Question Period Note: Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate

• Hate hurts us all and it has no place in Canada. Every person in Canada deserves to feel safe and to be treated with dignity.
• While everyone can be subjected to hate, Canada’s official data shows that specific populations groups continue to share the heaviest burden. These are Indigenous Peoples, Black, racialized, religious minority, and 2SLGBTQI+ communities, women as well as persons with disabilities.
• In September 2024, the Government launched Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate to address the troubling rise in hate across the country. The Action Plan represents an investment of $273.6 million over 6 years, starting in 2024-25 and $29.3 million ongoing.

• Overall, the number of police-reported hate crimes has increased for six years in row, more than doubling (+169%) since 2018. That said, the number of police-reported hate crimes increased only slightly (+1%) from 4,828 incidents in 2023 to 4,882 in 2024 but this followed a 34% increase from 2022 to 2023.
• The 1% increase in 2024 was in large part the result of more hate crimes targeting a race or ethnicity (+8%; up to 2,377 incidents) combined with fewer hate crimes targeting a sexual orientation (-26%; down to 658 incidents). The number of hate crimes targeting a religion was essentially stable, dropping from 1,345 incidents to 1,342 incidents.
• As stated by Statistics Canada, police-reported hate crime data “reflect[s] only incidents that come to the attention of police and are subsequently classified as confirmed or suspected hate-motivated crimes. recognize it as a hate crime.” Incidents reported to the police also underrepresent the actual state of affair: according to the 2019 General Social Survey on Canadians' Safety, Victimization (2019 being the most recent cycle), close to four of five (78%) incidents are not reported to the police.
Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate
• Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate is focused on addressing hate crimes and incidents, which is often motivated by racism but can also be fuelled by other factors such as sexism, misogyny, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and ableism.
• Budget 2024 provided $273.6M over 6 years, starting in 2024-25, and $29.3M ongoing to support Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate. The sum is allocated as follows:
o Department of Canadian Heritage: $7.3M over six years, starting in 2024-25, and $1.1M ongoing, to increase the capacity of the Office of the Special Envoy for Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism. This builds on previous funding in Budget 2022 of $5.6M over five years, starting 2022-23, and $1.2M ongoing; $7.3M over six years, starting in 2024-25, and $1.1M ongoing, to increase the capacity of the Office of the Special Representative for Combatting Islamophobia. This builds on previous funding in Budget 2022 of $5.6M over five years, starting in 2022-23, and $1.2M ongoing; $25M over five years, starting in 2024-25, to support Anti-Hate programming and promoting intercultural ties and community-based activities; $10M over three years, starting in 2024-25, to support the Changing Narratives Fund. This builds on previous funding of $5M provided in Budget 2022; $5M over two years, starting in 2024-25, to support the construction of the new Montreal Holocaust Museum; $5M over five years, starting in 2024-25, and $2M ongoing to create the National Holocaust Remembrance Program; $12.9M over six years, starting in 2024-25, with $0.9M ongoing, to support a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Canadian Heritage and Statistics Canada to improve the collection and availability of hate crime data in Canada.
o Public Safety Canada: $19.5M over three years, starting in 2024-25, for the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence; $26.8M over four years, starting in 2024-25, to support police colleges to increase training on handling hate crimes; $32M over six years, starting in 2024-25, and $11M ongoing, to further enhance the Security Infrastructure Program.
o Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Police College: $20.2M over six years, starting in 2024-25, and $3.2M ongoing, to enhance their anti-hate work with the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and policing partners through the Hate Crimes Task Force. This funding is offset by cost recovery of police colleges of $3.8M over six years, starting in 2024-25, and $1.3M ongoing.
o Department of Justice: $28M over six years, starting in 2024-25, for the Federal Victims Strategy to provide support to victims following a hate-motivated crime; $1.5M over five years, starting in 2024-25, for developing and delivering specialized training to Crown prosecutors and to raise awareness in the judiciary about the unique dynamics of hate crime.
o Women and Gender Equality Canada: $12M over five years, starting in 2024-25, to fund projects aimed at combatting hate against 2SLGBTQI+ communities; $3M over two years, starting in 2024-25, to support security needs for Pride festivals.
o Canadian Race Relations Foundation: $18M over six years, starting in 2024-25, and $3M ongoing, to expand the scope of their work and create a stand-alone Combatting Hate: Community Information Resource Hub; $45M over five years, starting in 2025-26, and $9M ongoing, to support their capacity.

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