Former Saskatchewan Party provincial cabinet minister Gord Wyant and Saskatoon Coun. Cynthia Block have shifted their campaigns to become the city’s next mayor.
Gord Wyant is leaning hard into crime and safety in his campaign to become mayor of Saskatoon.
The ad questions why Block has pivoted to focus on crime and safety. He’s not wrong, but he’s equally guilty of the same shift.
The statistics in Wyant’s recent ad seem compelling, but they require a closer analysis.
Indeed, crime numbers did rise in Saskatoon from 2020 to 2023, as Wyant’s ad depicts, but the increase reflects a severe drop in crime during the pandemic, which began in 2020, and the return to normal crime numbers. This trend was witnessed throughout Canada and elsewhere.
That’s why the ad fails to include pre-pandemic years that preceded the election of the current council in late 2020.
Crimes against the person have risen by about 14 per cent through the first nine months of this year compared to last year and also remain 32 per cent higher than the same time span in 2019.
But serious property crimes like arson (827 through the first nine months last year and 673 of the same period this year) and vehicle theft (down from 131 to 88) have dropped this year.
That ranks as an astonishing development for a rapidly growing city adding thousands of new residents a year. And the conspiracy theorists who claim people have stopped reporting crime need to explain why anyone would fail to report a stolen vehicle or how an arson would go undetected.
Rising crime benefits challengers and hinders incumbents. And, as we can see in the American presidential race, the reality about crime can be dismissed in favour of preying upon people’s fears.
It’s a less appealing topic for both Block and Wyant. Wyant, of course, just left the provincial government, which has failed to put a dent in crime in the province, the severity of which is far worse than it is in Saskatoon.
Wyant and Block have relied on Facebook to get their messages across. But Wyant’s ad shows the folly of that.
Of the more than 150 comments on Wyant’s ad, the general tone is one of skepticism and criticism, particularly since he was once provincial justice minister. Here’s one comment: “Why didn’t you do any of this when you were the justice minister? I guess you were too busy voting against trans rights.”
People receive these comments along with the ad. Other comments point to perceived provincial shortcomings in providing social services. Several comments encourage people to vote for Tarasoff.
Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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