Image Credit: ADOBE STOCK
March 26, 2025 - 7:00 PM
Police reported hate crimes have been rising steadily in Canada over the past several years, and Kamloops had significantly fewer than Kelowna, according to a Statistics Canada report issued, March 25.
In 2023, Kelowna had 13 hate crimes and Kamloops only had four, so Kelowna’s rate was 5.3 per cent and Kamloops’ was 3.3 per cent.
Kelowna had a huge spike in hate crimes in 2021 when there were 25, and in 2022 the number dropped to 11. Kamloops on the other hand, had three incidents in 2021 and four in 2022.
The nationwide trend is grim with 4,777 incidents in 2023 which is up 32 per cent from 3,612 in 2022.
The average rate for B.C. as a whole was 12.1 incidents per 100,000 people so both Kelowna and Kamloops fell below the provincial norm.
An anomaly noted by StatsCan is crime rates are higher in rural areas, but hate crime rates are 2.5 times higher in big cities than in small towns.
The caveat with this data is that it only includes incidents that were reported to police, and that police were able to then confirm or suspect those crimes were motivated by hate.
There has been a big increase in crimes targeting religions. In 2023, there were 1,284 crimes targeting religion which is 516 more than in 2022, or a 67 per cent increase.
“Some Canadian police services, including those in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, suggested that ongoing conflict in the Middle East may have impacted hate crimes motivated by religion in 2023, particularly those targeting the Jewish and Muslim populations,” StatsCan wrote in its report.
There was also a big spike in crimes targeting sexual orientations. Half of the 860 hate crimes targeting a sexual orientation were against gay and lesbian people.
June, pride month, saw the most hate crimes targeting a sexual orientation.
“There were 224 such incidents that month, about four times higher than the average, 58 incidents, for the other months of the year. A similar pattern was observed in 2022 and 2021 for hate crimes targeting sexual orientation but not for those with other motivations,” StatsCan wrote.
Crimes connected gender identity have increased by 151 per cent since 2020, up to 123 incidents in 2023.
Click here for the full data report.
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