hometown blues

Surrey, BC was once deemed the ‘Car Theft Capital of North America’ [wiki]. It was all over the papers, all over the news, heck even my friends from Boston were emailing me about it. Cars are stolen at such an alarming rate it’s just become a regular part of automobile ownership in those parts. I’ve always defended Surrey on other fronts though. It does NOT have the highest crime (maybe just a lot of fashion & country music victims) and it is now much lower on the list for car theft hot spots in the lower mainland [cknw]. John read this morning that New Westminster is now higher on the list.

According to stats released earlier this month, Canadian cities such as Regina, Halifax and Edmonton were revealed as leaders in violent crime [cbc] while Abbotsford was deemed #1 for property crime in the country [canada.com]. It’s not all gloomy though, overall Canada’s crime rate is down [stats can].

Now I know there are much more pressing items in the news this week, but I bet ya if Surrey topped ANY one of those crime lists this year it would be FRONT page news. It would be on the local & national news as well as on the cover of all the dailies. I guess Surrey-ites should be flattered with all the attention they would get because I just don’t see Abbotsford’s name being smeared around the media in that fashion. Is Surrey just the favourite kid to pick on?