Question Period Note: Police-reported hate crime in Canada

• The Government of Canada continues to address racism and discrimination in all its forms and is working to make Canada a better, and safer place.
• As hate crime data confirms, we must not take this commitment lightly.
• Budget 2019 allocated $45 million over three years to support a new anti-racism strategy which has a strong focus on community-based projects and prioritizes the funding of projects that target online hate.

• On February 26, 2020, Statistics Canada published its police-reported hate crime data for 2018 on its website and in its The Daily publication. For the first time in five years, the number of police-reported hate crimes in Canada decreased, from 2,073 in 2017 to 1,798 in 2018 (-13 percent).
• Hate crimes motivated by race or ethnicity accounted for 43 percent of all hate crimes in Canada in 2018, remaining consistent with the proportion reported in 2017 (42 percent).
• In 2018, there were also fewer police-reported hate crimes targeting Black Canadians (-12 percent), although they remained the highest number of reported crimes motivated by hatred of race or ethnicity.
• Overall, 36 percent (639 incidents) of hate-motivated crimes reported in 2018 were motivated by hatred of religion (-24 percent). Jewish communities continue to be the most targeted by hate crimes motivated by religion, accounting for 19 percent of all hate crimes in Canada, a slight decrease from the previous year. Hate crimes targeting the Muslim population accounted for 10 percent of all hate crimes in Canada. Hate crimes against Catholics and other religions remained constant in 2018, accounting for 2 percent (35) and 3 percent (46), respectively, of all hate crimes.
• Data shows a decrease in the number of police-reported hate crimes targeting an individual’s sexual orientation (204 in 2017 to 173 in 2018). Despite this decline, 62 percent of hate crimes targeting this population were violent (up from 52 percent in 2017).
• While the 2018 data points to a decrease in the number of police-reported hate crimes since 2017, the long-term trend has been an increase in such crimes.
• Budget 2019 provided $45 million in funding over three years, beginning in 2019-2020, for Canada’s Anti−Racism Strategy 2019-2022. Since the official launch of Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy in June 2019, Canadian Heritage (PCH) has begun to implement the key components of the Strategy, including the establishment of the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat, mechanisms to deliver new community-based projects and programming, and approaches to build awareness through improved data and evidence.
• Work is underway with Public Safety to address hate crimes and hate speech in areas such as reporting, training and education, and online policy research under the Memorandum of Agreement that transferred $900 thousand from PCH to Public Safety as part of Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy.
• PCH continues to collaborate with Public Safety Canada and the Department of Justice to support departments’ respective efforts at addressing online hate and disinformation including work gathering evidence on how to counter extreme narratives that are distributed online.

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