The homicide rate in Canada has fallen to its lowest level in 44 years, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday.

Although the figures are for 2010, the downward trend is continuing in Toronto this year.

“It shows we aren’t going to hell in a handbasket,” said Ron Melchers, criminology professor at the University of Ottawa. “This really does confirm the trend we’ve seen in general crime stats.”

The report, which also showed a decline in firearm homicides, comes a day after the Conservative government introduced a bill to scrap the long-gun registry.

However despite the gun registry’s supporters, Melchers doesn’t believe the gun registry is responsible for the decline in gun homicides.

“The decline in firearm use has been going on far longer than the gun registry,” he said.

With 40 homicides reported as of Thursday, Toronto is on target to come in well below the 60 murders reported in 2010.

Since 1993, the lowest homicide total reported by Toronto police was the 47 murders that occurred in 1999.

However, Toronto police are not putting much stock in the latest statistics because crime rates can change quickly.

“We are reluctant to comment,” Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash said. “Historically in Toronto the rates have been consistent and we still have two months to go in the year.”

In the Statistics Canada report, the figures are for the metropolitan Toronto area and are not specific to the city proper.

This homicide decline also was reflected in fewer firearm-related killings and fewer gang-related murders.

In 2010, police reported 554 homicides in this country — 56 fewer than the year before — in a decline that follows a decade of relative stability.

Last year’s national rate of 1.62 murders for every 100,000 residents was the lowest homicide level since 1966.

For the second straight year, Thunder Bay recorded the highest homicide rate (4.2 per 100,000 population) followed by Saskatoon and Regina (3.7).

Of the major cities, Winnipeg and Edmonton ranked the highest. Winnipeg had 22 homicides for a rate of 2.8 and Edmonton had 32 murders for a rate of 2.7.

The metropolitan Toronto area was well down the list with 90 homicides in 2010 for a homicide rate of 1.4.

Vancouver was slightly ahead of Toronto with 36 homicides and a rate of 1.5.

Montreal and Calgary fell below both Vancouver and Toronto.

Montreal had 49 murders in 2010 for a rate of 1.3 while Calgary had 15 homicides for a 1.2 rate.

The declining homicide trend is not only happening in Canada, but in other countries including the United States.

Anthony Doob, a criminology professor at the University of Toronto, said several theories are at play, including the aging population.

But it’s “not absolutely clear” why the trend line is going down. “It’s just not a Canadian phenomenon,” he said.

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“From about 1960 to about 1976, homicide rates went up and went up quite dramatically,” Doob said. “What needs to be explained more is not why we have the homicide rate now, but rather why we had the higher homicide rates before.”

Not all areas fell, Statistics Canada reported.

One area that held steady was the homicide rates committed by an intimate partner. In 2010, there were 89 victims of homicide by an intimate partner, one more than the number reported in 2009.

However, the national agency noted a considerable shift to more homicides being committed by a common-law spouse than a legal spouse or dating partner.

In 2010, common-law spouses accounted for 45 per cent of homicides committed by an intimate partner followed by legal spouses and dating partners at 28 per cent.

The previous 10-year period found that the largest share of people accused of killing an intimate partner was legal spouses at 42 per cent.

Statistics Canada found that the overall drop in homicides was driven largely by fewer incidents in the western provinces.

British Columbia recorded 35 fewer homicides in 2010, reaching the lowest point since the mid-1960s. Police in Alberta reported 18 fewer homicides while police in Manitoba reported 12 fewer.

Statistics Canada reported a further decline in the use of firearm homicides, reflecting a general decline in firearm-related homicides seen over the past three decades.

Stabbings (31 per cent) were nearly as common in 2010 as shootings (32 per cent). Another 22 per cent of homicides involved beatings and 8 per cent were by strangulation or suffocation. The remaining homicides involved means such as motor vehicles, fire and poisoning.

In Toronto, guns are still the main means of killing.

Police reported that half of all homicides were committed with a firearm in this city, compared with 44 per cent in Vancouver and 33 per cent in Montreal.

Another trend that emerged in the statistics was that gang-related homicides are down for the second straight year after peaking at 138 in 2008.

In 2010, 94 homicides were considered gang-related, down from 124 in 2009.

Despite the declines, the rate of gang-related homicides has generally been increasing in all provinces since collection of this information began in 1991, the agency reported. The only exception is Quebec, where gang-related homicide was at its highest in 2000.