The number of police-reported hate crimes targeting Muslim-Canadians more than doubled over a three-year period — even as the total number of hate crimes dropped.
In 2014, police forces across the country recorded 99 religiously motivated hate crimes against Muslims — up from 45 in 2012.
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The figures, published by Statistics Canada this week, reveal changes in the way Canadians experience identity-based discrimination.
(Note: The online cansim tables don’t include data from 2012 or 2013 because Statistics Canada changed its categorization and coverage slightly. Statscan sent us tables for the previous years at our request; we’re using them for comparison where we can but please interpret with caution. Hate crime statistics can say as much about a group’s willingness to report as it does about that group’s degree of victimization.)
Hate crimes were up since 2013 but down overall since 2012 — a total of 1,295 in 2014.