Crime and public safety: the campaign’s major blind spot?

Is crime truly increasing in Quebec? The short answer is more complicated than the impression created by the daily news. The latest complete data show an overall decline in 2025. They also show an increase in Quebec’s youth crime rate, while organizations serving women describe an exceptionally deadly year. That contrast could have supported a serious public debate. Instead, after three debates involving the five main party leaders, justice, victims’ rights and public safety remained almost entirely outside the campaign’s central discussion. On September 25, host Benoît Dutrizac devoted an extended QUB interview to that absence with Miriam Pomerleau, executive director of the Association des familles de personnes assassinées ou disparues (AFPAD). The exchange asks a legitimate question: why did the leaders have so little to say about crime, femicide, justice and support for victims? But that political question must be separated from a much broader claim—that crime as a whole is rising. The available statistics do not support such a blanket conclusion. ## Overall crime declined in 2025, but not every category did According to [Statistics Canada](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260722/dq260722a-eng.htm), Quebec’s Crime Severity Index stood at **61.6 in 2025**, down **5.1%** from 2024. The police-reported crime rate also fell by **3.9%**, to **3,673 incidents per 100,000 people**. Even the violent Crime Severity Index edged down by **0.9%**, following increases in earlier years. The Institut de la statistique du Québec also reports that the volume and severity of police-reported crime in the province declined by **23% between 2009 and 2024**. Those figures rule out the claim that everything is getting worse. They do not mean public concern is fabricated. An overall index combines very different phenomena. A sharp decline in break-and-enters or vehicle theft can conceal an increase in another, more specific category. At the Canadian level, for example, Statistics Canada reports that shoplifting rose **11% in 2025** and **79% from 2015 to 2025**, even as the overall index fell. Fraud also remained much more frequent than a decade earlier despite an annual decline. Police data have another important limitation: they measure incidents brought to police attention. Statistics Canada notes that reporting behaviour, police practices and available resources all affect the numbers. In the latest victimization survey cited by the agency, about **29%** of incidents experienced by Canadians or their households had been reported to police. The overall decline is therefore real within the available data, but it cannot capture every victim’s experience or every neighbourhood’s situation. ## The “70%” figure is imprecise—but the warning behind it is serious At 17:12 in the interview, Benoît Dutrizac says he read that crime among minors had increased by **70%**. He does not identify the source, territory, time period or type of offence. We found no primary data supporting that figure for youth crime as a whole across Quebec. The closest recent figure instead concerns **urban violence in Quebec City**. According to Service de police de la Ville de Québec data reported on September 14, the number of investigation files rose from **287 in 2024 to 474 in 2025**, an increase of **65.2%**. It would nevertheless be inaccurate to turn that local increase in all urban-violence files into a 70% rise in crimes committed by minors. The detailed figures are still troubling. In Quebec City, **97 of the 474 files in 2025 involved minors**, or 20%. During the first seven months of 2026, minors were involved in **84 of 271 files**, or 31%. Of the 371 people arrested during that latter period, **76 were under 18**. The SPVQ also described a case in which a minor had a loaded firearm while a group was allegedly preparing to carry out a contract for violence. The youth involved in the recent incidents cited by police were between **13 and 17 years old**. Laval has reported a similar warning sign. During the first quarter of 2025, youth aged 14 to 17 were involved in **41% of urban-violence files**, compared with 20% during the same period in 2024. Between January 2024 and March 2025, one in five suspects or arrested individuals in files involving real firearms was a minor. Police said that, in the large majority of cases, these firearm incidents arose from conflicts between criminalized groups. The recruitment described by police is not hypothetical. The [SPVM officially warns](https://spvm.qc.ca/fr/Fiches/Details/Exploitation-criminelle-des-jeunes) that criminalized groups use Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Telegram and gaming platforms to offer paid “missions” to young people, including arson, extortion, vehicle theft and **firearm discharges**. Its prevention material directs readers to a campaign aimed at youth aged **13 to 15**. These figures do not prove that every Quebec school has become unsafe or that recruitment necessarily occurs inside schools. They do show that very young minors are being targeted and used to commit serious offences. Safety around schools, access to youth workers, street outreach, digital prevention and ways for young people to leave gangs are therefore concrete election issues. Province-wide, Quebec’s overall youth crime rate increased by **4.1% in 2025**, reaching **3,364 incidents per 100,000 youth**, while the Canadian rate fell by 3.8%. The sound conclusion is not that “youth crime rose by 70% everywhere in Quebec.” It is that the overall provincial increase conceals much sharper local concentrations and documented involvement by minors in gun violence. ## Seventeen femicides counted before the end of September The most serious warning raised by the video concerns violence against women. On September 19, five feminist and Indigenous women’s organizations held a [national march against femicide](https://www.maisons-femmes.qc.ca/marche-contre-les-feminicides-et-les-violences-faites-aux-femmes-cinq-associations-feministes-et-de-femmes-autochtones-appellent-la-population-et-les-partis-politiques-a-se-mobiliser-pour-repondre-a/). Their tally identified **17 femicides since the beginning of 2026**, including **14 in an intimate-partner context**. Three victims were Inuit or First Nations women. “Femicide” is not a separate Criminal Code category. Counts can therefore vary by definition and update date. The QUB video mentions a 19th femicide, but we did not locate an independently documented list confirming that new total as of September 25. The figure we can establish is 17, dated September 19 and published by the five organizing groups. Several hundred people attended the march. The organizers explicitly called on political parties four days before the final leaders’ debate. Accounts published afterward said Québec solidaire was the only party represented and Ruba Ghazal the only party leader in attendance. Missing a march does not prove that a party is indifferent to violence against women. It is nonetheless an agenda choice when a national event directly invites political parties during an election campaign. ## Three debates, almost no room for justice AFPAD’s criticism is not based on impression alone. The first two debates, broadcast by TVA and Noovo, devoted more than three and a half hours to affordability, health care, housing, education, transportation, the economy, immigration and Quebec’s constitutional future. Our review had already identified **justice and public safety as issues left at the margins**. Radio-Canada’s final debate on September 23 was organized around five announced themes: Quebec’s future, economic insecurity, the fiscal challenge, children and health care. Crime and victims’ rights were not a dedicated theme. The word “absent” should still be used carefully. A brief mention or related answer may have occurred. The verifiable finding is that no substantial exchange allowed voters to compare all five leaders on the same issues: organized-crime prevention, intimate-partner violence, victim support, court delays, repeat offending, corrections and Quebec’s role in seeking Criminal Code reform. Responsibility is shared. Broadcasters choose themes and questions. Leaders can also raise an issue they consider important even when moderators do not put it on the agenda. ## Victims, IVAC and figures that still need verification Miriam Pomerleau is calling, among other measures, for a Quebec victims’ rights charter. Since July 2026, the [Canadian Victims Bill of Rights](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-23.7/) lists six rights: respect, timely justice, information, protection, participation and restitution. Quebec also operates the crime-victim compensation system known as IVAC. A reform that took effect in 2021 broadened eligibility, removed the application deadline for intimate-partner, sexual and childhood violence, and created emergency financial assistance. After one year, the Quebec government said **6,700 additional people** had received compensation and that the average eligibility-decision time had fallen from **123 to 38 days**. AFPAD now describes a much more difficult reality: lengthy delays, benefits ending while some criminal proceedings remain unresolved, and insufficient support for people with low incomes. The interview says the number of pending files rose from **3,080 in July 2023 to 18,500 in July 2026**. We did not find those two figures in an accessible primary publication. They should be confirmed with IVAC or an official response before being presented as established fact. That verification matters. More applications can result from more violence, greater awareness, broader eligibility, an administrative backlog or several of those factors at once. The number alone cannot measure crime trends. ## Some legal claims in the video also require nuance The anger expressed in the interview is not a substitute for the applicable law. Second-degree murder carries a life sentence. Parole eligibility is set between **10 and 25 years**. Day parole can be sought during the three years before that eligibility date, making an application after seven years theoretically possible when the minimum period is ten years. Release is neither automatic nor the end of the sentence: it must be granted and remains subject to conditions and supervision. In multiple-murder cases, every conviction remains a life sentence. Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 *Bissonnette* decision, 25-year parole-ineligibility periods can no longer be stacked in a way that eliminates any realistic possibility of release. The Court held that ineligibility for 50, 75 or 150 years amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Describing the current system as simply “one sentence” therefore erases the difference between multiple convictions and the concurrent service of their parole-ineligibility periods. The claim that there is no mandatory minimum for procuring involving an adult is accurate under the current section 286.3 of the Criminal Code: the offence carries a maximum of 14 years with no mandatory minimum. When the victim is under 18, the mandatory minimum is five years. These distinctions do not diminish victims’ suffering. They allow political choices to be stated honestly: should lawmakers change sentences, release conditions, supervision, procedural rights or victim services? And which change actually falls under the authority of Quebec, Parliament, the courts or parole boards? ## The real election issue: comparable answers from every party The QUB video is right about one central point: public safety, victims and justice deserved a much larger place in this campaign. It does not establish that crime is rising uniformly. Quebec recorded an overall decline in 2025 while youth crime increased and women’s organizations documented a series of femicides they describe as a national crisis. Those facts can all be true at once. Before voting day, the five main parties should answer the same questions: 1. Which forms of crime do they consider priorities, based on what data and in which areas? 2. How much would they invest in prevention, street outreach, shelters and victim-support organizations? 3. What changes would they make to IVAC, with what measurable service standards? 4. What precise Criminal Code and parole reforms would they ask Ottawa to adopt? 5. How would they publicly report outcomes, delays and reoffending without reducing safety to a slogan? The debates’ silence does not mean the parties have no positions. It means voters have not yet received a complete comparison. With nine days remaining before the October 5 election, there is still time to demand one.