Nothing gets the attention of Winnipeggers like a disparaging news story about our city - especially when the topic of that story is crime and the people doing the criticism are Torontonians.

As such, you're probably already aware that the latest issue of Maclean's, a national weekly current-affairs magazine with a readership base of about 2.3 million, features a list of the "most dangerous cities in Canada."

The rankings were determined using 2006 data gathered from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics - specifically, aggregate stats on per capita murder, sexual assault, aggravated assault, robbery, break and enters, and auto theft. Lo and behold, our little Prairie town comes in at number three, lagging just behind Regina and Saskatoon, with an overall crime rate that's 144.6% above the national average.

This should come as no surprise, especially when one considers that in 2006 Winnipeg's car theft rate was peaking at 334.2% above the national average, which obviously skewed the data.

Still, car theft or no car theft, it's certainly no secret that Winnipeg has a crime problem - one that we share with our neighbors to the West. In fact, just last month when I spoke to Michael Chettleburgh, a respected Canadian expert on street gangs, he listed the same three cities - in the same order, no less - as being the current trouble spots for gang activity in the country.

Maclean's, however, approaches its findings with a sense of incredulous wonderment that's actually kind of funny. For example, after noting that Western cities account for nine of the Top 10 "most dangerous" communities, it asks, "What's wrong with the West?"

Oh please, Toronto - please, tell us what our problem is.

To be fair, Maclean's does get a few things right. The picture it paints - particularly in its lengthy profile piece "from the front lines of Winnipeg's all-out assault on crime" - is, for the most part, an accurate one (although I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that it does sensationalize the issue and portray Sam Katz as Superman, both of which I found a bit hard to stomach).

The problem comes when it tries to make sense of the data. Maclean's reports that poverty and marginalization, "by race and by neighbourhood," are common denominators in high-crime cities, and notes that, proportionately, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg have the highest urban Aboriginal populations in Canada.

While all are true, that last factoid is left hanging with virtually no further analysis, as if to say, "Well, of course those cities are dangerous - native people live there."

As if Aboriginal people - who are, indeed, disproportionately affected by crime and grossly overrepresented in our criminal justice system - are the cause of crime; a convenient bit of circular logic that works to perpetuate stereotypes.

Maybe Maclean's didn't want to complicate the issue by getting all into root causes and such, but it would have been nice if just once or twice, the word "colonization" or the phrase "systemic racism" were mentioned as part of the overall analysis.

Instead - and unfortunately - it chose to present an explanation that is, at best, incomplete, and at worst, misleading.