Manitoba’s homicide rate highest among Canadian provinces

Police lights are shown in this file photo.

New data from Statistics Canada shows the number of homicides across the country decreased in 2023 compared to 2022; however, Manitoba continued to lead the way for homicides per 100,000 people.

In 2023, there were 778 homicides throughout Canada, which was 104 fewer than 2022.

This helped drop the homicide rate to 1.94 per 100,000—the lowest rate since 2019.

Despite the drop, there were 173 gang-related homicides, which still accounted for around a quarter of all homicides in the country.

However, this was down from 2022, when there were 204 gang-related homicides.

Intimate partner violence homicides also dropped from 103 to 67, but the data shows women were still the main victims in these incidents. Of those 67 deaths, 73 per cent of the victims were women, Stats Canada found.

Racialized groups continued to be impacted the most by this, with 30 per cent of all victims identifying with a racialized group. As well, over one in four homicide victims were Indigenous in 2023, which is only slightly down from 2022.

The homicide rate among Indigenous people is 9.31 per 100,000.

Where Manitoba ranks 

Looking at the provincial breakdown, Manitoba dealt with 74 homicides in 2023, down from 89 in 2022.

Manitoba had far fewer deaths compared to provinces like Ontario, B.C., and Alberta, but the homicide rate was much higher.

Manitoba had a rate of 5.09 per 100,000, which led the way for all provinces and was only behind Northwest Territories (13.34) and Yukon (8.89) for all of Canada.

The 5.09 is the third highest rate in Manitoba since 2014, only behind the 6.30 in 2022 and 5.40 in 2019.

Manitoba's lowest rate in the last 10 years was 2016 at 3.27.

Winnipeg also had one of the highest homicide rates for all census metropolitan areas. Winnipeg saw a rate of 5.04 per 100,000, which was second to Thunder Bay's 5.39.

However, there was a significant drop for the city going from 53 to 45 homicides—a rate of 6.21 in 2022.