Hate crimes grew for both Muslims and Jews populations.
Jews were targeted in 139 more incidents last year than in 2016, for an increase of 63 per cent.
Muslims, meanwhile, were targeted in an additional 210 incidents, for an increase of 151 per cent.
For years, police-reported hate crimes in Canada were inching up slowly.
They went up by three per cent in 2016 and by five per cent the year before. They even fell in 2013, dropping by 17 per cent from the year before.
That all changed last year — police-reported hate crime rose by nearly 50 per cent, much of it driven by incidents that targeted Canada’s Jewish, Muslim and black populations, according to Statistics Canada data released on Thursday.
And the differences are even more stark when you split the incidents between violent and non-violent crime.
Among religious groups, Jews were the biggest targets for hate crimes — they were victims in 360 incidents last year.
Muslims came a close second, with 349 incidents.
Many hate crimes happened in Quebec, where they tripled from 41 in 2016 to 117 in 2017.
Hate crime reports for incidents involving Muslims jumped there in February 2017, the month after six people were killed at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec.
Source: Global News
