It’s very important to note that drawing direct parallels between countries when it comes to crime is very murky, as these difference could be due to differences in laws, the way the criminal justice system is set up, how policing is done, how crimes are reported, and much more.

Quoting this: Harold Pollack, co-director of the University of Chicago's Crime Lab, called Zimring and Hawkins's book "an excellent source." In a 2015 phone interview, he pointed to a number of more recent studies that fit the pattern it identified.

"There's no question the United States faces a number of distinctive social policy challenges, some of which affect the crime rate. But many other OECD countries face their own distinctive problems that affect their crime rate," he told me. Western Europe, for example, has a major problem with drug use. Canadian cities have "very high" rates of property crime like car theft. And yet, the US still stands out on murders.

"I think that Americans have this view of Western Europe, or Toronto for that matter, which is very stereotypical and doesn't take into account the challenges that many of peer industrial democracy problems face," he points out. "There's a lot of drug sale, a lot of ethnic stratification and conflict, there's a lot of just general crime."

Crime rates in Canada aren't that much lower than the USA, there are just fewer violent crimes, like homicides.

In addition to this, a major factor might be considered in regards to Canada. Population and population density. Canada is lower than the USA across the board, 36.71 million to 325.7 million and density of 3.9 people per km to almost 90 people per mile (last census data).

I don't support the NRA, btw. I think they are idiots. I do support logical gun laws. I don't care for fake news.

I also think I was civil in my response to your original comment. I have tried to remain that way even though one could classify your response to mine as hostile and provocatory.

Agree. Compare that to the Canadian cop who showed good judgement and restraint dealing with the Toronto van killer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUY9bytwCZs

Not killing a few kids is a pretty low bar for officers to be setting.

Your video, Track rebuild: Toronto Transit Commission finishes work fast, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I started driving in Montreal for 12 years, and moved to Toronto for another 13 years. These 2 cities always had a bit of a rivalry. Montreal drivers calling Toronto drivers stupid idiots and Toronto's calling Montreal's crazy speed demons. These stereotypes are both accurate. Comparatively I'd feel safer with Montreal's crazy speed demons all around me any day -- they speed pass you of the left, they signal, they don't hog the left lane most of the time. Overall more skillful. Things like the above video happen in Montreal once in a blue moon. Toronto, way too often.

I often road tripped around the Buffalo, NY - Washington DC corridors and I'd say even they are better drivers (in terms of skillfulness & situational awareness) than Torontonians...

It's not even as much that BLM disrupted the Pride parade, but that one of their demands was to ban the police from participating in the parade in the future. That's actively destroying years and years of hard fought progress to bring people together, and I can't fail to call that a bad thing. Again, I hope the US chapters are different in that much, and in many states there is also much more justified outrage against the police, which is very much unlike up here in Canada.

Canada's BLM held sit in protests demanding to meet with the chief of police and then repeatedly abandoned the meetings before they were supposed to happen. They then went on to condemn the police chief for having zero interest in protecting black civilians in Toronto. FYI, the chief of police of Toronto at the time was a black man.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mark-saunders-police-black-lives-matter-1.3587533

A BLM toronto co-founder railed at how our Prime Minister, who makes Barack Obama look like very right -leaning, is a white supremacist terrorist. Rhetoric that just means absolutely nothing and looks like little more than gross false victimhood.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/nzd4px/black-lives-matter-toronto-called-justin-trudeau-a-white-supremacist-terrorist

And then for good measure another co-founder squeezed in a quarter million dollar 'overtime' payment on their last week with the University of Toronto's Student Union. When the Student Union sued to get that money back as their was no documentation justifying paying out that kind of money all of a sudden the Student Union were racists. Eventually the case was settled with an undiclosed amount returned.

https://thevarsity.ca/2017/07/31/the-breakdown-the-utsus-lawsuit-against-former-executive-director-sandy-hudson/


BLM Toronto has done enough harm I am pretty comfortable saying I oppose them. The goal of making race relations better is of course good. Correcting injustices is of course good. I just don't see that coming from a group taking the actions I've seen, IMO they are actively making things worse, not better.

Again, that is specific to up here in Canada, I can't imagine that the US chapters can be as bad without it having been all over the media where I couldn't miss it. That said, up here I would likely have altogether missed everything but the parade as well save for having personally witnessed a just disgusting racist attack on someone at a an event. That led me to discover the attacker was tied in with BLM Toronto and suddenly seeing that as perhaps not an entirely isolated event .

In Canada at least BLM really has given itself a bad reputation. They halted the Toronto Pride Parade until their demands were met, those demands including excluding police officers from participating in the parade...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pride-parade-toronto-1.3662823

I hope the Canadian, and specifically Toronto, chapter of BLM is disparate from the American one, because this incident wasn't isolated. BLM Toronto has taken repeated actions like this one that give exactly the black lives matter MORE vibe that the All Lives Matters crowd accuses the group of.

When your wife asks do you love me, she DOES mean do you love me MORE than others, BLM Toronto at least certainly has acted in that manner enough to lose my support for now.

dr peterson is a professor of psychology at university of toronto,and former harvard professor.

i like him but often disagree with some of his criticisms,but he does source all his claims on his website and his books.

though his book "maps of meaning" is a bit of a slog.

one thing i admire about peterson is his careful use of words,which is where the interviewer was getting tripped up.

she was not really listening,and was instead reacting based on assumptions,rather than his actual words.which is why she kept with the "so what you're saying.."

the extreme left has labeled peterson an "alt-right" demagogue and a "transphobe" but both of these allegations are patently ridiculous with even a tertiary examination of what peterson is saying.

you don't have to agree with him,but as this interviewer found out,presume at your own risk.

he will may you pay for your presumptions and arrogance.

i find both dr peterson and dr haidt invaluable in understanding the psychology of human societies.peterson is an evolutionary psychologist while haidt focuses on moral psychology.

but what do i know..i am just a ghetto white trash kid from the burbs.
still interesting.

Related reading:
https://medium.com/@EcofiscalCanada/lessons-from-toronto-s-ill-fated-plastic-bag-tax-3b411e6dfaf6

Your video, When you miss the exit in Toronto, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

When you miss the exit in Toronto has been added as a related post - related requested by notarobot on that post.

And here I came back to give you a scathing reply along the lines of what kind of major city has highway exits 50 miles apart. If you're not familiar with Toronto this the Gardiner Expressway and Rogers Centre where the Bluejays play and the CN Tower are immediately to the left in this view. The next exit is 3k. I didn't pick up that she said 50 miles, she must be American

I live in Toronto, Canada... I can imagine the same thing CAN happen here with likely similar outcome. But, the potential risk great bodily injuries is not unimaginable either.

When you live in a big city, anything, good or bad, can happen with a roll of the dice.

Is it really smart PR?

Our legal system up here already has codified that 'idiocy', and it's been in place quite awhile.

The women's only clothing optional spa that tried to say 'no penises allowed' is legally at odds with the provincial human rights code:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/male-genitalia-policy-spurs-backlash-at-toronto-women-s-spa-1.3456844

The Canadian charter of human rights also lists freedom from discrimination as being no different for choice/behaviour things like religion, alongside birth traits like race or gender. So legally our system doesn't think rejecting a clergy application for being atheist as any different to rejecting it because of race.

And I kind of hate using a 'trivial' and much trumpeted example from America but a bakery not wanting to make a cake based on people's sexual preferences was declared illegal:
http://aclu-co.org/court-rules-bakery-illegally-discriminated-against-gay-couple/

I'll try to summarise my last paragraph better.

The Democratic party needs to reach out to people that didn't vote Hillary. They are instead choosing to condemn those that didn't vote Hillary as racists or friends of racists. They need to be doing the exact opposite. They need to find things to compromise on and reach out to the people that didn't vote Hillary. That doesn't have to necessarily be on any of the ideas I've tossed out above, but they've gotta do something.

A last point, the moral relativism or correctness of the cause here isn't the only thing that matters. If you can't convince a majority of the population that you are on the side of their self interest and liberties and freedoms, then you are going to lose. The things I've listed are examples of the left taking away freedoms that many on the right consider important or even fundamental to them. If no compromises can be made, the Democrats haven't got much reason for optimism about the next election looking any better.

You should go to Toronto and do the CN Tower Edge Walk.

Just a little correction. Peterson is a professor at the University of Toronto one of 20 universities in Ontario. The closest thing to a Univ. of Ontario is UOIT, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.