Roundup: Grossly distorting crime stats

Posted on by

Pierre Poilievre has been putting out a series of charts lately to “prove” that the Justin Trudeau-led government has been an apocalyptic disaster for the country, and one of them has bene around violent crime statistics. But because this is Poilievre, he takes those statistics and distorts them to create a monstrous picture that doesn’t actually reflect reality, as Amarnath Amarasingam explains:

This is classic Poilievre, incidentally. He has made a career out of cherry-picking a single data point, then building a massive, misleading narrative around it and when you call him on the lie, he insists that that data came from Statistics Canada, or the PBO, or wherever. In other words, he tries to use their legitimacy to launder his disinformation, and provide him with intellectual cover when clearly he either did not understand what the data was, or he simply took the information and constructed a false narrative (and I have my particular suspicion about which one it is). What is even more dangerous about these kinds of distortions is that they are being mixed with a big dose of racism among Poilievre’s online base, who are blaming immigrants for this supposed “spike” in crime (which is not a spike), and this could lead to some very bad outcomes.

For another example, we have the real household income figures from 2022, which he has also utterly distorted because of course he has. And has any legacy media outlet called any of this out? Of course not. Meanwhile, this has never been about logic or facts, or reasoned arguments—it’s about lies that make people angry so that they vote emotionally, which he thinks will benefit him (and that those lies won’t blow up in his face when he can’t deliver on his false promises). Depending on lies is a very bad strategy in the medium-to-long term, but here we are, swimming in them.

Ukraine Dispatch

Even though Ukrainian forces shot down three missiles and 25 out of 26 drones, an energy facility in the Sumy region was hit, and fire broke out. A fourteen-year-old died when a Russian struck near a playground in Zaporizhzhia. Russia has been making an aggressive push in the east, claiming the towns of Zalizne and Niu-York. Ukraine is reported to have launched a drone attack on Moscow with at least ten drones, while a diesel depot on the Rostov region was set on firefrom a Ukrainian drone strike. Russian forces have confirmed that Ukrainian forces have damaged or destroyed all three bridges over the Seym River, which could trap Russian units caught between the river, the Ukrainian advance, and the Ukrainian border.

Good reads:

  • Ambassador Kirsten Hillman says that the Harris—Walz team have a “specific understanding” of the Canada-US relationship.
  • Internal RCMP memos warn of “strained resources” as they try to protect MPs from an increasingly hostile environment with more physical harassment and threats.
  • Headline inflation fell to 2.5 percent last month, the lowest level since March 2021.
  • Soon-to-be senator Charles Adler wants to meet with Manitoba First Nations chiefs after they have called for his appointment to be rescinded.
  • The Government Operations committee met about the purchase of the New York residence, and lo, it’s below the Treasury Board approval threshold.
  • Doug Ford’s government is closing almost half of the supervised consumption sites in the province, claiming they don’t work and that they’ll offer treatment instead.
  • My column wonders whether labour minister Steve MacKinnon can stick to his guns on the possible rail lockout, or if he’ll cave and introduce back-to-work legislation.

Odds and ends:

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

One thought on “Roundup: Grossly distorting crime stats”

Comments are closed.