More than 2,000 hate crimes have been reported to Canadian police in 2017

According to a new Statistics Canada report, more than 2,000 hate crimes were reported to Canadian police last year, a record number since comparable data were first available in 2009.

In 2017, Canadians reported 2,073 hate crimes to police, a sharp increase of 47% over the previous year. This growth was driven primarily by Ontario, which recorded the largest increase in hate crimes with 1,023 incidents – a 67% increase over 2016, with the majority of cases targeting Muslim communities, black and Jewish.

Then came Quebec, where hate crimes increased by 50% and largely victimized the Muslim community, particularly in the month following the shooting at the Quebec Mosque, which accounted for 26% of all incidents. anti-muslims reported in the province last year.

For the anti-racism and advocacy groups, the report is just the latest testimony to the alarming rise in hate – and it is high time to wait for effective action and leadership.

"These attitudes are still present in our society and this is unacceptable," said Brittany Andrew-Amofah, board member of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, in a statement. "It is time for political leaders to speak unequivocally against hatred and intolerance and support a multicultural society where everyone feels safe to participate and contribute."

These new data are subject to reservations. It is unclear whether the peak of last year was due to an increase in the number of incidents or an improvement in reporting, and hate-motivated crimes still represent only a small proportion of crimes, representing only 0.1% of the 1.9 million non-traffic-related crimes reported last year by the police.

But police data also depend on the ability – and resources – of a service to effectively investigate hate-motivated crimes, which are largely under-reported. In 2014, another Statistics Canada survey found that Canadians had self-reported more than 330,000 hate-motivated criminal incidents, but only one-third had filed police reports. Groups such as the National Council of Muslims of Canada (NCCM) and the Canadian Hate Network also criticize current clbadification systems for being too broad in scope – making it difficult, for example, to discern whether an Arab Muslim man could have been targeted for his race. , religion or both.

The Penal Code does not provide for a specific offense known as a "hate crime", but any crime can be characterized as such – and, therefore, add to a person's prison sentence – if it is proven that hate is a motivator Three articles of the Penal Code also deal with hate propaganda, but the bar for laying charges is particularly high.

Last year, the majority of reported hate crimes were non-violent and involved acts of mischief, such as graffiti or vandalism. But violent incidents accounted for 53% of hate crimes against people because of their badual orientation. in comparison, 24% of hate crimes targeting religion and 47% of incidents based on ethnicity were clbadified as violent.

Race or ethnicity was the main motivation for reported hate crimes, with 878 incidents last year, an increase of 32% over 2016. The black community was the most frequent target, with anti-black incidents increasing by more than 50% and 16% of all hate crimes in Canada.

Hate-motivated crimes based on religion also increased by more than 80% as the number of incidents targeting Muslims increased. While anti-Muslim hate crimes declined in 2016, the number of reported incidents more than doubled last year to reach a total of 349.

"The numbers are pretty amazing," said NCCM spokeswoman Leila Nasr. "At the same time, I must say that it is not surprising for us. The year 2017 was a mbadive year for the Muslim community, beginning with the slaughter of six Muslim men while he was praying in the mosque of Quebec City. So, I really think it sets the tone for the rest of the year. "

Proportionately, Jews were the most targeted, with anti-Semitic hate crimes accounting for 18% of all reported incidents in 2017. In recent years, anti-Semitic incidents have proliferated worldwide, but North American Jewish communities have gained momentum. particularly acute since 2017 – especially following the violent rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, characterized by blatant anti-Semitism, and the attack on the Pittsburgh Synagogue last month, which killed 11 people, which in turn makes the most deadly antisemitic attack against the North American soil.

"Whenever you have a polarization, a mistrust of traditional authorities and a dynamic of political demonization, it is here that anti-Semitism can find an environment in which to develop," said Steve McDonald, director of politics at the Center for Israeli and Jewish Affairs. "You will often see that when people are angry at a current political situation, if they are anti-Semitic, they connect it to the Jews and designate Jews as a source of evil in the world."

Canada is now at a "critical juncture," and politicians – especially those who increasingly resort to whistling and xenophobic rhetoric – need to examine their own role in fueling this growing wave of hatred, said Mohammed. Hashim, member of the board of directors. Urban Alliance for Race Relations.

"Economic anxiety creates a level of discord among the population and politicians use minorities as scapegoats," he said. "It is the result of continuous and increasingly amplified scapegoats made by politicians who attack people's anxieties."

CIJA and NCCM call for greater Canadian government intervention, including a national anti-hate online strategy and strengthened anti-racism efforts at the federal level. Local police services also need to be better trained in hate crimes, Nasr said; many Muslim Canadians who reported incidents to the NCCM stated that they were not believed by local law enforcement officials.

This latest Statistics Canada report highlights the urgent need for additional funding and resources for police surveillance of hate crimes, said Bernie Farber, Chair of the Canadian Hate Network. As a category of crime, "hate" is particularly difficult to investigate and prosecute, and recent years have seen atrophy of hate crime units within police departments, he said.

"There is no doubt that hate-motivated crime can lead to violence or even death, and we ignore it at our peril," Farber said. "It's time for the hate crime units to be restored, funded and re-prioritized."

Jennifer Yang is a Toronto-based journalist who deals with identity and inequality. Follow her on Twitter: @jyangstar

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