Poll perceptions defy high crime rates
More than half of provincial residents believe Regina, Saskatoon safe: survey
Despite having some of the highest crime and homicide rates in the country, a recent poll shows more than 50 per cent of Saskatchewanians feel the province’s two major cities are safe places.
But nationally, Saskatoon and Regina rank low on perceived safety when compared among 15 major Canadian cities, coming in at 12 and nine respectively.
Conducted by Mainstreet Research, a polling firm based out of Montreal, the poll consulted more than 2,000 adults across Canada.
It found that 55 per cent of Saskatchewanians felt Saskatoon was either very safe or somewhat safe, and 57 per cent said Regina was very safe or somewhat safe. This is despite Regina and Saskatoon having the two highest crime rates of the 15 major Canadian cities.
According to David Valentin, executive vice-president of Mainstreet Research, there are several factors that may contribute to the varying perceptions of safety in Saskatchewan.
“How safe or unsafe a city is, is all relative to how safe or unsafe you think the rest of the country is,” said Valentin. “We make a lot of assumptions about our friends and neighbours.”
Valentin said Regina and Saskatoon’s perceived safety by residents in the province may be because most of the population doesn’t reside in those two major cities and are removed from the crime that occurs in them. He said there is also a natural tendency to believe your province is safer than others.
“People probably believe things are better in Saskatchewan than they are compared to the rest of the country, and think the rest of the country is doing a little worse,” said Valentin. He said it’s also easy to assume there are more safety issues in larger cities like Toronto.
However, Manitoba and Alberta had a slightly gloomier outlook. Only 39 per cent of Manitobans felt Saskatoon was very safe or somewhat safe, and only 40 per cent felt Regina was very safe or somewhat safe. Forty-six per cent of Albertans felt Saskatoon was very safe or somewhat safe, and 48 per cent felt Regina was very safe or somewhat safe.
Valentin said Manitoba and Alberta’s proximity to Saskatchewan may give them a more realistic perception of safety in Regina and Saskatoon, because of overlapping news coverage and the number of Saskatchewanians who have moved to neighbouring provinces.
“There was until very recently ... a lot of people leaving the province to look for opportunity elsewhere and so those people would, along with them, take their media consumption habits,” said Valentin. Those consumption habits can influence the perception they have of safety in Saskatchewan cities.
On the other hand, Valentin said B.C. and Ontario’s more positive perception of safety in Saskatoon and Regina as per the poll, may be due to the fact that local crime news does not make its way that far west or east.
“You can have no information on Saskatchewan and still come to the conclusion that you think Regina is safe or that it’s unsafe,” said Valentin.
However, Valentin said no survey could ever identify why people perceive the way they do because there are so many variables in our day to day lives that influence our opinions.
In the end, Valentin said, “we know very little about what’s happening in communities that we’re not a part of in Canada” and so misconceptions can happen.
He said the main reasons for the poll is to get a sense of what people are thinking.
The poll was conducted from August 14-18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.16 per cent, 19 times out of 20 for the total.
People probably believe things are better in Saskatchewan than they are compared to the rest of the country …