Police-reported Information Hub
Hate crime in Canada

Additional information

This interactive data visualization dashboard provides an overview of police-reported hate crime in Canada. The dashboard features statistics on the rate and number of hate crimes on an annual basis starting in 2014. Information is available at different levels of geography including by Canada, province and territory, region and census metropolitan area. Also included are findings related to the type and motivation of hate crimes, as well as the most serious violations reported in each incident.

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The Hate crime in Canada interactive data visualization dashboard was made possible with funding support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Note

Data presented here are drawn from the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey.

Data on hate crimes reflect the primary hate crime motivation in a criminal incident, as determined through police investigation. To better understand the complex nature of hate crimes and allow for increased analysis of intersectionality, existing hate crime motivation categories have been expanded and a secondary motivation category has been added to the UCR Survey. These changes were undertaken following extensive consultation with hate crime subject-matter experts and were made available for reporting purposes in October 2021. It can take a period of time for these data to be collected and disseminated, in part due to privacy and confidentiality concerns.

For detailed information on all crime (not specific to hate crime) at the police service level or for long-term trend data going back to 1998, see our online data tables. These data tables, and those referenced in the Data section also contain relevant contextual footnotes for data points, violations or geographies that are not available directly in the dashboard.

Definitions

See Definitions for detailed explanations of common concepts and terminology used in the analysis of police-reported crime information.

Police-reported hate crime (incident)

Police-reported hate crime data are drawn from the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey, a census of all criminal incidents known to police services in Canada.

Hate crimes target the integral or visible parts of a person’s identity. A hate crime may be carried out against a person or property and may be motivated in whole or in part by race, colour, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, language, sex, age, mental or physical disability, or any other similar factor. Additionally, in reference to 2021, there were four specific offences listed as hate propaganda or hate crimes in the Criminal Code of Canada: advocating genocide, public incitement of hatred, wilful promotion of hatred and mischief motivated by hate in relation to property used by an identifiable group. In 2022, an additional offence of wilful promotion of antisemitism was introduced in the Criminal Code.

Police data on hate crimes reflect only the incidents that come to the attention of police and are classified as hate crimes. Police determine whether a crime was motivated by hatred. They indicate the type of motivation based on information gathered during the investigation and common national guidelines for record classification. Hate crime counts include both confirmed and suspected hate crime incidents.

Hate crime motivation, race or ethnicity

Hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity are measured with the hate crime detailed motivation variable in the UCR Survey. The reporting categories are informed by the Employment Equity Act and may be grouped to simplify data collection and reporting and to ensure confidentiality when disseminating results. Therefore, the groupings in the race or ethnicity category, as it pertains to police-reported hate crimes, may differ from the more general definition of “visible minority” groups, below.

“Visible minority” refers to whether a person belongs to one of the visible minority groups defined by the Employment Equity Act. The Employment Equity Act defines visible minorities as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.” The visible minority population consists mainly of the following groups: South Asian, Chinese, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Arab, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean and Japanese.

Hate crime motivation, Indigenous identity

The term “Indigenous” is used to refer to individuals identifying themselves, or who have been identified as, “First Nations people, Métis or Inuit.” In the context of police-reported hate crime data, it is not currently possible to further disaggregate the category for Indigenous peoples.

Hate crime motivation, sexual orientation and gender

Data on police-reported hate crimes targeting sexual orientation are collected based on the following detailed motivation categories: bisexual, heterosexual, gay and lesbian, the LGBTQ2+ community, asexual, pansexual and another sexual orientation that is not heterosexual.

Prior to October 2021, hate crimes targeting sex or gender were collected based on detailed motivation categories for: male, female, and other sex or gender (including transgender, agender, intersex). With the expansion of UCR hate crime motivation categories as of October 2021, the gender category includes: man or woman, transgender man or woman, transgender target not specified, and non-binary. It is possible that these categories could be disaggregated with future releases.

Census metropolitan area (CMA) and census agglomeration (CA)

A CMA or CA is formed by one or more adjacent municipalities centred on a population centre (known as the core). A CMA must have a total population of at least 100,000, of which 50,000 or more must live in the core. A CA must have a core population of at least 10,000. To be included in the CMA or CA, adjacent municipalities must have a high degree of integration with the core, as measured by commuting flows derived from census data. A CMA or CA may have more than one police service. It is important to note that while official police-reported data on crime from the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey use Statistics Canada's standard Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) names, the boundaries for the policing-based CMAs do not always fully align with the standard CMA geographic units used for disseminating information about the Census of Population.

Related Information

Related Surveys

• Uniform Crime Report Survey (UCR)
• Homicide Survey
• Police Administration Survey
• General Social Survey-Victimization

Recent analytical releases

• The Daily – Police-reported hate crime, 2022
• The Daily – Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2022
• Juristat pulication

For any questions or data requests, please refer to the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics (CCJCSS) Client Services group:

statcan.ccjcss-ccsjsc.statcan@statcan.gc.ca