Numbers can’t tell the whole story of hate crime in Niagara
Community leaders want better data to track hate crimes in region
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.
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