ABC Vancouver accused of 'cooking' crime stats in year-end messaging

In promotional materials released this week, Vancouver city council’s majority party used the same crime statistics that party officials had, a month earlier, acknowledged as being presented inaccurately.

In a year-end fundraising email Tuesday, ABC Vancouver encouraged supporters to donate so the party can continue delivering results in 2026, a municipal election year. The email touts the ruling party’s track record on safety, saying “violent crime is down 18 per cent citywide, robberies are down 44 per cent, and serious assaults are down 23 per cent.”

But despite using the word “citywide” in the email, those are not citywide numbers.

ABC used the same numbers in public statements in November, before acknowledging to CTV News they had made an error, and deleting the social media post in question. At that time, CTV journalist Lisa Steacy reported the numbers did not represent citywide trends, but instead showed crime rates specific to the Downtown Eastside in the first six months after the launch of Task Force Barrage, a $5 million policing surge focused on the neighbourhood that started in February.

Vancouver Police Department statistics show that crime is, indeed, down across most categories citywide, including the three listed in ABC’s fundraising email — but the citywide declines are not as large as the party’s email says.

The most recent VPD stats show that through the first 10 months of 2025, violent crime took a 10.1 per cent year-over-year decrease citywide (compared with ABC’s 18 per cent claim), and robberies fell by 25.2 per cent (compared with the 44 per cent cited by ABC). The police department statistics do not differentiate “serious assaults” from other assaults, but peg that category’s decrease at 10.4 per cent.

More positive news: a report presented last month to the Vancouver Police Board found the city’s violent crime severity index decreasing by 5.5 per cent between 2023 and 2024, falling faster than the Canadian average.

So there should be a good story to tell there for ABC. But the party has opened itself to criticism again by failing, intentionally or not, to present the numbers accurately.

A “2025 recap” video posted Tuesday on the X account of ABC Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim used the same numbers heralding crime reductions. Unlike ABC’s email this week, the video posted on Sim’s account did not explicitly say the stats were citywide — but an average viewer would likely think that is what was being presented, not a neighbourhood-specific snapshot in time.

An ABC spokesperson acknowledged in an email Wednesday that the email’s crime stats related to the Downtown Eastside and Task Force Barrage specifically, but did not answer why, then, it included the word “citywide” and whether that was a mistake.

“If crime is down, that is good news and should be communicated accurately,” said Vote Vancouver Coun. Rebecca Bligh. “But overstating reductions or presenting inconsistent figures, particularly after similar numbers were previously acknowledged as inaccurate, undermines public trust.”

“Accuracy matters, even when trends appear positive,” said Bligh, who was elected with ABC in 2022 but plans to run for mayor in 2026 against her former party.

Green Coun. Pete Fry said ABC found success in the 2022 election campaigning based on people’s perception of safety coming out of COVID, as well as reports of stranger assaults, the accuracy of which later came into question.

“I’m sure ABC are hoping to capitalize on that same fear and misinformation in 2026, so the inconsistencies in crime statistics from ABC is telling but not surprising,” said Fry, who has said he is considering his own run for mayor.

Fry said he often hears from Vancouverites disappointed by ABC’s first term in office, “and it will take a lot more than cooking stats and serving up slick video content to convince them otherwise.”

OneCity Coun. Lucy Maloney said: “This is somewhat ironic, given ABC’s tendency to describe reminders of its unfulfilled and impossible election promises as ‘misinformation.’ I look forward to voters rendering their judgment of ABC based on the facts.”

COPE Coun. Sean Orr said: “We’re expecting these kinds of communications to come out in the lead-up to the election again, but hopefully this time Vancouverites won’t be fooled.”

dfumano@postmedia.com

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