April 3, 2024
Introduction
The number of hate crimes reported to police across Canada continued to rise in 2022. According to new data released by Statistics Canada, police-reported hate crimes targeting people based on their sexual orientation, as well as hate crimes targeting people based on their race or ethnicity, rose most sharply. This data includes only those crimes that were reported to police and then classified by police as suspected or confirmed hate crimes; because not all victims of hate crimes report the crime to the police, the true number of people targeted by hate crimes is likely higher.
In this report, data on hate crimes in which people were targeted for their sex or gender has not been disaggregated to reflect hate crimes targeting trans and nonbinary people. Statistics Canada has indicated that this data may become available in the future.
As political and legislative assaults on 2SLGBTQI rights in Canada continue to gain steam and violent rhetoric against 2SLGBTQI people has led CSIS to warn that our communities are at risk of serious violence, this data is deeply concerning.
Key Takeaways
- Police-reported hate crimes targeting people based on their sexual orientation increased from 438 in 2021 to 491 in 2022, representing a 12% increase. This is the highest ever number of police-reported hate crimes against our communities, surpassing the previous peak in 2021.
- Over half of police-reported hate crimes targeting people for their sexual orientation were violent crimes. The proportion of violent, compared to non-violent, hate crimes targeting people for their sexual orientation was somewhat higher in 2022 than in 2021 (50.5% in 2021 compared to 53% in 2022).
- 30% of victims of hate crimes who were targeted for their sexual orientation sustained injuries, compared to 25% of all victims who reported the crimes to the police.
- On average, victims of police-reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation were younger than victims of other hate crimes (27 years old compared to a median of 31.5 years old).
- 41% of victims of police-reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation were acquainted with the accused perpetrator. In a further 8% of cases, the accused was a family member or intimate partner of the victim.