We remade our Nanaimo safety video with the latest Stats Canada numbers. Here it is, plus the full transcript and a way to line your own city up beside Nanaimo.
We put our first Nanaimo safety video out a while back, and it kept getting watched. That told us something simple: people weighing a move here want a straight answer to one question, which is how safe Nanaimo really is. So we remade it, this time with the latest Stats Canada numbers and a cleaner look at how the city actually stacks up.
The short version has not flipped. Nanaimo has a property crime problem, not a violent crime problem. What is newer is the direction. Crime rose, peaked, and then dropped sharply in the most recent year, faster than the national average, and there is a new provincial program already showing results. We walk through all of it in the video.
One note on timing: the 2025 Statistics Canada numbers are due out shortly. The tool is built on the most current data available, and we update it as soon as new figures land.
This one is for anyone weighing the move who wants the real picture, not a sales version of it. If you are sizing Nanaimo up against where you live now, the tool page lets you drop your own city in beside it and see the numbers yourself.
Full transcript
What if the reason Nanaimo's crime number looks bad has almost nothing to do with what you are picturing? This is one of the top questions we get, hands down. You have probably heard things like "I heard Nanaimo has a drug problem," "I heard downtown is rough," "I heard crime is out of control." So we built a tool that breaks down what is true, what is exaggerated, and what the numbers actually mean. Let us walk through it together.
If you have Googled "is Nanaimo safe," you have probably seen a scary looking number with almost no context. That is the problem. So instead of just throwing a statistic at you, we built a tool that actually explains it, and this video walks you through exactly how to use it.
Before we show you anything, take a guess. Out of Canada's 40 biggest cities, ranked from safest to least safe, where do you think Nanaimo lands? 34th out of 40. Worse than most people guess. We are not going to hide that number today, but here is the thing: by itself, it is almost meaningless, and almost everyone reads it the wrong way.
That number is called the Crime Severity Index, and it is not a percentage. A score of 106.7 does not mean 106% of anything. Statistics Canada set the year 2006 as a baseline of 100, and everything since is measured against that. The index also weighs crimes by how seriously the courts treat them. So a city's score can be high for completely different reasons: either a few very serious crimes, or many lower level crimes adding up. Today's national average is 77.9, and Nanaimo sits at 106.7, which is only 0.2 off 106.9, our radio station here. That is above average, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But in a second we are going to show you which of those two reasons is actually driving Nanaimo's number, and it is probably not the one you would guess.
Inside the tool, you are also not limited to our comparisons. There is a drop down where you can pick the city you are moving from and compare it directly with Nanaimo.
Now here is what actually matters. What is elevated in Nanaimo is property crime and vandalism. Car break-ins are the single most likely crime to affect you here, and mischief runs at roughly two and a half times the national average. But the crimes most people picture, robbery, being attacked while walking, or worse, actually sit below the national average. The crime people imagine is not the crime that is actually happening here. And the RCMP said exactly that themselves. Speaking to Nanaimo City Council in May, they confirmed that violent crime in Nanaimo sits below the national average.
So why is the overall number elevated at all? It is not random, and it is probably not what you assume. The province's own investigation found a very small number of people cycling through addiction, mental illness, and inadequate supports, and they are responsible for a disproportionate amount of property crime. Roughly 420 people across all 5.6 million people living in British Columbia. That is not our opinion, that is the province's own finding, and it lines up with what the local RCMP have been saying as well.
Here is the part that shows how far Nanaimo has actually come. Back in November, the province picked Nanaimo as one of only three cities in British Columbia to pilot a new response. It worked well enough that in June, the Minister of Public Safety came to Nanaimo to announce $16 million to expand the program across the province. The model behind it is already producing measurable results: police interactions with participants dropped 56% over an 18-month period. That is a sourced statistic showing the approach can work.
Now let us look at the actual trend. It was not a slow, steady improvement. Crime rose, it peaked, and then it dropped sharply, only in the most recent year. In fact it fell faster than the national average. We are not going to tell you things have quietly been getting better for years, because they have not. The improvement is recent, and it is significant.
So what should you actually do to protect yourself from this type of crime? Five practical things. First, leave nothing visible in your vehicle. I am always telling my wife this, and she always gives me a little grief because I am very hardcore on it. No backpacks, no cell phone chargers, no purses, not even loose change. That is the most elevated risk here. Second, lock your shed, lock your garage, lock your side gates, and install a motion light in your driveway. It is one of the cheapest and most effective deterrents you can buy. Third, do a security check at night. It is one of those things I do: I check all the locks, make sure the gas stove is off, make sure the shed is locked, and make sure the vehicles are locked. Then you can go to bed knowing your house is secure. Fourth, register your bike and lock it up properly. Bikes are stolen fairly often here and are hard to recover with no registration on them, so even at home, lock it up. And finally, walk where you want to walk, because violent crime in Nanaimo sits below the national average. That particular fear simply is not supported by the data.
Everything we have covered here today, you can explore yourself. You can compare Nanaimo with wherever you are moving from and see the trend line. The link is in the description and the pinned comment below.
Here is the takeaway in three simple lines. Nanaimo has a property crime problem. It does not have a violent crime problem. So lock your car, and walk wherever you like. If you found this video helpful, please feel free to like and subscribe, and we will see you on the next one.
Want to go deeper?
See the full data and compare your own city, or read the relocation guide if you are further along and mapping out the move itself.