Hate crime in Canada: an overview of issues and data sources

Abstract

The scope and nature of hate crime in Canada are issues that policy makers, government researchers, academics and non-governmental organizations have been trying to understand for a number of years. Although a wealth of research and data exists in the United States, it has only recently become an issue of public concern in Canada. A paucity of data on hate crime exists in Canada and future policy and legislative directions will rely heavily on such information.

In January 1999, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) received a commitment of four years funding from the federal government's Policy Research Initiative (PRI) to conduct a study on hate crime in Canada. The purpose of the overall study is to enhance our understanding of hate crime and to assess the feasibility of collecting police-reported hate crime statistics in Canada. These main objectives will be carried out over the remaining course of the study, which will consist of different phases. The first phase of the study, presented in this report, will describe some of the pertinent issues at hand, some previous findings, international comparisons, recent initiatives, current data sources, a description of police resources, as well as findings from the 1999 General Social Survey, that for the first time, measured self-reported hate crime victimization incidents at the national level.

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