Friday, March 18, 2022

PANDEMIC XENOPHOBIA

Hate crimes up 37 per cent in 2020, 
other crime down: Statistics Canada

OTTAWA — Canada saw a 37 per cent increase in hate crimes during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a statistic that advocates say shows the need for awareness of what racialized citizens face.

Statistics Canada said 2,669 hate crimes were reported to police in 2020 — the highest number since comparable data became available in 2009.

That's even as the report shows the overall rate of police-reported crimes, excluding traffic offences, dropped 10 per cent from 2019 to 2020.

Statistics Canada says police-reported hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity rose 80 per cent in 2020 compared with 2019 and accounted for the bulk of the national increase.

It says reported hate crimes targeting East or Southeast Asian people went up 301 per cent; those aimed at Black people went up 92 per cent; hate against Indigenous people was up 152 per cent; and those against South Asian people went up 47 per cent.

Queenie Choo, the chief executive officer of the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society in B.C., said she's concerned about the rise in hate crimes across population groups.

"It's not the theme of this week or month. It's an ongoing issue," she said in an interview.

The report notes that the COVID-19 pandemic "brought to light" how Canadians of different races viewed their safety.

"We're all Canadians. There's no one less Canadian than anyone else. (Race) shouldn't be an issue in our country," Choo said.

The highest increases in police-reported hate crimes were in Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, the report says.

Kasari Govender, B.C.'s human rights commissioner, said the report's findings are not surprising.

"It mirrors closely what community members across B.C. have been saying for nearly two years about not only hate crimes, but hate incidents more broadly," she said in a statement.

Govender's office launched a public inquiry in August 2021 into hate during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she said "the pandemic has created a breeding ground for pre-existing hateful beliefs."

"We need to acknowledge the conditions under which hate flourishes in order to address it."

No rise was reported in Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick or Northwest Territories, but the report notes the relatively small population counts and number of hate crimes in the territories usually make year-over-year comparisons less reliable.

Both violent and non-violent hate crimes increased compared with 2019 and contributed “fairly equally” to the overall rise in hate crimes in 2020, Statistics Canada says.

Hate crimes targeting religion declined for the third year in a row following a peak in 2017, the report says. But the 515 incidents reported in 2020 are still higher than what was recorded annually before 2017, it notes.

The Jewish and Muslim populations continue to be the most common targets of religion-based hate crimes, it says.

Shimon Koffler Fogel, the president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said in a statement that the report should be a "call to action" for Canadians.

“This is deeply alarming when balancing the number of hate-motivated attacks against the relatively small Jewish population," he said. "We are grateful that police services across the country take these incidents seriously, but more needs to be done to prevent them and protect vulnerable communities."

There was a two per cent decrease in hate crimes targeting sexual orientation in 2020, but the 259 incidents reported are the second highest since comparable data became available in 2009, the agency says.

Statistics Canada says the increase in hate crimes in 2020 may still underestimate the number of incidents, given that not all such crimes reported to police.

- By Nick Wells in Vancouver.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2022.

The Canadian Press

Hate crimes under-reported in Canada, say anti-racism advocates

While on his way to the park last April, at the “height of the pandemic,” Steven Ngo had stopped at a traffic light near his Vancouver home when passengers in a car that had pulled alongside threw garbage and hurled racial insults at him.

“It was a traumatic experience, but what happened next was even more troubling,” the Vancouver-based lawyer told New Canadian Media.

Ngo then worked to develop forms in multiple languages that are now on the VPD’s website to make reporting of hate crimes easier.

He is currently documenting his experience and findings to recommend tech solutions for easier reporting of hate crimes that will be delivered to the BC Humans Rights Commissioners office later the month.

“We must make reporting hate crimes as accessible as possible. There are thousands of cases that are not reported and that’s because it is nearly impossible to report a hate crime,” Ngo says.

“The status quo doesn’t work anymore. We cannot force victims to call a phone line that no one picks up…Vancouver has an online hate crime reporting system in place, but cities like Richmond, Burnaby and Surrey require residents to call a non-emergency phone line.”

But those numbers “don’t tell the whole story,” Ngo says while commenting on a new report by Statistics Canada showing that in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, police reported 2,669 hate crimes in Canada, up 37 per cent from 2019.

The report found that while the number of hate crimes rose sharply in 2020, this may still represent an underestimation.

Statistics Canada said the rate of hate crime was highest in British Columbia (10.1 incidents per 100,000 population), Ontario (7.9 incidents per 100,000 population) and Alberta (6.6 incidents per 100,000 population).


- Between 2019 and 2020, the number of police-reported crimes motivated by hatred of a race or ethnicity increased 80%, from 884 to 1,594. Much of this increase was a result of more police-reported hate crimes targeting the Black population (+318 incidents), East or Southeast Asian population (+202 incidents), the Indigenous population (+44 incidents) and the South Asian population (+38 incidents).

- Police-reported hate crimes targeting religion declined 16% from 613 incidents in 2019 to 515 incidents in 2020. This decrease was primarily due to fewer hate crimes targeting the Muslim population, which declined from 182 to 82 incidents in 2020 (-55%). Hate crimes against the Jewish population rose slightly in 2020, from 306 to 321 incidents (+5%).

- Hate crimes targeting the Black and Jewish populations remained the most common types of hate crimes reported by police, representing 26% and 13% of all hate crimes, respectively. These were followed by hate crimes targeting the East or Southeast Asian population (11%) and those targeting a sexual orientation (10%).

- Analysis of all police-reported hate crimes between 2011 and 2020 shows that victims of violent hate crimes committed on the basis of their perceived Indigenous identity or sexual orientation tended to be the youngest among hate crime victims and sustain the highest proportion of injury.

Gurpreet Singh, a South Asian radio broadcaster and journalist, agreed that the number of hate crimes is higher than the reported numbers released today.

Together with the CEO of Burnaby-based Spice Radio, Shushma Datt, they are staging the annual Hands Against Racism campaign tomorrow.

“The recent reports suggesting spike in hate crimes during the pandemic has made the Spice Radio campaign against racism even more relevant,” he said.

The campaign includes on air conversations every year on racism from Jan. 15 to March 21, which is the international day for the elimination of racial discrimination. The campaign was started in 2015 on the birth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.

The 2022 Hands Against Racism event can be watched live online at noon on March 19 on the Spice Radio Facebook page.

Fabian Dawson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

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