A massive increase in hate crimes being reported to Waterloo Regional Police made a sudden reversal in 2016.
Statistics Canada says there were 19 hate crimes reported within the region last year, as compared to 51 one year earlier.
Hate crimes reports seem to ebb and flow in Waterloo Region for unexplained reasons.
The region was dubbed Canada’s hate crime capital in 2011, when 62 such crimes were reported by police. The number of reports fell steadily over the next few years, bottoming out at 14 in 2013, before again starting to increase.
Nineteen hate crime reports represents 3.5 reports per 100,000 people.
Brantford Police received five hate crime reports in 2016, or 3.6 per 100,000 people. Both of those numbers are equal to 2015 levels.
In Guelph, where no hate crimes were reported to police in 2015, ten were reported in 2016 – or 7.6 per 100,000 people.
Across Canada in 2016, there were 1,409 police-reported hate crimes, or an average of 3.9 for every 100,000 people.
According to Statistics Canada, hate crimes are any offences which are believed to have been “motivated by bias, prejudice, or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor.”
