The number of hate motivated crimes reported to Sudbury police is climbing. So what does that tell us?

The number of reported hate crimes in Canada is on the rise. That's according to new information released by Statistics Canada. 

In 2020, the agency said, police across the country reported 2,669 criminal incidents that were motivated by hate. This is the largest number recorded since comparable data became available in 2009. The first year of the pandemic saw the number of police-reported hate crimes increase by 37 per cent compared with the previous year.

So how does this translate in northern cities like Sudbury, Ont.? 

According to the Greater Sudbury Police, in both 2019 and 2020, four hate motivated crimes were reported by the public. However, that number climbed to 10 last year. 

What's more is that of the 10 hate motivated crimes, four were committed against the city's Jewish community. 

Sgt. Steven Train is a hate crime investigator with the Sudbury police service. 

"Honestly, it's concerning because of the serious impact that these types of crime have," he said. 

Train added, however, that while the numbers are troubling it does indicate that people are more willing to come forward to police. 

"The trend is that we're recognizing the impact and the public is reporting it. We encourage the public to report it," he said.  

"We would encourage that it's not only the Jewish community or the Chinese community or the Korean community or the Indigenous community that should be responsible for bringing that forward -- it's members of the public that are responsible to say that that is not right." 

Additionally, out of the 10 reported hate crimes last year, one was directed at the Indigenous community and one was categorized under sexual orientation. And two of the incidents targeted the Black community, one was directed toward the South Asian community and one was categorized under sexual orientation.

The remaining incident was categorized as unknown.

While the numbers are low, Train acknowledges that could be due to people's mistrust of police. 

To address the issue, he said the police service has various community-based initiatives such as the Diversity Advisory Committee.