Hate crime in Canada
Warren Silver, Karen Mihorean, Andrea Taylor-Butts · 2004
reported criminal victimization incidents were believed by the victims to be motivated by hate. • Data collected in the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey suggest that 5 % of Canadians are worried or very worried about becoming the victim of a crime because of their race, ethnicity, language and/or religion. This figure increases to 11 % when only visible minorities are considered. • Of the 928 hate crime incidents recorded in a pilot survey of 12 major police forces in Canada in 2001 and 2002, the majority were motivated by race/ethnicity (57%), followed by religion (43%) and sexual orientation (10%). • Of those hate crimes reported to police, the majority involved offences against the person (52%) followed by property offences (31%) and other offences (17%), such as hate propaganda. • One quarter of the hate crime incidents reported by the police services participating in the pilot survey were anti-Semitic in nature involving Jewish people or institutions. • Incidents motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation were the most likely to be violent in nature (65%). Six-in-ten of these incidents involved assault (63%) followed by uttering threats (21%). • About one-in-five victims of violent hate crime had a weapon used against them. Fewer than one-in-ten of these victims had a knife or cutting instrument used against them, and less than 1 % involved a firearm. One