The Unseen Hate
Despite Canada's increased hate crime problem, the justice system has not prevented hate spreaders who attack vulnerable groups over and over again
A wave of physical and verbal attacks, apparently motivated by hatred, has swept Canada in the past year. During a global health crisis, an unimaginable number of attackers and victims found themselves caught in the crossfire of Canada's racist tradition, resulting in tragic and terrifying results. The number of hate crime incidents has skyrocketed in Canada as it’s something that co-existed from the initial creation of the nation itself.
“It has a racist foundation.”
“There is something very accurate about Canada and the systems in Canada. It has a sexist, homophobic,cis-gendered almost very like this is the way, it is right from the establishment for that structure,” said Lakhdeep Singh, a program coordinator for the hate crime reporting project.
Although the Criminal Code contains provisions for hate crimes, they are mostly reserved for offenses involving hate propaganda or genocide advocacy. The famous McDonald's case began as a hate-motivated assault, but the Crown kept the charge, making it a hate-motivated assault rather than the original charge.
“But the big challenge is sometimes that there isn't consistent training around like even hate crime investigation,” says Irfan Chaudhry, a hate crime researcher and a director of the Office of Human Rights, Diversity and Equity at McEwen University.
Three years before the project was initiated, Canada experienced a small increase of 3 per cent in hate incidents, which in those days was not such a big deal. Currently, it affects anyone who is non-white since many of these hate criminals believe that people who look different are the cause of all the troubles in Canada.
Chaudhry says, “In the context of Canada, we just have to be open to knowing that we have this racist underbelly in our communities, that likely fuels hatred, misinformation, and stereotypical representations towards certain groups."
The victims often receive messages that they are unwelcome and unsafe in their community, victimizing the entire group and decreasing feelings of safety and security.
The prevalence of hate crimes increases with social and political change, which makes them more likely to occur. A change in demographics can threaten an offender's way of life and livelihood by devaluing members of unfamiliar groups.
“ It's this racism thing, this hate thing, this Islamophobia thing, the sexist thing. It's all part of a larger structure, we must look at the structure,” says Singh.
Someone's race is the most visible aspect of someone's social identity. Chaudhry explains, “It makes someone more open, more available to be victimized by someone who might have hatred towards let's say someone who wears a hijab or a turban.”
Some offenders may not have hate as their driving force, but rather fear, ignorance, or anger. Defaming unknown groups and committing targeted aggression are possible consequences.
Racism is most often prosecuted in Canada as a regular crime under the Criminal Code, with bias, prejudice, and hate considered aggravating factors. More than half a century has passed since Canadians have grappled with the question of how to combat hatred through the law. Despite the courts' inconsistent rulings, there doesn't seem to be a way out.
Singh says, “ So it can be anything that goes against the criminal code, but when you actually look at who gets charged with what is a hate crime you won't find that in the criminal code. ”
“It’s just a sentencing feature, not an actual law.”
There is no such thing as a hate crime in the Criminal Code of Canada. A few offenses in the Code specifically deal with hate, they fall under the Hate-Propaganda section.
Following five years of skyrocketing, hate crime incidents reported by Canadian police went downhill in 2020. The situation was different for hate crimes.
A report released by Statistics Canada found that police-reported crime decreased by eight per cent in 2019, falling to 73.4 incidents from 79.8 incidents.
In Canada, however, "the number of hate crimes reported to the police increased by 37 per cent during the first year after the pandemic."
In 2020, police-reported hate crimes nearly doubled from 1,951 in 2019, according to researchers.
On Sept. 5, 2021, Nova Scotia Officers found an international student with life-threatening injuries. He died at a local hospital. He was a turbaned Sikh who drove a taxi to pay off his bills.
“ Some folks from the Sikh Community have been targeted, because someone perceived them to be you know Muslims or even the number of mosques or even Gurdwaras [Sikh Temples] that have been targeted because people assume them to be, you know, a mosque.”
Just a few weeks after this incident, the gurdwara in Alberta where thousands of Sikh Edmontonians receive daily multiple threatening phone calls.
Voices on the other end hurled racial slurs and espoused anti-Sikh sentiment.
Oftentimes people who are targeted based on religion are because they're visibly wearing displaying or showcasing something connected to their faith. Specifically, the Southeast Asian community bisected by religion creates somewhat of an intersectional identity because of their visibility as a minority.
When a turbaned and long-bearded Sikh man or black, Muslim, woman with a Hijab walks into a room they are directly targeted to be the anonymous terrorist in the room.
“I think race and even religion as an intersection provide that awareness of making someone more visible,” says Chaudhry.
A few months later, a city full of Sikhs witnessed some derogatory graffiti spray-painted outside of a Sikh school in Brampton. Where it gave out the message Sikhs are “Paki” or “F— Khalsa” — it is described as a targeted attack against the Sikh community in Canada.
Where being "Paki" means having the nationality of Pakistan and being a “Khalsa” means being baptized a Sikh. These hate incidents outraged the Sikh community in Canada.
Chaudhry explains, “Hurling a racist slur towards someone and while offensive, of course, there is technically nothing in the criminal code that is illegal about that, but people do feel that there is some kind of more accountability for someone who hurls a racial slur at someone.”
It’s also when Police in Kelowna, B.C. investigated a racist attack during which a Sikh security guard was verbally assaulted by a protester.
Anti-Semitism has been replaced by Islamaphobia. A few racists and bigots have cleverly switched their anti-Semitism for anti-Muslim prejudice. Muslim stereotypes are based on anti-Jewish tropes. Like Judaism, Islam is said to be incompatible with secularism. A lot of times there is this misconception that Muslims are not to be trusted, just as Jews were not to be trusted. Islam will rule the world, just as Jews were sworn to rule the world in the past.
According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, Muslims rank second among the religious groups most targeted by hate crimes.
Right-wingers are not the only ones who harbor Islamophobia. It is no secret that many liberals, including the media, say things about Muslims and Islam they would never say about any other group or faith.
Chaudhry says, “It's kind of that embedded fear and hatred around Muslims as people and then Islam as a faith and as a practice.”
Islamophobia, hatred, and violence perpetrated by extremist groups and individuals are strongly condemned by the Muslim Association of Canada also known as MAC.
Canada continues to witness a rise of far-right extremist groups, increasing hate-motivated attacks on faith communities and visible minorities, particularly Muslims.
A family of five went for a walk in London, Ont., when a vehicle-driven attack of hate crime struck and only one survivor was left. A truck jumped the curve and plowed into the Afzaal family while they were out walking, killing them in an attack that devastated the Muslim community.
Canada witnessed two of the most violent attacks against Muslims, including the mosque shooting in Quebec City in 2017 where six people were killed and many were injured and the London attack in 2021 which was the attack on the Afzaal family.
“When you look at Islamophobia and you bring in the lens of skin color and then when you bring in gender to that as well, this is the profile of the most hate crime that's happening, it is a woman in a hijab who's dark-skinned,” said Singh.
In North America, the number of incidents of Islamophobia significantly increased after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Everyone scrutinized the news online and saw two planes crash into the World Trade Center.
Several hours later, the first tower had fallen. The second tower was falling. It was the day when 9/11 happened. The scene forever changed the Muslim community and communities that look alike when it comes to the sense of belonging as someone who lives in North America. It took only minutes for people within the same organization to give people who are brown-skinned, Muslim, or have a turban and long beard strange looks.
Throughout the years, when they drove to work on the highway, people flipped them off. Many would roll down their windows and scream at them.
Singh says, “If I trust the community to help me, then I'll approach them for help; however, in the absence of trust, there is no reporting, so trust comes before reporting.”
These communities knew hate existed but no one really self-reported themselves to the police. In fact, less than one-third of hate crime incidents are unreported in Canada.
There is no definition of hate crime in Canada's criminal code, according to legal experts. But there are a few sections that deal with hate. It is against the law to publicly incite hatred or to promote genocide where such actions would likely result in violence. Additionally, the criminal code prohibits the willful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group through public statements made outside of private conversations.
Moreover, the country's code forbids "mischief," especially if it stems from prejudice, bias, or hate because of the victim's race, color, religion, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or special needs.
Hate can affect a person's sentence even if they aren't charged with a hate crime.
In one example, someone who paints racist graffiti may be charged with simple mischief and the court may impose a harsher sentence if it deems the offence motivated by hate. A separate charge of mischief to religious properties may also be filed.
Bias, prejudice, and hate are used as aggravating factors in sentencing for the majority of crimes involving race under the Criminal Code.
“The pandemic revealed all kinds of inequities and so these inequities often have a factor in experiencing hate crime,” says Singh.
Micro-aggressions meaning negative comments and demeaning attitudes, both deliberate and unintentional are predominantly experienced by women, especially women who wear hijab or a turban in day-to-day life. According to Statistics Canada, women were the targets of 47 per cent of all violent hate crimes committed against Muslims from 2010 to 2019.
“A lot of hate in this country.”
“There's hidden hate in some regards. It's very clean desk time, it's very hidden, it's not over, it's covert, it's under the surface, some people even use this term of microaggression,” Singh says.
In Canada, laws against hate stem from Nazi propaganda introduced into Canadian society in the build-up to the Second World War.
There was increased concern in the 1950s over the rapid growth of extreme right-wing groups and it was common for hate literature to be distributed across Ontario and Quebec back then A Special Committee on Hate Propaganda tabled a report that would give birth to Canada's hate crimes legislation.
The hate crime project focuses on Ontario specifically Peel, Ottawa, York, and Toronto Police. It aims to enlighten the public about understanding hate, how to identify hate crimes, and how to report them safely.
Training police staff on understanding community issues and how to address hate crimes through training workshops.
Singh sat in his home office reflecting upon the project work so far and said, “A lot of people don't know too much about hate crime. To a point, there's no such thing as a hate crime in Canada, and that's the scary part.”