PETERBOROUGH-Recently Statistics Canada released a report called “Police-reported hate crime in Canada, 2020”. The report found the Peterborough Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) had the highest rate of police-reported hate crimes in Canada, followed by Ottawa and Guelph.
A Police-reported hate crime is defined as a criminal violation against a person or property motivated by hate, based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor.
After the release of the report Peterborough Police looked at the organization’s statistics from 2019, 2020 and 2021. The Peterborough Census Metropolitan Area consists of the City of Peterborough, Township of Selwyn, Township of Cavan Monaghan, Douro-Dummer, Otonabee-South Monaghan, Curve Lake First Nation 35, Hiawatha First Nation.
The Peterborough Police Service serves only the City of Peterborough, the Village of Lakefield and the Township of Cavan-Monaghan and not the entirety of the Peterborough CMA as defined by Stats Canada.
In 2021, Peterborough Police Service says it was made aware of 31 incidents with 18 of those a crime and four charges laid. Of the 31, 15 were solved and 16 remain unsolved.
In 2020, Peterborough Police Service was made aware of 36 incidents. Investigation determined that 24 of those incidents were a crime and as a result 6 charges were laid. Of the 36, 17 were solved and 19 remain unsolved.
In 2019, Peterborough Police Service was made aware of 22 incidents with 10 a crime and two charges laid. Of the 22, 12 incidents were solved and 10 remained unsolved.
“Peterborough Police are both disappointed and appreciative of the statistics. Disappointed that reports of such incidents continue to have to be made and appreciative that people continue to come forward about their experiences. Investigations into hate-motivated or bias-motivated crimes are extremely complex and are not taken lightly,” says Tim Farquharson, Acting Chief, Peterborough Police Service. “It’s important for the public to know that in order to lay charges in crimes of this nature a criminal offence must have occurred or the victim’s race, nationality, ethnicity, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation must be deemed to have motivated the crime, which is what makes it so complex.”
“In assessing the statistics from the past few years there appears to be no one specific group that appears to be targeted,” adds Farquharson. “That said, we do see some increases in these types of incidents as it relates to national and/or international situations. Ultimately, there should be no room for hate in our community, and we hope to see these numbers go down.”
Several years ago, Peterborough Police created the Stop H8 Crime campaign to inform the public.
“This information continues to be relevant, and we encourage people to pass this message along to their networks and to know that it’s important to report hate incidents and hate crimes. Part of the continued commitment by Peterborough Police is to look at ways to make reporting hate incidents and hate crimes easier as well as ongoing training into diversity, equity, and inclusion for all members of the service.” explains Farquharson.
In 2020, Canadian police reported 2,669 criminal incidents that were motivated by hate. This was the largest number recorded since comparable data became available in 2009. The first year of the pandemic saw the number of police-reported hate crimes increase by 37%, or 718 more incidents, compared with the previous year
According to the report, 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)
Due to its size, the City of Kawartha Lakes was not included in the report. Rural areas were home to approximately 16% of the Canadian population but accounted for 7% of police-reported hate. The relatively small number of hate crimes occurring in rural areas makes more detailed analysis difficult on an annual basis. Looking at data grouped from 2017 to 2020, hate crimes targeting the Black population (86 incidents), the lesbian and gay population (79 incidents) and the Indigenous population (51 incidents) were the most frequently reported in rural areas. Among hate crime motivation types where there were at least 100 reported incidents in total, crimes targeting the Indigenous population (30%) had the highest proportion occurring in rural areas, followed by crimes targeting the Catholic population (18%), the white or Caucasian population (13%) and the lesbian and gay population (10%). Compared to urban hate crimes, hate crimes occurring in rural areas were less likely to be violent (43% violent versus 37% violent, respectively).
Among the provinces and territories, from 2017 to 2020, the majority of rural hate crimes occurred outside of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, which accounted for 44% of rural hate crimes, but 84% of urban hate crimes.