Article content

Alberta reported the largest increase in crime among all the provinces and territories last year, contributing to the first rise in the country’s crime rate in 12 years.

Calgary is at the top of the list of 33 Canadian cities where the police-reported crime rate spiked in 2015. It saw an increase of 29 per cent. Edmonton followed close behind in fourth place, after Moncton and Victoria, with a 16-per-cent increase, data released Wednesday by Statistics Canada shows.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Alberta's crime rate ballooned in 2015 contributing to overall increase across the country Back to video

Edmonton had the third highest crime-severity index, which measures the volume and severity of police-reported crime, after Saskatoon and Regina.

Edmonton police Chief Rod Knecht said Wednesday the numbers are “no real shock.”

“We kind of anticipated this. We know property crime has been up, it continues to go up again this year, so that’s driving it,” he said on the front steps of police headquarters.

Knecht said the economy is a huge factor, and there always seems to be a correlation between the drop in the price of oil and the increase in crime in Edmonton.

“We were the epicentre of economic growth for the entire country. Now, we’ve gone from feast to famine in a really, really short period of time,” he said.

Out of the eight provinces and territories where the crime-severity index rose, Alberta’s ballooned 18 per cent, followed by New Brunswick at 12 per cent and the Northwest Territories at 10 per cent.