OTTAWA — Federal Conservatives are blaming Liberal criminal justice policies after Statistics Canada reported the number of violent crime incidents rose again in 2025 and stood 57% higher than a decade earlier.Police reported 601,139 violent crimes last year, up from 597,405 in 2024, according to Statistics Canada.The violent crime rate, which accounts for population growth, remained essentially unchanged at 1,443 incidents per 100,000 people. That rate was 35% higher than in 2015.The Violent Crime Severity Index, which accounts for both the volume and seriousness of offences, fell 4.2% in 2025 but remained 29% above its 2015 level.“With the release of the 2025 StatsCan figures, Canadians learned that total incidents of violent crime are up again from 2024, having risen by a whopping 57% since the Liberals took power,” Conservative justice critic Arpan Khanna and public safety critic Frank Caputo said Wednesday.“This was a result of the reckless Liberal policies that have unleashed chaos and disorder onto our once-safe streets.”.The Conservatives targeted the government’s recent Bill C-16, accusing Prime Minister Mark Carney of weakening the Criminal Code by allowing judges to impose sentences below mandatory minimums.They called the provision a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card that could apply to offences including extortion with a firearm, human trafficking and aggravated sexual assault involving a gun.Bill C-16 received royal assent on June 18. It permits a judge to impose a prison term below a mandatory minimum when applying that minimum would constitute cruel and unusual punishment for the particular offender.The provision does not apply to offences carrying mandatory life imprisonment, and judges using it must still impose jail time and provide reasons.The Conservatives also renewed their opposition to former Liberal bills C-5 and C-75, arguing that the “principle of restraint” governing bail decisions has contributed to repeat offenders being released.“Soft-on-crime laws like C-5 and C-75 remain on the books and with them Liberal bail,” Khanna and Caputo said.The party pointed to its proposed Jail Not Bail Act, which was defeated by the government, and C-225, known as Bailey’s Law, as examples of its proposed response to repeat offending and intimate partner violence.Conservatives also accused the Liberal government of targeting licensed hunters, farmers and sport shooters while firearm-related violence remains elevated.Statistics Canada’s latest separate firearms analysis covered 2024, when police recorded 14,488 firearm-related violent crimes. The rate declined 4.2% that year, its largest annual drop in more than a decade, but remained substantially higher than a decade earlier.Firearms were involved in 2.6% of all police-reported violent crime in 2024..The broader 2025 figures showed the national Crime Severity Index fell 5% for a second consecutive annual decline. The overall police-reported crime rate dropped 2.4%, while the homicide rate fell 16% after police recorded 672 killings, 125 fewer than in 2024.Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the figures showed Carney had failed to deliver on his public safety promises.“Liberals will never clean up the mess they caused,” Poilievre wrote on X, adding that Conservatives would repeal the Liberal bail approach and target repeat violent offenders.
