Jews are the religious group most targeted by hate crimes, according to a Statistics Canada report on police-reported crime statistics, released Aug. 2, 2022.

The analysis of police-reported crimes in 2021 showed that hate crimes in Canada increased by 27 percent, rising from 2,646 incidents in 2020, to 3,360. This increase follows an earlier 36 percent jump from 2019 to 2020.

Non-violent hate crimes increased by 26 percent, while violent hate crimes increased by 29 percent.

In 2021, as in previous years, Jewish-Canadians were the most targeted religious group, reporting 487 hate crimes, an increase of 47 percent from 331 crimes the previous year and 306 crimes in 2019.

Blacks were the single most targeted group, reporting 642 crimes in 2021, a slight decrease from the previous year. Between 2019 and 2020, reported hate crimes against Blacks soared from 345 in 2019 to 676 in 2020.

Both Muslims and Catholics saw the reported number of hate crimes increase greatly from 2020 to 2021. In 2021, Muslims reported 144 hate crimes, an increase from 84 the previous year, while Catholics reported 155 hate crimes, an increase from 43 in 2020.

The increase in hate crimes against Muslims in 2021, occurred in the same year as a car-ramming attack on a Muslim family in London, Ont., that left four people dead and a surviving child injured, the report pointed out.

Source: The Canadian Jewish News