On Friday, October 24, the Vancouver Board of Trade issued a report and news release on property crime in Vancouver. It received extensive coverage in the Vancouver Sun on both Saturday and Monday, and it received attention in the BC legislature during question period on both Monday and Tuesday when Joy MacPhail questioned Premier Campbell's interpretation of the statistics.

The following table provides data from Statistics Canada. It may be a useful reference for the debate on crime statistics.

On Monday, Campbell said "In the first quarterly report in 2003, the crime summary pointed out that the peak of property crime in British Columbia was 86.7 offences per thousand people - in 1996. In 2002, that is down to 64.9 offences per thousand people." He went on to claim that property crime declines "... with the decline in income assistance caseloads." On Tuesday, MacPhail read from the BC government's own report on police and crime that is available on the Solicitor General's website at http://www.pssg.gov.bc.ca/police_services/publications/index.htm. Contrary to the claims by Campbell, his government's report shows that property offences declined from 88.95 in 1992 to 63.91 in 2000 before rising to 64.51 in 2001. Updated numbers for 2002 were just released by Statistics Canada on Monday; they report a further rise to 64.88 property crimes per 1,000 population. (There are minor differences in the numbers reported by the Solicitor General's Ministry and by Statistics Canada.)

The numbers used by Campbell and MacPhail are both correct but Campbell's spin is way off the mark. It is true that the crime rate was 86.7 in 1996 and that it was down to 64.9 in 2002, but as MacPhail pointed out the rate was higher in 1992 and it bottomed out at 63.9 in 2000 before rising again in the New Era. It is impossible to find any support for the wild claim by Campbell that crime goes down when income assistance caseloads decline, unless one means crime goes down when the economy improves. In the New Era, people are being denied income assistance as the economy worsens! Even police forces are saying that they expect crime to increase when more people are denied assistance in April 2004.

Anyone who examines the last two or three year's worth of news releases from the Vancouver Board of Trade might mistake the Board for either being a clone of the Fraser Institute or a cheerleader for the Campbell government or both. That is why it was surprising on Monday to hear Solicitor General Rich Coleman respond to a question from Jenny Kwan regarding the Board's recent Vancouver crime report by saying "I think that, first of all, the board of trade, when they put out a report, should give us an opportunity to actually review it when they…. …I think it's a bit irresponsible for the board of trade to compare us to Miami when the stats read that way." On Tuesday Coleman further put his foot in his mouth by responding to MacPhail's correction of Campbell's inaccurate crime statistics by attacking the reliability of crime statistics. Perhaps the Solicitor General should read the material on his Ministry's website.

Maybe Tuesday's attempt to cover for his boss was an effort to make up for Monday when a few seconds after Coleman attacked the Board of Trade, Campbell answered a further question from Kwan with a preamble saying "First, we welcome the board of trade's report. It's comprehensive and it's thoughtful."

Despite Campbell's misleading interpretation of the crime statistics, the government bench appeared to have prepared for questions regarding the Board of Trade's report. On Monday even the Secretary of State for Mental Health, Gulzar Cheema, rather than filibustering as usual, muttered through a prepared statement in answer to Kwan's question about the government's cuts to mental health programs.

Cheema claimed that the Campbell government had already implemented the Board's recommendation to improve services for people who live with both an addiction and mental illness. By implication, Cheema, like Coleman, was saying that the Board got it wrong. Prior to the New Era mental health expenditures were a separate line item in the provincial budget. It is now impossible to find any financial information from either the health authorities or the Ministry of Finance that says how much is being spent on mental health. There is anecdotal evidence from people who know that day centres and other supports have been forced to close and mental health teams have seen staff reduced. The Board of Trade's report said "Better means should be established to deal with the substantial proportion of drug addicts in the Downtown Eastside who also have mental health problems (dual diagnosis)." It also said that there are an estimated 34,000 people with "dual diagnosis", half of whom are in the Downtown Eastside, but there are only six long term care beds specifically for people with dual diagnosis. Cheema must be the only person working in mental health who doesn't know about the inadequacy of treatment resources.

The Board's report also said:

"The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority also has a Dual Diagnosis Program, created in 1996. In 2000, the program treated 800 people, with four full-time staff and one part-time employee. Clients are referred to the program from detox centres, mental health teams, hospitals, general practitioners, psychiatrists and residential treatment centres. According to the co-ordinator of the program, there is a six to eight week wait to get into the program. Even with more staff, they would be unable to cope with the enormity of the problem." (paragraph 5.3)

It is hard to follow the puck in this game. The statistics are confusing, since contrary to the Board's report, data from Statistics Canada show that the property crime rate in the City of Vancouver has declined from 102.33 per 1,000 population in 1992 to 72.96 in 2000. After a slight increase in 2001, it further declined to 70.67 in 2002. That rate is too high, 9% higher than the provincial rate, but it was declining until stalling in the New Era.

Solving concerns over property crime will require agreement on the basic facts. It appears that the Campbell government is in denial and not willing to face the facts.