg also use it also for lead corrosion control purposes. 

 

Where does this leave us?  In Thunder Bay, there are always more questions than answers and the silence of the mayor and council does not help us out at all. Why did Thunder Bay opt for sodium hydroxide rather than phosphates in treating its water for lead corrosion? Was it a cost issue – that is, we opted for a cheaper chemical?  Was it a water composition issue based on the chemical nature of our existing water supply given that it comes from Lake Superior that necessitated using sodium hydroxide rather than phosphates?  Is adding phosphate a solution to our water issues given that there is at least one example of a community in North America – Folsum, California of Folsum Prison Blues fame - adding it to their water to stop pinhole leaks. We need answers and sooner rather than later. Thunder Bay’s new lottery is not all it is cracked up to be.

 

 

Homicides in Hamilton: Is Hamilton Becoming the Next Thunder Bay?

 

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.