The Numbers Are In — Public Safety in Pickering Is Getting Worse Under Mayor Ashe, and Residents Are the Last to Know

Public safety should be one of the most basic promises a city makes to its residents. Under Kevin Ashe's leadership, the numbers tell a troubling story, and getting those numbers in the first place took a formal Freedom of Information request.

I filed a freedom of information request with Durham Regional Police Service to get the real, unfiltered data on crime in Pickering, not talking points, but the numbers DRPS itself tracks. Here's what the data shows, comparing 2022 (the year Mayor Ashe was elected) to 2025, his most recent complete year in office:

Crime is up across the board:

• Total police-reported criminal incidents rose from 2,594 to 3,477, an increase of 34%.
• Violent Criminal Code violations rose 37%, from 537 to 736 incidents a year.
• Property crime rose 42% (including motor vehicle theft), from 1,630 to 2,318 incidents a year.
• Even after adjusting for Pickering's population growth, the crime rate per 100,000 residents climbed nearly 20%, and DRPS's own crime severity index for Pickering is up 21 points over the same period.

And police are solving less of it, right here in Pickering:

• The weighted clearance rate for violent crime in Pickering, the share of crime severity that DRPS actually solves, fell from 63% to 43%, a drop of 20 percentage points.
• The clearance rate for property crime fell from 19.5% to 15.7%.

To be fair to DRPS, their own analysis notes that clearance rates can fall simply because crime volume is rising faster than police capacity, cases take time to close, and a case reported this year might not be cleared until next year. That's a real and legitimate factor. It's also worth noting that Durham Region as a whole actually posted a higher overall clearance rate in 2024, ranking first among comparable Ontario police services. That regional figure covers all of Durham, not Pickering alone, and it doesn't change what's happening here: Pickering's own numbers, in this same DRPS data, are falling. If anything, it shows why Pickering-specific reporting matters, a regional average can look fine while a specific community is falling behind.

That's part of why what I learned this month matters. I had an eye-opening conversation with Durham Regional Police Service's Director of External Relations, who walked me through DRPS's Community Safety Data Portal, launched in March 2026: open-data-drps.hub.arcgis.com. It's a genuinely comprehensive, detailed tool, and DRPS deserves credit for building it.

But like most residents, I had no idea it existed until DRPS reached out after reading the Public Safety & Crime Prevention section of my campaign platform: shaunrickardformayor.ca/platform. I've never heard a city councillor or Mayor Ashe mention it, let alone promote it. A valuable public safety resource has existed for months, and City Hall never told residents it was there.

What this means for Pickering:

Rising crime, falling clearance rates, and a City Hall that never told residents about a safety tool that already exists aren't three separate problems, they're one problem: a lack of leadership and communication at City Hall.

As your next Mayor, I will:

• Push for a Pickering-specific public safety strategy, developed collaboratively with DRPS, not just region-wide numbers that can mask what's happening in our own city
• Get DRPS's Community Safety Data Portal, and a plain-language Pickering-specific summary, promoted directly on the City of Pickering's website, so residents and anyone considering a move here can actually find it: open-data-drps.hub.arcgis.com
• Work with community organizations and DRPS on prevention-focused initiatives and solutions, particularly around property crime (including motor vehicle theft) and violent crime, including youth-involved violent crime

All figures in this release are drawn directly from Durham Regional Police Service's response to Freedom of Information Request #26-1014, covering the years 2022 through 2025. 2026 data was excluded from year-over-year comparisons because DRPS's release only covers January 1 to July 1, 2026, a partial year. Full source data is available upon request.