...if it was motivated by "hate?" Does it take less effort to remove graffiti from the wall of a place of worship than a bridge underpass? Both are a crime and should be treated as such and attaching a label, something leftists tend to do, doesn't change the action but social in-activists need a cause to survive mentally and financially.
Hate crimes stats don't tell full story
Last Updated: June 15, 2010 2:00am
Pessimists will point to Statistics Canada’s latest report on hate crimes as proof that Canada’s experiment with multiculturalism has failed.
Certainly, the report is disconcerting. Police-reported hate crimes jumped 35% in 2008 over 2007 and six out of 10 people accused of such crime are aged 12 to 22.
Aren’t youth supposed to be more colour-blind and gay-friendly than older generations?
As well, Edmonton and Calgary seem to have a troubling problem with hate crimes motivated by race and ethnicity — three-quarters of the reported hate crimes in Alberta’s two major cities fell into that category.
But does that mean Alberta is a particular hotbed of racial hatred or do the efforts of local police hate crimes units and zero-tolerance policies play a significant role in bumping up the stats?
Similarly, about 40% of the police-reported hate crimes in 2008 were in Toronto and Vancouver, two of the country’s most multicultural cities. Are these cities seething with bigotry as well? Of course not.
If you look under enough rocks, you’ll find the slimy underbelly of discrimination. But let’s not blow this study out of proportion. After all, this is not Kyrgyzstan, where hundreds of minority Uzbeks have been killed.
The vast majority of Canadians embrace a live-and-let-live philosophy, partly because Canada is wealthy, stable and rooted in inclusive Judeo-Christian principles and the rule of law and partly because we are a nation of immigrants fashioning a comparatively new country.
If any nation can shake off the worst traits of tribalism, surely Canada can.
It takes vigilance and a determination to leave age-old feuds from the old country behind, though.
Celebrating one’s culture is one thing. Importing hatred and intolerance under the guise of a twisted sense of self-righteousness is depraved.
On a personal note, I was at a dinner party with a group of Jewish friends over the weekend and several of us complimented a woman on her Star of David necklace. Further discussion ensued and she said she was scared to wear it in public. People immediately took sides.
There were those who agreed they’d never wear their Star of David in public for fear of being victimized by anti-Semites.
And there were those, including myself, who felt it was ridiculous to hide one’s Jewishness in a country as tolerant as Canada.
While two-thirds of the religiously motivated hate crimes reported to the police in 2008 were committed against Jews (165 incidents), I refuse to succumb to trepidation.
Hate crimes constitute less than 1% of all our crimes.
Yes, we have a few bigoted lunatics. But we have a powerful counter force — millions of Canadians without a discriminatory bone in their bodies.
mindy.jacobs@sunmedia.ca
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