Muslims only religious group to see increase in hate crimes: StatsCan

By Amanda Connolly | Jun 9, 2015
iPolitics

Canadian Muslims were the only religious group that experienced an increase in hate crimes in 2013 according to new numbers released Tuesday by Statistics Canada — and community leaders say things have only gotten worse over the past year with the rise of ISIS and toxic political rhetoric.

The 2013 report on police-reported hate crimes shows that overall, there was a 17 per cent drop in the number of hate crimes reported to police in Canada compared to during 2012: from 1,414 to 1,167. Just over half of those incidents were motivated by hatred of race or ethnicity, while 28 per cent were motivated by hatred of religion and 16 per cent were motivated by hatred of the victim’s sexual orientation.

Although the total number of religiously-motivated hate crime incidents reported in 2013 dropped by 22 per cent, the Muslim population was the only group to see an increase in the number of hate crimes reported against them, with the number of reported incidents increasing to 65 from 45.

Full story: iPolitics