Mayor Colleen Smook was in Saskatoon last week to attend the two-day Living Cities conference.

Communities from across B.C. to Manitoba, including Thompson, Portage la Prairie, North Battleford, Prince Albert, Fort St. John, Lloydminster and others were on hand to discuss the Crime Severity Index or CSI, with representatives from Stats Canada.

Smook explains what they hope to achieve.

“We are all here challenging the Crime Severity Index, the way they get their information from communities. North Battleford and us always fight for one and two positions which isn’t anything great to fight for but we are here to discuss ways to change that.”

Smook said attendees are looking for a more accurate way to calculate the index to reflect the actual size of the region when crimes are being reported.

The goal of the conference was to better understand the CSI and its limitations, and also address the damage due to negative publicity caused by the annual release of the CSI numbers.