Nova Scotia is virtually heroin free.

This is according to an analysis of data obtained from Statistics Canada.

From 2010 to 2014, the years with the most recent available data, there were only a total of seven arrests made for heroin possession in the entire province.

In comparison, total arrests made for the possession of heroin in Canada during that period was 3955. Nova Scotia sits at just .2 per cent of all arrests with a total population of just under three per cent. In other words, Nova Scotia’s numbers are way below the national average

Diane Bailey, self-admitted ex-junkie and director of Mainline Needle Exchange in Halifax, said heroin was never been a big issue in Halifax and Nova Scotia. “There was little pockets of heroin in the seventies and eighties, but it’s not prominent here,” said Bailey. “This has always been a pill city.” She said one reason why heroin may never have taken off in Nova Scotia is because of the rural nature of the province. It’s true – high population cities like Vancouver and Toronto have some of the highest rates of heroin arrests per capita.

Donald MacPherson, director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition in Vancouver, also believes that regional drug cultures can affect which drugs people use.

In fact, Macpherson’s own province, British Columbia, has the worst heroine possession arrest numbers in all of Canada by a long shot. On average, a person in BC is almost 7.5 more likely to be arrested for heroin possession than all of the other provinces

There are more arrests in British Columbia for heroin possession than all of the other provinces combined. “Part of it is just historical,” said MacPherson. “We are a port of entry, and heroin traditionally was coming from South East Asia.” But while arrests for possession of heroin in British Colombia have continued to climb, arrests for importing and exporting the drug have gone down. In 2014, only five arrests were made for importation and exportation of heroin in BC. That’s down from 13 in 2010.

Canada fighting back

Canada’s war on heroin is getting worse.

Both MacPherson and Bailey expressed concern over the rise of synthetic street opioids such as fentanyl, which is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 40 times more potent than heroin.

The new drug is being blamed for hundreds of overdoses nation-wide by health officials across Canada.

The Canadian federal government has caught on, and it has started to crack down on prescription drugs that could potentially get into the hands of users.

But heavier regulation may come with a drawback.

“With the federal government putting such restrictions on drugs (opioid painkillers), and the amounts that people can have, I’m fearful that heroin would appear here, even in the east,” said Bailey.

In other words, if the government starts regulating pills, people may hop back on the heroin bandwagon.

“Drug use isn’t going to go away,” said Bailey.

MacPherson and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition echoed that statement, suggesting Canada should take a more humanitarian approach to its heroin problem.

“We’re against the criminalization of these drugs,” said MacPherson, “and we don’t see the real upside in criminalizing the people that use them.

“In order to move to a comprehensive health and human rights approach, you need to remove the criminal law and implement health and social programs to people that need them”

In the wake of recent tragedies like the Orlando nightclub shooting on June 12th and last week’s Bastille Day attack in France many turn to the media for answers. However, some religious leaders in Halifax point out that there’s a fine line between answers and stereotypes.

“That’s unfortunately the case,” says Dr. Srinivasa Swaminathan, a Hindu Priest at Vedanta Ashram Society Hindu Temple.

“Even with what’s happening in France now no one had proved or categorically stated that ISIS was at fault [before they claimed responsibility]- there was only feelings and that was all in the TV news.”

Rev. Tesshin James Smith of the Atlantic Soto Zen Centre points out it also common for people to make their own assumptions.

“There’s a tendency that there would be a little snippet of a story, often second or third hand, and people will be way too quick to jump on that and cast judgement,” said Smith.

Hate crimes and role of the media

Father Mark Cherry of St. Thomas Aquinas Canadian Martyrs Parish recalls an incident last year where graffiti was spray-painted onto the walls and door of the church.

“It was just terrible to see that on our front door,” says Cherry. “It was a very big deal to remove it. We had to buy special cleaning materials – we found what would take paint off stone. It was an awful lot of labour and hard work to remove that.”

In 2010, a total of 132 incidences of vandalism and hate crimes against religious property was reported in Canada with the most occurrences in Ontario. So far these crimes have dropped by 28% with 95 incidences reported in 2014.

Though the media doesn’t directly cause these crimes Stephen Puddicombe, a National Reporter at CBC, says some media organisations do add to the problem.

“I don’t think it’s intentional, I think it’s just based on ignorance,” says Puddicombe. “The same is true with religious stories; we paint certain religious groups as perhaps abortion hating people and make it seem like that’s all they are without mentioning the good works that they do. So I do think we aggravate the situation but not purposefully.”

Family influence and intolerance

The Reverend Pyung Choi of the Halifax Korean Church mentioned although the media influences the way people think and behave, they aren’t entirely to blame.

“I think the most important factor is the family condition,” says Choi. “Parents need to discuss with their children about others in our community. They have to teach them to have a social view and a worldview. We need to be aware of other cultures and their way of life. The more the family talks about this, the easier it is for them to be a productive part of society.”

Cherry points out that it is usually a general lack of respect that motivates these crimes against religious properties.

“When people destroy religious objects and do things like graffiti on religious buildings, I think it shows some disrespect for what that religious organization stands for and what their beliefs are… I see it as an intolerance of [their] beliefs to do that sort of thing.”

Education is key

Swaminathan says media outlets should be careful with the way they report these stories.

“They should not give importance to conflicts. When they report about conflicts, they should present the facts and keep quiet,” he says. They should not have commentary on it, they should not write editorials about it.”

Puddicombe acknowledges that those in the media need a better understanding of the communities they report on.

“I don’t think  we do enough,” said Puddicombe. “We need to get to know all our communities… The different people, the ethnic backgrounds and languages. Only in that way would we really understand them and be able to report properly.”

Smith explains that regardless of crime, people lash out at things that makes them uncomfortable but compromise is the way forward.

“All living beings experience this discomfort of change,” says Smith. “People are hardwired to think ‘well, it not me who should sacrifice [something], it’s someone else’ but we all need to chip in and swallow our ‘discomfort pie’ so to say.”

Keeping people where they’re supposed to be is not easy – just ask the Halifax Regional Police.

In 2014, the rate of escape from lawful custody in the Halifax area was triple that of runner-up London, Ont.

Numbers from Statistics Canada detailing the number of violations from the period 2010-2014 has Halifax at the top of cities in Canada where offenders in custody have escaped. In sheer numbers of actual violations, Halifax is second place only to Montreal, Que. Below are the five cities with the highest number of violations. 

Montreal and Halifax have been steady first and second place for the last five years. In 2014, the HRP documented 116 cases of escape to Montreal’s 247, and while Halifax’s number is less than half of that of Montreal, the picture changes drastically when one looks at the crime rate.

A crime rate is found by dividing the number of violations by population size, and then multiplying that number by 100,000, thereby taking the size of the city into account.

With that in mind, Montreal’s rate of offence in 2014 is slightly more than six. For Halifax, that number is 28, meaning an escape from custody happens with more than four times the frequency. And it’s not an isolated statistical blip. While most cities’ rate rarely break double digits, Halifax hasn’t dipped below 25 in the last five years. Below are the five cities with the highest rate.

But ascribing a cause to Halifax’s high numbers isn’t straightforward, as the charge of escaping lawful custody doesn’t necessarily mean tunneling out of prison or leaping from police vans. In Canada’s Criminal Code, Section 145 details the charge of escaping lawful custody, but it has many subsections to it.

“It’s a frequent charge,” says Const. Dianne Woodworth of the Halifax Regional Police. “The majority of the charges are people being on court-imposed conditions and breaching those conditions. If they don’t abide by those conditions and don’t show up to court, they’re charged with 145.”

Another cause of Halifax’s high number may be its proximity to the correctional facility in Dartmouth, and the number of offenders on conditional sentences.  

“If people are on conditional sentence, and they’re perhaps doing weekends, and they don’t show up, when those people are arrested, they are charged under Section 145,” says Woodworth. “I was looking at calls from last year from that facility and there are over a thousand, not all for people being AWOL, but a lot of them are for that.”

Of course, there still is the old-fashioned escape attempt.

“It’s applicable when someone tries to run away from us while in custody. We had one the other day where the person was charged. I mean, they ran two feet, but still, they tried to get away from us, so that’s escaping lawful custody,” says Woodworth.

According to Woodworth, a smaller city like Halifax allows police to better acquaint themselves with people on conditional sentences and keep better track. This heightens the frequency by which police officers notices violations of court-ordered conditions. 

“If you’re working in certain areas and working with the same people, you almost get to know exactly what their conditions are and you’re like ‘Oh, they’re in breach, because they’re not supposed to be here or be with that person,” says Woodworth.

While most of the violations happen outside of prison walls, the province’s still looking to strengthen the security around the correctional facility in Dartmouth. The 2015/16 Capital Plan has part of this year’s budget set aside for renovating the facility and upgrading its security surveillance.

The rate of identity theft in Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Ont. grew to three times the national average in 2014.

According to data from Statistics Canada, there has been a steady rise of cases in the region since 2010. Over the five-year period, the rate per 100,00 population increased from 0.58 to 15.98.

While the Ontario region has been ahead of the national rate since 2011, the gap grew significantly in 2014.

Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo had the second highest rate in Canada in 2014, falling behind Québec City, Que. (17.65) and just ahead of Edmonton, Alta. (14.15).

Acting staff sergeant Robert Cowan, is with the fraud branch of the Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS). He says the climbing rate isn’t shocking.

“I wasn’t surprised that we were that much higher on Stats Canada,” says Cowan.

He says there’s been a noticeable increase in identity theft in the area since 2009. So much so, that the WRPS created a unique set of classification codes within the fraud branch to help track the growing cases.

Cowan says before the new codes were introduced, identity theft was lumped into catch-all categories.

“We started to see a pattern of fraudulent behaviour and rather than doing this catch-all in a false pretense code or an uttering code, we wanted to get a specific look at what’s going on,” says Cowan.

The big switch has been shifting from reactive to proactive investigations.

“Locally we have targets we’ve dealt with and we have people charged,” says Cowan. “On the drug level, we’ve created an organized drug team within our fraud unit.”

He says, a growing problem in the region has been drug houses accepting pieces of stolen I.D. rather than money for drugs.

“When you think about it, you get money, you spend it, you’re done,” says Cowan. “If you give me two or three pieces of I.D., it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

The scheme crippled the unit’s resources, so they joined forces with the street unit to tackle the problem.

“For the longest time we were reactive. A crime would happen and we would investigate it and go backwards. So we tried to flip it to proactive,” says Cowan. “We wanted to look at trends and get in front of it before it happened.”

He says one pattern that has continued to grow, is the presence of organized crime online.

Cowan says, with identity theft, over the past six-years, organized crime has gotten involved and used the Internet as a vehicle for fraud.

“They can make a lot of money in a short period of time and be anonymous,” says Cowan. “They can pick whatever country they want as long as they have a decent wifi connection, and compromise people’s identities through a variety of different schemes.”

Cowan and the WRPS aren’t the only ones concerned about organized crime.

The RCMP states on its website that, “using identity theft to facilitate organized criminal and terrorist activities also appears to be a growing trend.”

A 2014 report by the RCMP, Cybercrime: An Overview of Incidents and Issues in Canada, included the 2013 cybercrime statistics from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC).

The report concludes with three key observations about cybercrime trends and threats to Canadians.

Cowan warns that we’ve become too complacent in the digital age, and says, that needs to change.

“People need to exercise more common sense when dealing with the Internet,” he says.

The RCMP provide detailed information about identity theft to Canadians on its website. It encourages  those concerned, to visit the CAFC’s website, which offers advice on how to protect yourself from identity theft.

Gay rights groups are calling out Canada’s criminal code for what they say is a discriminatory law.

The code sets the age of consent for anal intercourse at 18, two years higher than for vaginal sex. The law also states that only two people may be present during the act and classifies non consensual anal sex separately from sexual assault.

Egale, an organization that fights for equality for LGBTQ people, wants to see this section of the code repealed.

In June, Egale’s Just Society Committee and the We Demand an Apology network sent reports to parliament that addressed the law.

“There’s really no justification for treating anal intercourse differently than any other kind of sex. It’s just a sexual act like any other. It ought to be subject to the same rules,” says Douglas Elliot a constitutional lawyer who served as coordinator of the report from Egale.

Andrew Gowing, a media relations official for the Department of Justice, says a number of courts have found the law to be unconstitutional and changes to the law are being carefully considered.

Improved training

While the law has been deemed unconstitutional, people are still being charged Elliot says.

A survey of Canadian police, conducted by Egale, found that there is no training on how to deal with anal sex offences.

“They look it up, it’s still in the books and so they charge people,” Elliot says.

But it isn’t only police who remain unaware.

Recently, a Justice of the Peace told Elliot that no one told her the law was declared unconstitutional.

“If a police officer came to me and presented this charge I would accept the charge because it’s still on the books,” she told Elliot.

“That’s why it needs to go,” he says.

The most recent crime data from Statistics Canada shows 26 adults and 12 youths were charged with anal intercourse from 2010 to 2014.

“We need to improve training of police and prosecutors so people don’t get charged with these archaic offenses,” Elliot says.

Recorded incidents of anal intercourse from Statistics Canada’s most recent crime data

Location breakdown of recorded incidents of anal intercourse

Constructs homosexuality as a threat

Gary Kinsman from the We Demand an Apology network is also working in the fight against what he says is a homophobic law.

Kinsman says the law constructs homosexuality as a threat to young people and sends a negative message to young men coming out.

“The message it sends to young men who are starting to come out as gay or bisexual or whatever, is that the sexual activities that they might want to engage in carry with them the risk of criminalization.”

No official commitment 

Egale’s report asked the Prime Minister to implement a three stage course of action by Pride Day on July third.

In an interview with Daily Xtra, Prime Minster Trudeau says the government will be moving forward with addressing the different age of consent for anal sex.

Elliot says this is a good first step but the report they’ve submitted urges for a more comprehensive approach to rid the criminal code of all its homophobic provisions, cancel the record of those convicted and do something to make good what has happened.

Prime Minster Trudeau issued a statement saying he is prepared to work with the groups to end discrimination.

Elliot believes the Prime Minster’s statement is sincere.

“I personally saw him at Toronto Pride in July. You could tell that he was enjoying himself,” Elliot says, “I don’t think there is a homophobic bone in his body.”

But Kinsman says so far there has been no official commitment from the government even to equalize the age of consent.

“I’m very impatient,” Kinsman says, “They should have made these changes a long time ago and I’m certainly hoping they happen as soon as possible”

Despite taking a dip in 2013-2014, incidents of identity fraud in Halifax and the rest of Nova Scotia may go up again due to a spate of government breaches.

However, figures from Statistics Canada show that cases of identity fraud are increasing across the country.

In 2010, there were 6,188 incidents of identity fraud. Four years later, there were 10,606 — a 71 per cent increase.

Identity fraud is the unauthorized use of personal information in order to open bank accounts and credit lines, potentially to fund more criminal activities. Identity theft refers to the preparatory work of acquiring someone else’s personal information without their consent.

To learn more about identity fraud, watch the video below.

Halifax and the rest of Nova Scotia are not following this national trend, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t reason for concern.

They both had a spike in cases in 2012 which can be linked to a similar increase in reporting identity fraud to the police. According to a Statistics Canada report in 2012, there was a five per cent increase from 2011 of reporting identity fraud cases to the authorities.

As for the decrease in 2013 and 2014, two high-profile cases as well as greater awareness campaigns from the Nova Scotia RCMP at the time may have made citizens more vigilant when it comes to protecting their personal information.

But what about 2015? Looking at data regarding government breaches may hold the answer.

This past year, there were 5,670 privacy breaches within the federal government, most of them coming from the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA).

Like identity fraud, the number of privacy breaches within the government is growing. There were 5,237 privacy breaches in 2014 and 3,763 breaches in 2013, according to figures provided to Parliament.

With sensitive financial information disclosed, people are then vulnerable to criminals looking to extort money.

“Everybody is vulnerable,” said senior fraud specialist with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre Daniel Williams. “There isn’t a database that can’t be hacked. Database breaches are being reported almost daily.”

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) is the central body that handles information related to mass marketing fraud for consumers, businesses, government, and law enforcement.

Specialists like Williams with CAFC will spend a significant amount of time and resources investigating the connection between privacy breaches and identity fraud. “Scamming, phishing emails will go out,” Williams said. “You get a refund from CRA but it’s going to the bad guys and what they really want is your credit card information.”

Phishing refers to using the likeness of a trustworthy institution to acquire personal information without authorization.

In Nova Scotia alone, there were likely around “10 significant privacy breaches in 2015 and possibly as many as 154 breaches in total,” according to the 2015 Annual Report from the Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner.

While the Halifax Regional Police (HRP) could not provide numbers of identity fraud incidents in 2015-2016, it still tries its best to publicize incidents of identity fraud to keep citizens aware.

“We put out advisories to the public with respect to the different scams going on,” said Const. Dianne Woodworth. “Almost as soon as we hear about it, we put it out there.”

This involves using social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter to notify citizens as well as contacting the media as soon as possible.

Even though the annual report from CAFC has yet to be released, Williams said that the numbers for identity fraud for 2015 as well as 2016 are consistent with growth from years past. “We usually end up seeing the same type of numbers,” he said. “We may start to see more numbers come in.” 

Read the 2015 Annual Report by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Nova Scotia

OIPC-2015-2016-Annual-Report (Text)

Nova Scotia is widely known for tourism with lighthouse and lobster, blueberry–but now the province is also known for the highest rate in child pornography charges in Canada.

It turns out, in 2014, Nova Scotia had the highest rate in child pornography charges in Canada. In the same year, the data also showed that Nova Scotia was in the top three, for highest rates of charges against both youths and adults, in relation to child pornography in Canada.

Fig.1 Provincial ranking: adults charged with child pornography in 2014

According to the latest data released by Statistics Canada, Nova Scotia had the highest rate of adults charged with child pornography, in 2014. For youth charged in the same category, the province had the second-highest rate (following Québec). Also in 2014, the rate of youth charged for child pornography had nearly tripled from the previous year, now sitting at its highest in the past five years. 

Fig.2 Provincial ranking: youth charged with child pornography in 2014

Youths charged with child pornography, in Nova Scotia, almost triples the amount of adults charged for the same offence.  It’s also more than triple, in comparison to any other province in Canada, except Québec.

A possible aspect to see recent change in child pornography is that many of those have gone online.

In 2014, 10 Nova Scotians were charged with child pornography, as a result of Operation Snapshot III – the nationwide investigation conducted by RCMP that targets child pornography incidents online. According to RCMP reports released in 2014, at least 17 of 38 cases regarding child pornography have involved online activity.

When it comes to incidents involving youth, child pornography is in direct relation to cyber bullying. In 2013, 17-year-old Nova Scotian Rehtaeh Persons committed suicide, after she was sexually assaulted at a party and the photograph, which captured her assault, went online.  As a result, one teenager was charged with two counts of distributing child pornography.

Following Persons’ death, several other cases took place, both in Canada and the U.S.; Nova Scotia became the first province which applied the Cyber Safety Act, in 2013.

Roger Merrick, director of Cyberscan, the provincial organization which launched the cyberbully/cyberporn investigation following the act, says though there are no apparent differences between adult cases and youth cases in cyberporn targeting children, the number of Nova Scotians who come to Cyberscan asking for help had dramatically increased over the past couple of years.

“I think it’s because we got the word out when the Cyber Safety Act came out to play,” he said. “People are now aware that we have the ability to reach out for help, and to have these things stopped.”

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the act in 2015, Cyberscan is now focusing on education and raising awareness about the issue. However, Merrick says that Nova Scotians would still need the law’s protection. He says even a civil law, like the Cyber Safety Act, would play an important role by letting them set a formal agreement to get people to stop harassment.

“We have seen the very harmfully sex that cyberbullying causes”, said Merrick. “And, people should not be subjected to it.”