Tag Archives: canada

Homicide Rates in Canada: Statistics & Trends

By Mack D. Male ·

About a month ago I shared some statistics about Edmonton’s homicide rate. As an initial effort, I think I got my point across: the homicide rate in Edmonton over the last thirty years has been trending downward and is not that different from other large cities in Canada. I have since done some additional research on this subject and would like to share what I have learned.

The graphs below generally compare the ten largest census metropolitan areas in Canada. I have used the homicide rate (the number of homicides per 100,000 people in the CMA) to compare rather than the absolute number of homicides. Where appropriate, I have included the overall Canadian rate and the average of the ten largest CMAs. The data all comes from Statistics Canada (the 2010 information is here). You can click on any graph to see a larger version.

Here are the homicide rates over the last thirty years:

You can see a few spikes (for Ottawa-Gatineau and Winnipeg in particular) but overall the rates are all pretty similar.

Here are the highest recorded homicide rates:

Nearly every location has had spikes at one time or another. But a few places consistently record the highest homicide rates:

You can see that Winnipeg has recorded the highest homicide rate among large cities the most, followed by Ottawa-Gatineau. Edmonton has recorded the second highest homicide rate among large cities most often, followed by Vancouver.

Here are the average homicide rates over the last thirty years:

Half of the ten largest cities are below the Canadian average. As a result, the average for the ten largest cities isn’t that much higher than the Canadian average.

Here is Edmonton’s homicide rate compared against the overall rate in Canada and the average of the ten largest cities. You can see that is trending downward, despite spikes in 2005/2006:

Over the last thirty years, Edmonton has never recorded a homicide rate lower than the Canadian rate. Only three times has Edmonton’s homicide rate been lower than the average for the ten largest cities:

As homicide rates in Canada have generally been trending downward, I thought it would be useful to look at the rates by decade. Here are the average homicide rates by decade since 1981:

You can see that with the exception of Winnipeg, every location recorded a lower average homicide rate in the period 2001-2010 than they did in the period 1981-1990.

This graph shows the change a little more clearly:

Every location’s average rate decreased in the 1990s. Only three locations (Edmonton, London, and Winnipeg) have recorded increases since 2000, and only Winnipeg’s was enough to increase past 1990 levels.

What’s next?

Today, our city’s new violence reduction action plan was unveiled. You can read the whole thing in PDF here. The report concludes:

The problem of violence in society is complex and multi-faceted. It requires diligent, ongoing coordinated work across a number of agencies and organizations. This includes other orders of government, who have information and resources that will be required in order that solutions be comprehensive, and sustainable over the long-term.

The City and its key partners will continue their efforts to understand and address the root causes of violence and maintain order and safety in our community, keeping the livability of Edmonton among the best in Canada and the world.

I think understanding where we’re at is an important part of unraveling this mystery. Hopefully the information I have shared above will help in that regard. I look forward to the community conversations slated to take place this fall.

In a follow-up post, I’ll take a closer look at Edmonton’s homicide rate in the context of our demographics, economic situation, and other factors.

First look at Canada’s new Open Data portal: data.gc.ca

By Mack D. Male ·

Yesterday the Government of Canada launched its open data portal at data.gc.ca. Open Data is one of three Open Government Initiatives, the other two being Open Information and Open Dialogue. Stockwell Day, President of the Treasury Board and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, issued a statement today on the launch:

“Today, I am pleased to announce the next step in our government’s commitment to enhancing transparency and accountability to Canadians. The expansion of open government will give Canadians the opportunity to access public information in more useful and readable formats, enable greater insight into the inner workings of the Government and empower citizens to participate more directly in the decision-making process.”

He goes on in the statement to say that Canada has historically led the way in providing information to citizens. Lately though, we’ve definitely fallen behind. I’m glad to see us moving forward once again. This development is no doubt the result of lots of work by many passionate Canadians, such as David Eaves. Here’s what he posted yesterday:

The launch of data.gc.ca is an important first step. It gives those of us interested in open data and open government a vehicle by which to get more data open and improve the accountability, transparency as well as business and social innovation.

David does a good job in that post of highlighting some of the issues the site currently faces, such as some problematic wording in the licensing, so I won’t repeat that here. Instead, I figured I’d do what I always do when I get new datasets to play with – make some charts!

The open data portal says there are 261,077 datasets currently available. Just 781 of those are “general” datasets, the rest are geospatial. That’s an impressive number of geospatial datasets, but they are somewhat less accessible (and perhaps less interesting) to the average Canadian than the general datasets. It looks like you need to be able to work with an ESRI Shape File to use most of them.

There are lots of general datasets you might find interesting, however. For example, here’s the Consumer Price Index by city:

Here’s another dataset I thought was interesting – the number of foreign workers that have entered Canada, by region:

Have you ever wondered how much of each type of milk Albertans consume? You can find that out:

There’s actually a fairly broad range of datasets available, such as weather, agriculture, economics, and much more. As David said, it’s a good first step.

I’m excited to see more ministries get involved, and I hope to see the number of datasets available increase over time. I’d also love to see the licensing change, perhaps by adopting the UK Open Government License as David suggested. Exciting times ahead!

Government of Canada denies Edmonton EXPO 2017

By Mack D. Male ·

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, the federal government has announced that it will not support Edmonton’s bid to host EXPO 2017. A short note on the Edmonton EXPO 2017 website announced the news:

In a meeting with Mayor Stephen Mandel earlier today, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore announced that the Government of Canada will not support Edmonton’s bid to host EXPO 2017. The key reason given was the unknown future costs of security. This decision comes in light of November survey results that showed 79 per cent of Albertans supported the bid for EXPO 2017 with 46 per cent indicating strong support. Almost 1800 Canadians were surveyed. On behalf of the EXPO 2017 Bid Committee thank you to all Albertans and Canadians for their interest, effort and support of EXPO 2017.

Here’s the letter from James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage & Official Languages, courtesy of the Edmonton Journal:

This afternoon, Mayor Stephen Mandel held a press conference at City Hall to discuss the news. Here are some notes, including the ones I live-tweeted:

  • Mandel started by talking about the 2010 Grey Cup Festival, saying he was confident it would be a big success and that Edmonton would shine.
  • Flanked by members of City Council and members of the EXPO 2017 bid committee, Mandel confirmed that the Government of Canada will not support Edmonton EXPO 2017. Mandel was quick to praise the solid work of the bid committee and all EXPO 2017 volunteers.
  • Mandel said a recent survey of Albertans showed that 79% supported the project.
  • Mandel singled out MP Rona Ambrose as the specific reason that Edmonton failed to gain federal support. When pressed for a reason, he said others in the federal government looked to Ambrose for direction, and she just failed to commit.
  • MPs Laurie Hawn and James Rajotte were cited as supporters of the bid.
  • Mandel: “This [federal] government has far too easily ignored the needs of this province.”
  • The only immediate ask of the federal government was $10 million, to continue with the bid process.
  • Mandel said the federal government’s “apparent sincerity in exploring” EXPO 2017 was completely false.
  • Mandel: “When it comes to Edmonton’s growth and ambition, our federal government simply isn’t interested.”
  • Randy Ferguson, member of the bid committee, said “Albertans took a kick in the teeth today from the federal government.” In the media scrum afterward, Ferguson, a card-carrying Conservative, said “the prime minister is no longer my prime minister.”
  • Ruth Kelly, another bid committee member, was just as angry but said we’ll find other ways to showcase Edmonton.
  • Mandel made it clear that he feels the federal government decided not to support Edmonton because we’re in the west.
  • Ferguson was more to the point, saying that Edmonton is paying for the security budget overruns that happened at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, and the G8/G20 summits.
  • Mandel: “The proof is in the pudding, when it comes to delivering the goods in our city, [the federal government] failed.”
  • Mandel: “I’ve never been as mad at anything, I’m so disappointed in the lack of vision from this government.”
  • Asked about what this means for LRT, Mandel said “we’ll continue to push forward” and said “we have a strong partner in the province.”
  • Ferguson said that because of the way the due diligence worked, the federal government had already signed off on the budget and security plan for the Edmonton bid.

I’ve never seen Mandel so upset, his voice shaky as the passion and anger poured out. Afterward, when asked what was next, Ferguson said “cooler heads must prevail” and said the team will digest the news more fully before any other action is taken.

Mandel on EXPO 2017Mandel on EXPO 2017

Technically, all Edmonton needs to move ahead with the bid is the federal government’s consent. If Edmonton could come up with another way to fund the project, there’s a chance that they could go back to the federal government to ask for just consent and no funding. That, obviously, is very unlikely to happen.

For some reason, there’s a big disconnect between the amount of money Edmonton is asking for, and the amount of money the federal government thinks they will have to spend. Moore specifically cited the cost of security in his letter, a point on which Ferguson was very blunt: “The cost of security ballooned for the Olympics and for the G8/G20 and Edmonton is paying the price.”

When pressed, Mandel said he didn’t think the lack of federal support was about money. It was clear that he feels slighted by the government. There are indications that the announcement was related to a decision to deny money for a Quebec arena. I’m sure it will all come out in the wash.

Edmonton needs to focus right now on making sure the 2010 Grey Cup Festival is a big success. Let’s remind everyone that we excel at hosting big events. We’ll find another way to showcase our great city. We’ll make it happen.

What’s less clear is how we’ll acquire the infrastructure funding that EXPO 2017 would have brought to this city. Mandel talked about this during the press conference as well, noting that Edmonton (and indeed Alberta) often gets the short end of the stick. I’m not sure what it’ll take, but we need to make a solid ask for funding. As disappointing as it is to lose EXPO 2017, it would be much, much worse to lose the ability to make our City Vision a reality.

You can follow the news with #expo2017 on Twitter.

UPDATE: Here is Mayor Mandel’s full statement.

Canada Celebrates in Edmonton

By Mack D. Male ·

Last night was the Canada Celebrates event at Commonwealth Stadium here in Edmonton. Or at least that’s what the ticket said. There wasn’t much promotion in advance, but what few things I did see tended to call it “For the Love of Country and For the Love of Hockey”. Whatever it was called, the nationally televised event was an opportunity to pay tribute to our Olympic heroes, as well as our heroes in the Canadian Forces. It also raised funds for the Hockey Canada Foundation.

There were maybe 10,000 people in attendance, nowhere close to the number of people that Commonwealth Stadium can accommodate. I have to agree with Terry Jones – promotion of the event could have been much better. The Mayor proclaimed the day Canada’s Heroes Day last Tuesday, but I’d bet that most Edmontonians still hadn’t heard of the event by the time it got started. It probably looked worse than it was though, because almost everyone in the stands made their way to the field once invited to do so. I’m sure that made the empty seats even more noticeable on TV.

Canada Celebrates was a great opportunity for those who did attend and for everyone who watched across the country to reflect back on Canada’s golden Winter Olympics and to salute the military. There were lots of little kids on the field, and they seemed to be having a great time! The flyover was pretty exciting too.

The event was by no means a failure, but it probably didn’t go as well as the organizers had hoped it would. My guess is that they didn’t have a lot of time to pull it together, but did so anyway. Kudos to them for seizing the opportunity to showcase the City of Champions. It’s just too bad we didn’t have time to fill the stands a little more.

You can see the rest of my photos here. You can see the Edmonton Journal’s photo gallery here (story is here).

National Volunteer Week 2009

By Mack D. Male ·

This year’s national celebration of volunteers kicked off on Sunday and runs until Saturday. National Volunteer Week happens each year to recognize the thousands of individuals across Canada who contribute their time and energy to worthy causes. From Volunteer Canada’s press release:

“The economic recession is a difficult time for all of us, “said Ruth MacKenzie, president of Volunteer Canada.  “But many are using this time to roll up their sleeves, share their skills, and better their communities and the lives of others.”

I got some good news to start the week – my application to join the Community Engagement Advisory Committee for Edmonton EXPO 2017 as a volunteer member was accepted! I’m really looking forward to helping where I can and learning a lot through the process. I think EXPO 2017 would a fantastic event for Edmonton, and I’m going to do what I can to help win the bid.

Also this week, I signed up to volunteer for Homeless Connect 2, taking place on Sunday, May 24th at the Shaw Conference Centre downtown. I’m happy to help however I’m needed, though I’m sure they’ll have computers and Internet access on site so perhaps I can lend a hand there. For those of you new to the event:

Homeless Connect is a community event bringing together agencies, businesses and volunteers, on one day and at one location, to provide a range of services which can help homeless people out of homelessness.

The first Homeless Connect was a major success, so Homeward Trust promptly planned two more (the third will be in October). If you’d like to get involved, you can donate or volunteer.

If you’d like to find out about other volunteer opportunities in Edmonton, check out Volunteer Edmonton. They’re hosting a Festival Volunteer Fair on May 13th at the TransAlta Arts Barns.

Thank you volunteers – keep doing what you’re doing!

UPDATE: The City has launched a new online database to connect volunteers with opportunities. More information here.

STIRR in Edmonton

By Mack D. Male ·

stirr canada Tonight we held the first ever STIRR Canada event here in Edmonton. About sixty of the city’s entrepreneurs, investors, and other tech professionals came together at The Hat downtown to chat with one another, and to meet and learn from Greg Zeschuk, one of the founders of BioWare.

I think “STIRR” was new to most people, so near the beginning of the event Patrick Lor from the STIRR Canada team explained how he got introduced to the organization and brought it to Canada.

STIRR Canada is a networking community for high-tech startup founders, founding teams, former founders, angel and VC funders, and technology journalists. Our events are designed for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.

The idea is to bring new and experienced entrepreneurs together. We do a bit of that at DemoCamp of course, but the audience tonight was a bit different. There were definitely more guys wearing suits! I think it all comes down to access – busy guys like Greg simply can’t make it out to every DemoCamp, so to be able to have him present tonight was pretty cool.

Greg from BioWareSTIRR in EdmontonRandy & Cam

Founded in 1995, BioWare is a major Edmonton success story. Greg and his colleagues Ray Muzyka and Augustine Yip realized early on that, in Greg’s words, “no one likes a creative doctor.” They decided to put their creativity into video games, and BioWare was the result. After a string of hits, BioWare became an acquisition target and was eventually scooped up by Electronic Arts in late 2007. Today the company continues to produce popular games, and has grown to about 500 employees.

Here are some of the highlights from Greg’s talk:

  • Early on, BioWare didn’t see the need for a board of directors or advisors. Looking back, they wouldn’t recommend that strategy to anyone!
  • Greg figures that the cost of making their first game was less than the cost of a single month of development at the company today. It’s become a much more expensive industry.
  • Greg says to be prepared for the long haul. He pointed to Google as an example: most people think about their success in recent years, but the reality is that they’ve been running in some form or another for more than a decade (since 1996).
  • Another piece of advice from Greg: don’t be afraid to get a second opinion. And if something doesn’t make sense, be suspicious!

Greg’s presentation was really interesting, and seemed to be well-received by everyone in attendance. Of course, the major focus of an event like this is the networking that followed. There were lots of interesting discussions taking place all evening long!

Thanks to The Hat for running a wonderful service this evening, and to Cam, Pat and the other organizers for bringing this event to Edmonton. I’m glad I was able to help. Most importantly, thanks to everyone for coming out!

You can see the rest of my photos from the evening at Flickr.

Budget Day 2009 in Canada – track it online

By Mack D. Male ·

Though a lot of information about the new budget has already been released, there are sure to be some surprises and of course, interesting discussions taking place throughout the day. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will deliver his budget speech in the House of Commons at roughly 4 PM EST (2 PM MST) today. All the major Canadian media outlets will have coverage, and some even have unique online coverage too.

Here’s how to track Budget Day 2009 online:

And a few other interesting links:

Here in Edmonton, the federal wish list comes in at $2.4 billion. I’m sure the capital notebook blog and Dave Cournoyer will have more on today’s news from a local perspective.

It’ll be interesting to see how the day plays out! I’ll update the post if I come across any more useful links – leave me a comment if you have one to suggest!

UPDATE: There’s a word cloud of Flaherty’s speech available here, and you can read the full text of the speech here.

UPDATE2: Here’s a PDF of the budget, courtesy of The Globe and Mail.

UPDATE3: The official Budget 2009 site also has the PDF and some other information, but is very slow.

UPDATE4: A number of responses from organizations (CUPE, CFIB, etc.) are available at Canadian Newswire.

Questionmark still hiring .NET developers in Edmonton!

By Mack D. Male ·

questionmark The software development company I work for here in Edmonton, Questionmark, is once again looking for developers to join our team. The job descriptions I posted back in September are still relevant, but here are the requirements again:

A minimum of 3 years of commercial development experience. Highly skilled in software development using our core technologies: C#, ASP.NET, XML, Ajax, Javascript, T-SQL. Experience with SCRUM a plus. Excellent written and oral communication are essential.

You’d be working on the latest and greatest, both technology-wise (.NET 3.5, etc) and product-lineup-wise (the company’s newest products). It’s a great opportunity!

We’re currently in the process of moving to our brand new office in the Empire Building downtown (10080 Jasper Avenue). As some of you may know, I’ve had offices in the building twice before, and I think it’s a fantastic place to work. It’s great to be right in the heart of downtown, with easy access via public transit and lots of amenities within walking distance (parking isn’t so great, of course).

Job Description for Software Developer

If you’re interested in applying or would like more information, either send me an email or email Kaitlyn Lardin. Thanks!

Northern Voice speakers are primarily from Vancouver and use Twitter

By Mack D. Male ·

logo by basco5 If you visit the Twitter page for Northern Voice, the one line bio says “Canada’s social media and blogging conference” (isn’t the blogging bit redundant?). The website isn’t quite as direct, but the impression you’re left with is the same: it’s a Canada-wide event. A few days ago they announced the schedule for Saturday, the “conference” part. I took a look at it today and was struck by how many of the speakers are located in Vancouver! Here’s the list, with speaker names linked to their Twitter profiles where available:

Kris Krug – Vancouver
Lauren Wood – Vancouver
Nora Young – Toronto
Rob Cottingham – Vancouver
Stewart Butterfield – San Francisco
Steve Pratt – Vancouver
Nate Elliott – Vancouver
Tod Maffin – Vancouver
Isabella Mori – Vancouver
Airdrie Miller – Vancouver
Briana Tomkinson – Vancouver
Rebecca Bollwitt – Vancouver
Linda Bustos – Vancouver
Jenn Lowther – Vancouver
Nadia Nascimento – Vancouver
Monica Hamburg – Vancouver
Kim Adamson-Sharpe – ?
Hilary Genders – Vancouver
Tim Bray – Vancouver
Robert Scales – Vancouver
Susannah Gardner – Vancouver
Barbara Ganley – Vermont?
Laura Blankenship – Pennsylvania
Nancy White – Seattle
Darren Barefoot – Vancouver
Alfred Hermida – Vancouver
David Eaves – Vancouver
Alan Levine – Arizona
Dave Johnson – Vancouver
Kate Trgovac – Vancouver
Rosemary Rowe – Vancouver?
Dave Olson – Vancouver
Bev Davies – Vancouver
Irwin Oostindie – Vancouver

This list may be inaccurate or incomplete – the NV site lacks bios and abstracts, has one “TBA” slot, and doesn’t make it clear where everyone is from so I did the best I could to look it up. If you spot an error let me know and I’ll correct it.

Canada’s social media and blogging conference? More like Vancouver’s.

A few final remarks: I fully appreciate that this is a community event and that speakers’ expenses are not covered, so it makes sense to have more locals. I noted the Vancouver-specific nature of the conference last year. I submitted a speaking proposal and was turned down for Saturday, but will be leading a session on Friday (hopefully the schedule for that goes up soon).

Great Marketing: Techie Crunch

By Mack D. Male ·

For the most part, I’d say that Tech Days 08 went as expected this week (in Calgary). Lots of people showed up, some were more interested and enthusiastic than others, and there was a mix of great content and average content. Another thing you can typically count on at a Microsoft event is a bag full of swag. Tech Days attendees did in fact receive swag, but it didn’t come in a bag!

I can’t tell you how many bags I’ve collected at Microsoft events over the years. It’s the same thing, over and over – a bag (sometimes paper, sometimes fabric) filled with marketing materials, a pen, trial software, and sometimes a book or full version of an application. The contents were similar at Tech Days, but the packaging was quite unique:

Techie Crunch Tech Days 2008

Maybe a little over-the-top, but I love it!

Techie Crunch is “Brain Food for a Healthy Mind” and comes complete with a “Free Brain Warming Toque”. It looks just like a cereal box, with all the graphics and marketing you’d expect, a fake UPC code, and my favorite – Nutrition Facts and Ingredients! As you can see they did some work with the contents too, including the toque and a plastic spoon (actually a pen).

This must have a been a fun project for the marketing team to work on. It might seem like a small thing, but it’s details like this that turn an average experience into something more memorable. Well done!

You can see a few more photos of the box with my other Tech Days photos here.