Question by Hail The Monolith: My country is odd… “Canada”?
Why is it that there are such high crime rates in the territories? Nunavut alone in 2009 had a higher violent crime average than the whole country. It was said that the per-capita rate of sexual assaults in the territory would make headlines in any U.S. inner city.

Like I am sure I generally understand that since they are territories they have something like their own Inuit government in place. But I am not sure it seems like in school we never went in depth on really why there are territories and whats separate them from provinces other than they dont have a crown and they derive their mandates and powers from the federal government not the constitution act like provinces.

But could that really have something to do with it? Or could it be some sort of cultural clash? And if its so bad how come we never hear about it? I mean I found this out by accident well searching around on google and even than there wasnt much info other than that it was high.

Thanks in advance

Best answer:

Answer by Randy Bentley
It is because South Americans are discovering that there is no more opportunity for them in America. So now they are going to Canada to hopefully get a job that allows them to live five families to a two bedroom house. Much easier than staying in their own damn country and trying to make it better.

Answer by bw022
The three Canadian territories have populations which are so small that they make statistics almost meaningless. We are talking 41,000, 33,000 and 31,000 people respectfully. In addition, their demographics is so rural that direct comparisons to other provinces and US states just don’t make any sense.

If someone gets drunk in Vancouver and shoots someone… it doesn’t really affect the crime rate much. If one person does that in Whitehorse, the murder rate jumps by 3 per hundred thousand.

The territories also have really strange demographics which provinces (as a whole) do not have. The territories have huge numbers of non-permanent residents, have disproportionately large numbers of young men (i.e. miners, oil workers, etc.), disproportionately lower educational standards (young professionals tend to leave for universities in the south), extremely high rates of firearm ownership, etc. The population also has large numbers of first nations people and issues with education and unemployment (as many don’t head to the south), policing (such large areas), etc.

If you started taking rural areas in BC, Alberta, northern Ontario, Labrador, etc. you’d start seeing similar numbers.

The high crime rate in the territories is not a result of federal powers, governance, etc. It’s a result of extremely low populations in extremely large rural areas — with the related demographic issues.

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