The findings and statistics for hate crimes in the GTA are reflected in a Statistics Canada report that delves into police-reported hate crimes throughout Canada.
The report was released earlier this year and is drawn from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR). Statistics Canada created this census, which surveys police-reported crime incidents throughout Canada quarterly.
The census covers 91 to 99 per cent of the police service population in Canada, including the Canadian Forces Military Police and the Canada Border Services Agency.
The year 2024 currently consists of three quarterly reports. The most recent quarter was published on Jan. 13. The final quarter, October to December, will be released in July 2025.
For previous years, Et Cetera used data compiled from the RCMP and Statistics Canada. RCMP released a document in late 2024, breaking down Statistics Canada’s findings about hate crimes until 2022. According to the document, the earliest systemic data available nationally was in 2009.
Although 2024 has not been completely reported yet, it can still be inferred that hate crimes have been on the rise for this year. Data from Statistics Canada show police-reported hate crimes going from 980 in the first quarter, to 1,123 in the second quarter.
Breaking the results by province shows more concentrated findings for the more populous areas.
Caroline Erentzen, an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University in the psychology department, said not all police forces or services have their own hate crimes unit.
“A place like Toronto or Vancouver will have their own hate crimes unit, but smaller communities may not,” she said.
Provinces like Ontario only have two hate crime units (Toronto Police and Ottawa Police), while other regions such as Peel Police train their officers to deal with hate crimes.
Some regions, such as Durham Police, have filed motions with committee members for the area to receive resources for its anti-hate crime units. For Durham’s case, the motion was filed in September 2024 and was approved.
