Medicine Hat Media

Medicine Hat is One of the Most Dangerous Canadian Cities

*UPDATE: The following isn’t exactly true in the blanket categorization of “Most Dangerous” as revealed by Brian, read on to the comments to find out more information. Furthermore, there was murders that happened in 2009 within Medicine Hat.*

National Media Magazine, MacLeans, has ranked Medicine Hat number 3 in there new rankings for Canada’s most dangerous cities with 159.96% above the national average.

In it’s latest results released Friday, Medicine Hat sits under Abbotsford, BC, and Thunder Bay, ON. But there is still a catch, they based all they’re information on 1.8 murders per 100 000 people for 2009.

Someone with the alias “Trevor in the Hat” posted this comment about it, as he has done the math:

The city I live in, Medicine Hat AB is listed as the third highest for murder. Now my math is horrible but let’s see if I can roughly figure this out. We are listed as having 159.96% compared to the national average of 1.8 murders per 100,000 people. That makes us at about 2.88 per 100,000 people. The official census for Medicine Hat in 2009 was 61,000 people, once again using my horrible math skills this works out to about 2 murders in 2009 and yet we are listed as more dangerous than Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver etc which have a dozen or more murders per year?

Trevor is completely correct, no murders occurred in Medicine Hat in 2009, so how can we be approximately 144% above Calgary for example?

They’re is a huge tie for the least dangerous city in Canada, with one of those 31 that have tied being St. Albert. Lethbridge sits in 49th place with a -39.16% difference.

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User Comments

7 Responses to “Medicine Hat is One of the Most Dangerous Canadian Cities”

  1. October 17th, 2010 at 8:48 PM


    Brian says:

    Medicine Hat is listed as the third most dangerous Canadian city in the category of homicides. Overall we are ranked 47th.

    Medicine Hat had three murders last year. I wish I had the names but could not find them. However, on page 10 of the MHPS 2009 Annual Report you will see mentioned that we had three murder cases that all resulted in charges being laid:
    http://www.medicinehatpolice.com/docs/2009MHPSAnnualReport.pdf

    I’ve already heard numerous people say (or tweet) that we were ranked the third most dangerous city. It’s not really true.

  2. October 17th, 2010 at 8:55 PM


    Brian says:

    Here’s the link for the actual ranking overall:

    http://www2.macleans.ca/canadas-most-dangerous-cities-the-rankings/

    I understand why people may be confused because on the homicide page there is a scary black button with “Most dangerous cities” ominously written in blood red above the chart. It’s not actually a title but a button to take you to the main page.

  3. October 20th, 2010 at 12:18 PM


    Brian says:

    I’m a little surprised that a post that has an error in virtually every sentence is still up. I admit to not knowing exactly all the murders that took place. I think someone should consider removing this post all together. Not trying to be confrontational or demanding… just a suggestion.

    Darcy was a murder victim in 2009. It doesn’t feel like it happened in 2009:
    http://www.medicinehatpolice.com/news/2009/090528-014186.html
    http://www.medicinehatmedia.com/2009/05/man-was-murdered-another-injured/

  4. October 20th, 2010 at 3:08 PM


    Vaughn says:

    Brian,

    I believe in being completely transparent in every regard. This is why I added a statement in the posting commenting on your comment; however, since your last comment, I have since made it bolder and moved it to the top where it could attract more eyes – hopefully this works for you.

  5. October 20th, 2010 at 3:13 PM


    Brian says:

    Thank you Vaughn,
    It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when someone demands something from a website that is providing a service for free so I hope it came across as I intended. I didn’t notice you added the update before if it was there when I commented. Sorry.

    Your solution is indeed quite appropriate and better than the one I suggested.

    Thanks Vaughn.

  6. October 20th, 2010 at 3:43 PM


    Scott says:

    Thank you for correcting me on this information Brian. To everyone else, I apologize for any confusion.

    However, according to “Trevor in the Hat” if it puts us at about 2 murders for our city in 2009, we were actually at total of 3, as Brian put out there. Shouldn’t Medicine Hat be sitting at 50% above the national average?

  7. July 23rd, 2012 at 3:11 PM


    Chad says:

    There is at least one murder in medicine hat each year,Sadly, this city is money bent and only reports things as they deem neccessary. Also, to be quite clear as day, the census does not actually report each person. The fact of the matter is, there are 1000’s of immigrants living here that are not accounted for. There is more than likely over and above 100 thousand people at any given moment living in Medicine Hat; including, members in my, not so immidiate family, who have never given their information to census canada. If you look at the history of Medicine Hat, and being itis such a small town, even if that number was right that there are 61000 people living here, one or 2 a yaer is far more than a city of 100,000 people. That means, if we were at that amount, we would have at least 3 times the amount of murders. When they do their statistics they average it the same as such, that is why we are 3rd. Pretty sad, but true. Sorry, didn’t mean to burst the mathmaticians bubble, but I being a graduate in calculous, even know that that person is figuring his math wrong.

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