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Kelowna Crime Rate Highest In Canada

The City Topping Canada's Crime Rate Is..
Castanet

This is one competition no city in Canada wants to win: Canada's crime rate statistics for 2012 were released Thursday, with Kelowna, B.C. taking the top spot.

Kelowna, in B.C.'s Interior, saw its crime rate rise by 6 per cent over 2011. There were 8,875 crimes per 100,000 people.

The news puts Regina (the city reporting the highest rate for the previous four years) into second place.

Incoming Kelowna RCMP chief, Inspector Nick Romanchuk, spoke to local media Thursday.

"I am not here to make excuses. The numbers are what they are and we will build on it from here," Castanet.net quoted Romanchuk.

Though the overall crime rate was up, the rate for violent crime in the city fell by three per cent.

“It’s property crime," RCMP spokesperson Constable Kris Clark told The Vancouver Sun. "Break and enters have gone up. Theft from motor vehicles have gone up.

The overall crime rate for the province was down two per cent over 2012, with Vancouver's rate dropping two per cent and Victoria seeing a big decline of seven per cent.

“These consistent reductions in violent crime in Vancouver are a great credit to the leadership of the VPD and the countless neighbourhood volunteers who work to make our communities even safer and more livable for everyone,” Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a press release.

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