Statistics Canada Report on Quality of Life in High Hate Crime Areas

Statistics Canada recently published a report showing that areas with high rates of hate crime also report lower scores on quality of life indicators:

"The total police-reported hate crime rate in 2022 across Canada was 9.2 incidents per 100,000 population, almost double the rate of 5.2 in 2019. The increasing trend in the number of hate crimes in Canada has provoked interest in exploring the social impacts and trends possibly associated with hate crimes (...)"

"Individuals subjected to hate crimes based on their race, ethnicity, religion, or a similar characteristic may experience heightened psychological distress. This is because such incidents represent an assault on a fundamental part of the victim's personal identity."

"Overall, at the community level, the percentage of people self-reporting positive mental health was lower among those living in a city that was a HHCA than those living in cities with lower rates of hate crime. This was true for both men and women. All told, 49% of men and 43% of women in HHCAs [High Hate Crime Areas] reported positive mental health, compared with 54% of men and 46% of women in cities with lower hate crime rates. It should be noted that regardless of hate crime rates, men were more likely to report positive mental health (54%) than women (44%)."

"In HHCA cities, racialized people were less likely to report positive mental health (44%) than non-racialized people (51%). On the other hand, in cities with relatively low rates of hate crime, racialized people were more likely to report positive mental health (51%) than non-racialized people (49%)."