Region bucks hate crimes trend

WATERLOO REGION — Waterloo Region was one of the few large urban areas in the country where the number of hate crimes reported to police actually decreased in 2016, according to a new report by Statistics Canada.

There were 19 hate crimes reported in Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo in 2016, 32 fewer than the previous year. That drop was largely due to decreases in crimes motivated by hatred of a race or ethnicity (-12), Muslims (-4), and Catholics (-4), Statistics Canada said.

In Hamilton, there were 70 hate crimes reported in 2016 — or 12.5 hate crimes per 100,000 population, the worst rate in the country. The rate in Waterloo Region was closer to 3.5 hate crimes per 100,000 people.

Across the country, there was a 25 per cent increase in the number of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, according to new data from Statistics Canada, accounting for about 13 per cent of all hate crimes. That was the largest single jump out of the 1,409 criminal incidents reported to police that were motivated by hate.

The vast majority of hate crimes reported in 2016 were related to race or ethnicity (48 per cent of all hate crimes), and religion (33 per cent). Police-reported crimes against Jewish people rose from 178 incidents in 2015 to 221 incidents in 2016, while crimes targeting Muslims decreased 13 per cent (from 159 incidents in 2015 to 139 incidents in 2016). Crimes targeting Black people remained one of the most common types of hate crimes, at 15 per cent of all hate crimes, the report said.

Kristopher Wells, an assistant professor with the Institute of Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta, said crimes motivated by homophobia are likely more common than the stats suggest. There were 176 hate crimes based on sexual orientation in 2016 — about 13 per cent of hate crimes reported that year — compared with 141 incidents in 2015.

Wells called police-reported hate crimes statistics “a vast underrepresentation of what the reality is actually like for many minorities in Canada,” and suggested only around 40 per cent of hate crimes are reported to police.

The majority of hate crimes based on sexual identity are violent.