OTTAWA, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- Canada's homicide total in 2010 fell to 1966's level, with police reporting 554 slayings across the country last year, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday.
There were 56 fewer homicides reported in 2010 than a year before, lowering the rate to 1.62 deaths per 100,000 people, the agency said.
By comparison, Canada's population was 19.9 million in 1966 while it was 34.3 million in 2010.
The report said homicides in the country's largest cities were mostly down from 2009.
"Despite declines, the highest rates of homicide in 2010 were in Manitoba and Saskatchewan," StatsCan said. "Homicide rates have been generally higher in the western provinces and northern territories than in the eastern part of the country for many decades."
By method, handguns accounted for 64 percent of the 170 homicides committed with a firearm in 2010, while rifles or shotguns accounted for 23 percent. Automatic weapons, sawed-off shotguns and other variations accounted for the balance.
Stabbings accounted for 31 percent of 2010's deaths and beatings made up 22 percent of the total. Such methods as strangulation/suffocation, fire, poisoning and vehicular homicides rounded out the total, the report said.
"In 2010, there were 89 victims of homicide by an intimate partner, one more than the number reported in 2009," the agency said. "In 2010, 94 homicides were considered by police to be gang related, down from 124 in 2009 and the second annual decline."
