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| Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides, 1917-2007 |
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5A. Data Sources: Canada
Contents
Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics Since 1991 the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (a division of Statistics Canada) has been reporting totals for workplace homicides in the "Homicide in Canada" issue of its newsletter Juristat. The data come from "Homicide Survey" forms that police departments are required to submit for all homicide cases (see Statistics Canada Homicide Survey). (Copies of Juristat in PDF format from 1995 to date are available free on the Canada Depository Services Program web site: dsp-psd.tpsgc.gc.ca/Collection-R/Statcan/85-002-XIE/85-002- XIE.html.) So far all cases reported in the "Homicide in Canada" issue have apparently been accounted for in the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list. Taxi driver homicide data were left out of the 2000 issue of "Homicide in Canada". These data were supplied by Pascal Brisson of Statistics Canada. Here are the numbers of taxi driver homicides recorded in the Juristat "Homicide in Canada" issues (cat. no. 85-002-XIE):
Criteria for Inclusion. The differing criteria used by the CCJS and the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list have resulted in at least four discrepancies in the cases covered for the years 2002, 2003 and 2004. The 2002 issue of "Homicide in Canada" recorded no taxi driver deaths, but one homicide (Marc Gauthier) was listed in the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list. The 2003 issue of "Homicide in Canada" reported one taxi driver death while the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list reported two: Mohamed Beyh and Mohamad Nakib-Arbaji. The 2004 issue of "Homicide in Canada" reported two taxi driver deaths while the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list contains four homicides:
In answer to a query in February, 2006 Mia Dauvergne, Homicide Survey Manager, confirmed "that the discrepancy lies in the criteria being used to define occupational homicides"....
[In] most cases, the victim will have been working at the time of the incident, however, there will be some instances where the homicide was occupation-related but the victim was not actually working at the time of the killing (e.g. an off-duty police officer who is killed out of revenge). Conversely, there will be other unusual instances where a victim is working but the homicide is not related to the occupation;(e.g. a woman who is killed at work by her husband because of a marital dispute). The reason for the exclusion of Marc Gauthier from the 2002 issue of "Homicide in Canada" is unknown and the CCJS is prevented by confidentiality requirements from commenting on cases. It seems likely that the Mohamad Nakib-Arbaji was excluded from the 2003 issue because his death was not directly related to taxi driving. He was killed when he walked in on a convenience store robbery and grappled with the robber. It is unknown which two homicides were excluded from the 2004 issue but the most likely candidates are Thuarfikar Alattiya and Brian Russell Wheldon. Both were seemingly targeted by their killers from motives of revenge. If this is true, it would appear that the "Homicide in Canada" data are restricted to killings that correspond to what we have termed Category A homicides, although it is possible that the CCJS applies additional criteria that would exclude even some of these homicides. This raises the possibility that taxi driver homicides have occurred since 1991 which are not recorded in either "Homicide in Canada" or in the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list. Homicide Locations. It should be noted that CCJS data identifies the province in which the homicide investigation took place while the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list refers to the home province of the driver. This affects two cases. Octavio Velasquez was based in Montréal QC but murdered near Arnprior ON. Dorion Simon was based in Flin Flon MB but murdered in Creighton SK. Philip C. Stenning, Fare Game, Fare Cop: Victimization of, and Policing by, Taxi Drivers in Three Canadian Cities: Report of a Preliminary Study (Canada, Department of Justice, 1996). The document, 116 pages in Word format (476KB), is available for download from www.taxi- library.org/faregame.doc or as a 1 megabyte PDF file from www.taxi-library.org/faregame.pdf. Dr. Stenning's study focused on Vancouver, Halifax and Winnipeg. He also obtained specific city locations for most of the 24 Canadian taxi driver homicides that the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics recorded between 1991 and 1995 (p. 3):
All these homicides seem to be accounted for in the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list. Homicide in Canada: A Statistical Synopsis (1976) Homicide in Canada: A Statistical Synopsis (Ottawa: Justice Statistics Division, Statistics Canada, June 1976). Catalogue no. 85-505 Table 4.15 (page 53) is entitled "Solved Murder Incidents Occurring During Robberies: Type of Establishment or Person Robbed, Canada, 1961-74, 1961-67, 1968-74". "Solved" murder incidents "are those in which the police have laid a charge and those which were cleared otherwise (e.g., suspect committed suicide)." The table records 23 homicides as occurring in "Taxicabs", with 8 occurring between 1961 and 1967 and 15 between 1968 and 1974. The table's introduction states that The largest occupational group of victims is that of taxicab drivers. Overall, it is in small retail establishments that robbery murders are most likely to occur. The combined total of banks, trust companies, armoured trucks and business firms which were the locus of a robbery murder is approximately equal to the number of taxicab drivers robbed and murdered over the 14-year period. An examination of unsolved robbery murders indicates a similar profile of victims. Table 4.15 identifies taxicabs as the scene of the robbery murders, which suggests that the victims might have been passengers as well as drivers. However in practice it is almost always the driver who is the victim of robbery and/or murder, and the focus on taxicab drivers in the table introduction implies that all the victims were drivers. The data in the table have two limitations that may exclude homicide cases. One limitation is that the data reflect only "solved" homicide cases. Although the introduction states that the vicim profile for for unsolved homicides is the same as for solved homicides, the report's section on unsolved homicides (pp. 70 to 73, tables 4.23 to 4.25) does not provide a number for unsolved taxi driver homicides. Also, the data reflect only taxi driver homicides which occurred during robberies. This presumably excludes homicides that were committed in the course of other crimes (e.g., sexual assault, or the killing of witnesses), or homicides that had a personal motive. This suggests that there may be additional taxi driver homicides during the period 1961-1974 that are not reflected in this report. Nevertheless, Homicide in Canada: A Statistical Synopsis identifies two robbery homicides occurring during the 1961 to 1967 period that are not recorded in the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list. Also, Occupational Mortality in British Columbia, 1950 to 1978 reports four taxi driver homicides between 1960 to 1969, of which two are not identified in the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list. This implies that both data sources are pointing to the same two cases. Table 4.15 lists 15 taxi-driver homicides between 1968 and 1974, the same number that is in the Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides list. All but one of the cases in the CTDH list (that of Aldéric Proulx) can be classified as "solved" since we have a record of charges laid. If the Proulx case was still unsolved in 1976, there is presumably another unidentified case from that period.
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