The Statistics Canada offices at Tunney’s Pasture in Ottawa on May 1, 2013. Statistics Canada says police-reported hate crime took a sharp rise last year, with incident targeting blacks, Jews and Muslims accounting for most of the national increases. Hate crimes targeting black communities accounted for 16 per cent of all hate crimes in Canada in 2017, remaining the most common type of race or ethnicity related hate crime. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says police-reported hate crimes increased sharply last year, with incidents targeting blacks, Jews and Muslims accounting for most of the national increases.
Hate crimes targeting black people accounted for 16 per cent of all hate crimes in Canada in 2017. They stayed the most common type of race- or ethnicity-related hate crime.
Incidents involving Muslims more than doubled between 2016 and 2017, one year after police reported a decrease in hate crimes targeting that population.
Hate crimes targeting Jews increased for the second consecutive year and accounted for 18 per cent of all hate crimes nationally.
Overall in 2017, police reported 2,073 hate crimes, an increase of 664 from 2016.
The agency says the figure is an all-time high since comparable data became available in 2009, but cautions the increases could be related to more reporting rather than an increase in actual incidents.
