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Mississauga Ontario is Canada's Safet city for fourth year in a row!

Mississauga has been dubbed Canada's safest city for the fourth consecutive year, The News has learned.
But, today's expected announcement that Mississauga has the nation's lowest crime rate is tempered by the fact our municipality remains one of the most drug-infested cities in the country, according to an annual report by the Mississauga Crime Prevention Association (MCPA).

"Citizens should be proud that Mississauga is once again the safest city in Canada," said Fred Chorley, head of the MCPA, the organization that conducted the study. "This does not mean that there is no crime in Mississauga, though."

The MCPA gathered crime statistics for last year from Mississauga and eight other cities of similar or larger populations, including Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. The report showed Mississauga had the lowest number of criminal occurrences per 100,000 people at 4,538. Second was Ottawa (5,947) and, somewhat surprisingly, third was Toronto (7,633).

Mississauga has been named Canada's safest city ever year since 1999. We experienced the lowest number of serious crimes last year, including murders, robberies, assaults and thefts.

On the whole, violent crime is down 5 per cent in the city.

But, when it comes to drug offences, Mississauga's numbers are nothing to write home about.  Mississauga averaged 324 drug crimes per 100,000 people last year.  Only Vancouver had a higher number of drug occurrences with 547 per 100,000 people.

Even Montreal, a city much larger than ours, finished with a lower drug rate of 265 occurrences per 100,000 people.

Similar numbers for Toronto last year were not available.

But, the assertion that Mississauga has a significant drug problem comes as no surprise to Inspector Dave Van Loosen, who heads the Peel Regional Police drug squad.

His officers have already dismantled about 260 marijuana labs in Mississauga this year, already smashing last year's mark of 147 pot labs.

"There is lots of money to be made in grow labs and no serious deterrent to offenders," said Van Loosen yesterday, adding police regularly find guns and other firearms in the marijuana houses.

It becomes continually frustrating when officers pump time and energy into dismantling these labs and watch the perpetrators walk out of court without jail time, said Van Loosen.

Chorley agreed the reward clearly outweighs the risk for pot growers.

"Organized crime groups have used marijuana labs as a vehicle for generating cash," he said.

Pot labs have been responsible for 17 fires in Peel Region homes over the last two years.

And, last year police began to notice deadly traps being set in these hydroponics labs, which include hand-made electrocution devices, just in case officers or neighbours want to ransack the residence.

But pot isn't the only drug concern in Mississauga. Lately, police have been nabbing producers of Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate (GHB), a drug medical officials say is deadlier than ecstasy.

While methamphetamine, or "meth" labs are rare in Peel -- police have dismantled two in the last three years -- they'll likely begin to gain popularity in the next year or so, officers said.

A host of notables will be at City Hall today to announce the retention of Mississauga's safest city title


Reprinted from The Mississauga News
LOUIE ROSELLA
Nov 7, 2003

Read more about this announcement from Mayor Hazel McCallion

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