Interview on behalf of the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association on the Niagara Regional Council's Reprimand of West Lincoln Mayor Dave Bylsma on his comments on CKTB 610 AM
https://www.chch.com/west-lincoln-mayor-dave-bylsma-receives-reprimand-for-comments-on-radio/
Looking at the numbers, it would be easy to think Niagara doesn’t have a problem with hate crime, but local community leaders say statistics can’t tell the whole story.
According to Statistics Canada, there were nine “police-reported hate crimes” in 2019 in St. Catharines-Niagara, a number that is lower than the country’s national average. There are concerns, though, that those statistics don’t capture the scope of the issue.
“It feels low. That doesn’t feel representative of what people experience,” said Patty Krawec, an Anishnaabe woman who lives in Niagara Falls and co-hosts the Medicine for the Resistance podcast.
Saleh Waziruddin, executive member of the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association (NRARA), said one limitation to the data is that police-reported hate crimes are a “narrow subset” of hate incidents because Statistics Canada only tracks police-reported hate crimes and not all violations of Canada’s hate laws.
Krawec said the narrow definition will exclude some people’s experiences.
“When (a hate crime) has to meet these certain criteria … you’re now excluding people who may have been targeted because of their race or because of their perceived race, but they’re not going to meet the criteria because you’ve set it up in such a way that it excludes people,” she said.
And since there is data to suggest many victims of hate crimes don’t report them, it’s likely there are more than what’s reported to police.
“I don’t think people want to report hate crimes or even necessarily trust the police enough to go through that avenue,” said Karl Dockstader, executive director of the Niagara Regional Native Centre.
Waziruddin and Krawec said in order to understand what is actually happening in Niagara with regards to hate crime, there needs to be better data.
Waziruddin said the NRARA supports the St. Catharines Anti-Racism Advisory Committee’s demand for the Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) to release a breakdown of where hate crimes are occurring in the region, who is being targeted and what kind of crimes are being committed.
“It’s very important to be aware of which protected groups are being targeted for hate in Niagara,” he said.
Currently, while individuals can see a breakdown via the NRPS website on where crimes such as robberies, thefts, assaults and others occur, they can’t see that information on hate crimes. The NRPS declined to be interviewed for this article and said a Freedom of Information request would need to be filed to obtain specific data on hate crimes in the region.
The St. Catharines Anti-Racism Advisory Committee is also developing a community survey that will help members better understand racism and hate crime in the city, and Waziruddin said the NRARA will welcome that data.
“We think that will be a big step of at least one part of the region of what kind of incidents people are experiencing and how they want to report it,” he said.
Krawec said “race-based data” that tracks who’s targeted, who’s charged and who’s convicted would be more useful than simply tracking the number of hate crimes because it will show patterns of behaviour.
“Tracking (an) attitude isn’t as important as tracking the outcomes of that attitude,” she said. “The outcomes give us the patterns and the patterns tell us where we need to make change.”
But while the statistics may not capture the reality of the situation, Dockstader said he doesn’t want to see hate crimes increase either.
“By the time it gets to that point, things have broken down before that,” he said. “Where I think it starts is for non-Black, non-Indigenous and non-people of colour to identify that racism exists and look for ways to remedy racism at every level.”
Waziruddin said it will take cooperation from municipal governments and grassroots organizations to advocate for better data and safer communities.
“We do need all parts of society to come together here,” he said. “Everybody does have a role.”
STORY BEHIND THE STORY: Even though the number of reported hate crimes was low in Niagara, reporter Lindsay Smith wanted to hear from community members and leaders about whether those numbers reflected the lived experience of people in the region.
At over six feet tall with a thick bodybuilder frame, the late Fred Bracken cut an imposing figure. Even more so when he was spoiling for a fight.
“I was attending a regional council meeting in 2017 when Mr. Bracken showed up,” recalled Mohamad Al Jumaily. “I saw this guy, he was very loud, and dressed in camo like he was in the military. He was very emotionally and physically charged up. He was trying to get me into a physical fight with him, and that was very shocking to me.”
Jumaily was attending the council meeting to speak out against the racist, anti-LGBTQ comments that a member of regional council had been posting to his personal social media accounts. Bracken, a vocal Trump supporter who had recently been arrested for getting in a fight during a protest where he held a sign reading ‘F--- MEXICO’ while shouting at passersby with a megaphone, was at the meeting to show his support for the same councillor Jumaily was there to speak against.
“I did not allow him this opportunity to get me to fight with him,” recalled Jumaily of his encounter with Bracken while they waited for the council meeting to start. “I went to security; I said look at this guy he is disturbing the peace, and that’s when he [Bracken] started calling me a terrorist.”
It was a shocking slur, but Jumaily said he was equally shocked by what happened next.
“During this verbal harassment, I went to (then regional chair Alan Caslin) and told him that this guy keeps calling me a terrorist,” recalled Jumaily. “I was told by the chairman that nothing could be done because the meeting had not officially started yet.”
The inaction in the face of such a racially charged situation is something that Jumaily said cut just as deep as the original insult of being called a terrorist.
“It was a pathetic excuse. When you look to people who are in positions of power, like the chair of the entire Niagara Region, you would expect them to embody basic aspects of leadership,” said Jumaily. “He failed to deliver on leadership when that situation unfolded right before his eyes.”
While the chair and other members of council stood by and did nothing, Jumaily recalled how much better he felt when someone finally did something.
“Former councillor Paul Grenier was the only one in the council chambers that day to call this what it was,” said Jumaily. “He called it a hate crime.”
Comparatively speaking, hate crime incidents like the one Jumaily faced, are rare in Niagara relative to larger urban areas around Toronto. But according to Marrika Sanders, it’s no less important to show support for anti-racism initiatives in Niagara than it is in big cities.
When George Floyd was murdered earlier this year at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, it sparked a wave of Black Lives Matters protests across the globe, including in unlikely places, like Fort Erie, where only about one per cent of the population is Black.
“Racism happens here too, and people need to be made aware of it and I wanted those bigger cities and places to know that there are small towns who support them,” said Sanders, who organized a BLM protest in her hometown of Fort Erie.
While motivated that day by the George Floyd incident, Sanders had her own reasons for wanting to support BLM and other anti-racism initiatives in Niagara.
“My cousin experienced police brutality as an adolescent,” recalled Sanders. “My mom and I saw it first hand, it was heartbreaking, but there was nothing we could do because the police are the authority. They smacked her down and pushed her forcefully into the cop car.”
Sanders was 18 years old at the time, and it was the first time she had witnessed racism with her own eyes. She said it shook her confidence in police and the way they interact with people that look like her.
“I don’t put all police officers in the same category, but I do recognize the need for change.”
Gaining the trust and support of racialized communities in Niagara is no small task for police, and according to Saleh Waziruddin from the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association, it starts with more transparency.
“We can look up all the crimes reported to police in Niagara, except for hate crimes, it’s the only one not there,” said Waziruddin of his group’s ongoing efforts to collect data on hate crimes.
At a time when building relationships with Niagara’s racialized communities is more important than ever, Waziruddin said having an open dialogue about hate crimes is a strong first step.
James Culic is an Ottawa-expat, reporting the news around Niagara’s southern tier. He also writes a weekly opinion column which people seem to love to hate-read. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
