Hate crimes reported to police declined for the second straight year in 2011, newly released data from Statistics Canada show, with mischief the most common type of hate offence.
Police forces across the country dealt with a total of 1,332 reported hate crimes in 2011 — 3.9 hate crimes per 100,000 people, a rate 5% lower than in 2010, StatsCan said Thursday.
The report says 95% of the hate crimes reported to police in 2011 were motivated by three factors: Race or ethnicity (52%), religion (25%) and sexual orientation (18%).
Mischief and other nonviolent hate crimes made up the majority of these crimes reported to police, but the proportion of violent hate crimes was 39%, up from 34% in 2010, StatsCan said.
More than three-quarters of hate crimes reported to police in 2011 happened in major cities, with the 10 largest cities in Canada accounting for 64% of hate crimes.
Police-reported hate crimes, by type of motivation, 2010 and 2011
| 2010 | 2011 | 2010 to 2011 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| number | % | number | % | % change | |
| Total | 1,401 | 100 | 1,332 | 100 | -5 |
| Race or ethnicity | 707 | 52 | 679 | 52 | -4 |
| Religion | 395 | 29 | 326 | 25 | -17 |
| Sexual orientation | 218 | 16 | 240 | 18 | 10 |
| Other¹ | 51 | 4 | 68 | 5 | 33 |
| Unknown | 30 | … | 19 | … | -37 |
