Hate crimes in Edmonton were down last year, but violent hate crimes are up, according to a report presented to the police commission Thursday.
The Edmonton Police Service recorded 60 total hate crimes last year, compared to 83 the previous year. The report showed 94 in 2023 and 85 in 2022.
Sgt. Amanda Ross, from the EPS hate crimes unit, told reporters that seeing the numbers decrease isn’t unusual, and offences can increase or decrease year over year.
“We’ve also been doing a lot of training with our officers as well as our emergency communications operators to identify hate crimes and make sure they get sent to our specialized unit for review,” Ross said.
However, more than 73 per cent of hate crimes recorded last year were considered violent, a number that didn’t exceed 37 per cent in the previous three years. Back then, property-related crimes such as graffiti and vandalism were the most common offences.
According to EPS, violent crimes aren’t just extreme incidents, but also include a wide range of attacks from shoving to uttering threats.
The commission heard there isn’t a single known cause for the rise in violent hate crimes, but the report indicated an increase in demonstrations and protests in the city as a possible factor.
The report added those events tend to increase how often groups with different views interact in environments where conflict can escalate.
Members of the hate crime unit also told the commission that events, such as the passing of legislation — across the world or locally — and military conflicts can be catalysts for violence.
The No. 1 group targeted in by hate crimes in Edmonton last year was the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, which had decreased since last year, but remained high. Ross said she wasn’t sure she could identify a concrete cause for why that number was up.
“However, recent events in politics here in Alberta and just the impact that’s had on the 2SLGBTQ+ community might be a reason why we’ve had more reports from that group,” she said.
Online hate and rising hate incidents
The Black, Arab, and South Asian communities also saw increases compared to last year, which Ross said could be related to a rise in online rhetoric over the last few years targeting newcomers to Canada.
Ross said online platforms present challenges for policing hate crimes. Postmedia reported last month that an Edmonton man was convicted of a hate offence for anti-semetic threats made to social media platform X (formerly Twitter). However, most posts weren’t removed from the platform, even after the conviction.
“We can lay charges, but we can’t really moderate what these online platforms decide to keep on their platforms,” Ross said.
Hate incidents, which refer to non-criminal events reported to police, were also up to more than 220 last year. The previous three years remained below the 200 mark.
Ross said this is another place where EPS sees a lot of the same anger and hatred directed at people coming to Canada from abroad.
Chair of the Edmonton Police Comission Ben Henderson said a motion made Thursday is meant to help the commission get a better idea if hate crimes towards some communities are being under reported.
The fact that the number is up may actually be a sign more communities and officers are reporting incidents, the report said. Ross said it’s something that EPS has been trying to improve.
Ben Henderson, chairman of the police commission, said the demographics where hate crimes are showing up raise questions about some groups still being hesitant to report to police.
A motion was passed at the commission meeting directing EPS to work with its advisory councils on the issue of possible under reporting of hate crimes in some groups.
“We could be wrong,” Henderson said. “I’d love to know that the numbers are that low in certain communities. I think we suspect it has more to do with the fact that certain communities may not trust the system enough right now to report, or feel they can report.”
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