New poll finds Ottawa viewed as one of Canada’s safest cities

Ottawa, according to a new national public‑perception study, is viewed as one of the safest cities in the country.

A new Liaison Strategies survey, released Thursday, finds 56 per cent of Canadians consider Ottawa very or somewhat safe, compared with 19 per cent who say it is unsafe.

Quebec City is in front with 57 per cent believing it is safe.

“We brought this study back because city safety has a long memory,” David Valentin, Principal at Liaison Strategies, said. “Quebec City now leads on net safety, Ottawa remains very strong, and Winnipeg and Toronto remain at the bottom.”

Toronto has an unsafe perspective for 57 per cent of people with 59 per cent calling Winnipeg unsafe. The results also concluded that Toronto’s negative rating has also worsened over time — up five points from 52 per cent in 2017.

Toronto facing a widening perception gap

The study tested 15 cities and found Toronto ranks second‑lowest on net safety at minus-18, ahead only of Winnipeg at minus-28. Yet Toronto’s official crime‑severity ranking is nowhere near the bottom of the national list, creating what researchers call Canada’s largest reputational penalty — a mismatch between how safe a city is and how safe people believe it to be.

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In the nation’s capital, the gap is not as large as Toronto’s, with researchers saying it is only three percentage points off from how much worse it is perceived compared to crime data.

Liaison says that gap is politically and economically significant: only 12 per cent of respondents say crime statistics are the main factor shaping their impression of city safety. Instead, perceptions are driven by news coverage, personal experience, word of mouth, and national image.

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Among the cities tested, negative perceptions cluster around the country’s largest urban centres:

• Winnipeg — 59 per cent unsafe
• Toronto — 57 per cent unsafe
• Vancouver — 52 per cent unsafe
• Edmonton — 50 per cent unsafe
• Saskatoon — 45 per cent unsafe
• Montreal — 41 per cent unsafe
• Regina — 37 per cent unsafe
• Calgary — 35 per cent unsafe

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David Valentin, Principal at Liaison Strategies, says Toronto’s perception gap is the defining feature of the study.

“Toronto has a public‑safety reputation problem. It is not just that 57 per cent of Canadians call Toronto unsafe. It is that Toronto is being perceived almost the same way as Winnipeg, even though the official crime‑severity picture is not the same.”

Valentin says Winnipeg’s perception aligns with its crime‑severity data, while Toronto’s does not — creating the largest reputational penalty among all cities tested.

“Residents, visitors, investors, students, and businesses do not respond only to police‑reported crime statistics. They also respond to what they think a city feels like.”