Hate crime in Canada increased 47% last year: Statistics Canada

Police-reported hate-motivated crime increased by 47% in Canada last year, mainly due to increased incidents targeting Muslim, Jewish and Black populations.

Police across the country reported 2,073 hate crimes last year, 664 more than the year before, Statistics Canada said Thursday, with the largest increases registered in Ontario and Quebec.

Hate-motivated crimes, both violent and non-violent, have increased in 2017. Hate-related property crimes have been at the origin of growth, while public incitement to hatred has been increasing. , threats, badaults and harbadment has also increased. Last year was marked by the highest number of hate crimes since the beginning of the census of comparable data in 2009 and by a fourth consecutive year of increase.

"It's stunning. You do not see any increase in this type of crime data, "said Barbara Perry, expert in hate-motivated crime and professor of criminology at the Institute of Technology at the University of Toronto. Ontario.

Smaller increases could be explained by more reports on these crimes or by registration by the police. But this jump "is just too spectacular" and suggests that "something is really happening on the ground," she said.

Statscan stated that an increase in the number of hate crimes could result in both an increase in the number of reports and an increase in the number of hate crimes. The total number of hate crimes in the country is likely to be "underestimated," he said, as not all incidents are reported to the police. His separate victimization survey shows that two-thirds of hate-motivated criminal cases have not been reported to the police.

Among the provinces, Ontario recorded the largest increase in hate crimes, followed by Quebec. In Quebec, reports of hate crimes against Muslims culminating in February 2017 – the month after a mbadive shooting in a mosque in Quebec City – were found by Statscan. Hate crimes have also increased in Alberta and British Columbia.

Four out of ten hate crimes were motivated by racial or ethnic hatred, with an increase in crimes targeting Black and Arab or West Asian populations, the agency said.

Hate crimes have also increased in all categories of religions, those targeting the Jewish population accounting for 18% of all hate crimes in the country. There were also more hate crimes motivated by badual orientation.

According to Mr. Perry, several factors are probably behind this growth, including a brutal reaction against multiculturalism and immigrants, some populist political leaders expressing their anti-immigrant sentiment, more active right-wing extremists and l 39, influence of US President Donald Trump. "Trumpism has laid the foundation for political leaders to follow here, as well as the general public, to be exposed to this kind of hateful idea … You can not leave it out of the equation."

The increase mainly concerned non-violent hate crimes, mainly property crimes, such as graffiti and vandalism.

"There might be a tendency to reject that and say," Well, it's all about graffiti, "said Dr. Perry, but" this kind of incident is really devastating to the community because they are very common, it is also their visibility – if you have graffiti and vandalism in the eyes of the public, it is much more visible to the targeted community, which increases the scale and impact of the impact of the number of affected people, and this is also visible to others, and a reminder that, oh, yes, we should not allow the Muslims of our country … the very visibility of this type of offense for "mischief" – a term as commonplace – means that we should not ignore them. "