City Mayor Morris Flewwelling isn’t reading much into the City’s latest ranking on Maclean’s Magazine which pegged Red Deer as the fourth dangerous city in Canada.

According to Maclean’s, Red Deer is 71.3% above the national average in terms of crime rates. The City ranked fourth out of 100 municipalities with Prince George, Victoria and Saskatoon on top.

“Certain stats that show up indicate we have an issue with auto theft, family violence and break and enters. We already knew that.”

Maclean’s obtained the crime data from Statistics Canada for the country’s 100 largest municipalities. Using 2010 rates per 100,000 people for six crimes including homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, vehicle theft, robbery and breaking and entering in each area, the magazine calculated the percentage difference from the national rate.

In terms of the City showing a high volume of reported family violence cases, Flewwelling attributes that to the family violence prevention program in Red Deer.

“We are leading the province with that program and because that program is known to Red Deerians, those affected by family violence report it.”

He added the high number in criminal activity such as auto thefts and break and enters could be attributed to Red Deer being situated between Calgary and Edmonton,

“We see a lot of effects from the transient drug trade.”

Flewwelling added although he is somewhat concerned about the City’s ranking overall, he is taking the results with a “grain of salt”.

“I am mindful of it but when you compare homicides to break and enters, there’s something wrong and it doesn’t add it up properly.”

For more visit www2.macleans.ca/canadas-most-dangerous-cities/.

efawcett@reddeerexpress.com