Hamilton had the highest rate of police-reported hate crimes in Canada during 2019, according to Statistics Canada. At 15.7 reported incidents per 100,000 population, the Hamilton rate was more than double the amount of incidents reported in Toronto. Over the years of 2015 to 2019, we see a steady growing trend for police-reported hate crimes in Hamilton and the city has been gaining a reputation as the hate crime capital of Canada.
The Hamilton Police Hate Crime Statistical Report of 2019, shows that the majority of reported incidents in that year were related to religion, racial bias and sexual orientation. The ones who are most commonly victimized in this city are the Black community, Jewish community and LGBTQ community. This report provides an overview of how the Hamilton Police have been trained and educated to deal with hate crime situations, as well as the actions and initiatives they have done with the community in hopes to combat this issue of hate.
Based on this study, there were a total of 92 hate or bias incidents that was reported to the Hamilton Police Service in 2019. Out of those 92 incidents, only eight fell within the parameters of a hate or bias crime. The total number of reported incidents did have a 26.4 per cent decrease from 125 in 2018.
Hate or bias motivated crimes can be easily reported through the Hamilton Police website and they do encourage the community to report all incidents to ensure action is taken to make the community safer. But is that really true if only eight out of that large number of incidents actually led to arrests?
In a CBC News article titled, "Hamilton is getting a reputation for hate, and critics say the city hasn't done enough to fight it," Samantha Craggs examines the forms of hate happening in the city. She mentions how Hamilton has had Canada's highest per-capita rate of hate crimes for the last three out of five years.
During Pride 2019, Craggs said that a group crashed the festival with homophobic slogans on signs and broadcasted through a loud speaker. In this incident, several people were even left injured as there was punching, shoving and hitting between the two groups. In this article, she writes about how many people feel that Mayor Fred Eisenberger doesn't care much about queer people and that the police took too long to intervene during the Pride incident, even though Pride volunteers told police in advance that a group would most likely appear. She mentions how Statistics Canada numbers show an upward trend of reported hate crimes in Canada as there were 1,798 hate-motivated crimes in 2018, compared to 1,295 in 2014.
In another article titled, "The anatomy of a city with a hate problem," HG Watson writes about how Hamilton has become a place with a severe hate problem. She mentions how the city lacked a safe place for the LGBTQ2 community, there are no queer community centres and no gay bars. In this article, Watson says how Hamilton is a city where "xenophobic protesters have made a routine out of demonstrating; and where a former neo-Nazi leader worked at city hall, openly, for years." In relation to the previous article mentioned, Watson also talks about how hatefulness was demonstrated in full force when a group of protesters with homophobic signs came during Pride 2019.
Despite the high rates of police-reported hate crimes in Hamilton, hate crimes in Canada are generally very under-reported. In an article by Mac Christie, he goes into depth about how Hamilton's hate crime rates could actually be much higher than what is reported. Christie mentions that in 2019, out of the 92 events reported, a true number is likely over 250. This article also mentions that Hamilton hasn't taken hate crimes or racism as seriously in the past, which explains the rise of hate the city has been experiencing.
