FIVE THINGS STATSCAN REVEALS ABOUT HATE CRIME IN CANADA.

1 ANTI-MUSLIM HATE CRIMES UP 61%

An increase in incidents targeting the Muslim population drove a five-per-cent rise in hate crimes in 2015, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday. Hate crimes targeting Muslims rose from 99 incidents in 2014 to 159 incidents in 2015, the agency said, an increase of 61 per cent.

2

TOTAL NUMBER UP

The total number of criminal incidents motivated by hate was 1,362 — 67 more than the year before. Fortyeight per cent were motivated by hatred of a race or ethnicity, 35 per cent were motivated by hatred of a religion, and 11 per cent targeted sexual orientation.

3

NOT ALL REPORTED

“The number of hate crimes presented in this release likely undercounts the true extent of hate crime in Canada, as not all crimes are reported to police,” Statistics Canada said in a note accompanying Tuesday’s data release.

4 FORMER PM CRITICIZED

A spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, Amira Elghawaby, said Tuesday that former prime minister Stephen Harper’s decision to focus on the use of face coverings at citizenship ceremonies during the 2015 election campaign contributed to discrimination against Muslim women. “You can almost immediately see the moment that Mr. Harper started talking about the face veil, we immediately started getting reports of women being harassed in Canada,” she said.

5 BIGGEST INCREASE IN ALBERTA

Statistics Canada says eight of 10 provinces reported an increase in the number of policereported hate crimes from 2014 to 2015. The increase was most pronounced in Alberta, where police reported 193 hate crimes compared with 139 the year before.