Hate Crimes

1. Hate Crimes Understanding Hate/Bias Crimes and Incidents

2. Racism • isthe system of beliefs or ideology that assumes there is a link between inherited physical traits and social or psychological (including personality and intellectual) traits. In common usage, racism is used synonymously with discrimination or prejudice, but a more specific definition notes the importance of power in racism. It is discrimination backed by institutional power.

3. Discrimination • is the conscious or unconscious act of treating a person or group on the basis of prejudiced attitudes and beliefs rather than on the basis of individual merit. This is not an attitude but an act of behaviour which may take the form of verbal abuse, graffiti, jokes, slurs and physical assault.

4. Systemic Discrimination • Social and organizational structures, including policy and practices, which intentionally or unintentionally exclude, limit and/or discriminate against individuals not part of the traditional dominant group. Often used synonymously with racism. 

5. What is a hate crime? • A crime motivated by hate, not vulnerability, where the offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor. (Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police)

6. What is a hate crime? • Hate crime is a criminal violation motivated by hate, based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor • (Canadian Center of Justice Statistics)

7. What is a hate crime? • All hate crimes are acts of discrimination, but not all acts of discrimination are considered criminal acts, e.g., racial slurs, jokes, etc. • Racism can underlie a hate crime, but hate crimes can be enacted by those who discriminate beyond race and include other vulnerable target groups.

9. Hate Speech/Literature • Advocating genocide – any act committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part any identifiable group namely by killing members of the group or by deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction. • Public incitement of hatred – anyone who, by communicating statements in public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group or such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace. • Willful promotion of hatred – anyone who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, willfully promotes hatred against any identifiable group

10. Shaping Hate Legislation in Canada • Bill Whatcott was charged with promoting hate after he distributed flyers in Regina and Saskatoon in 2001 and 2002 that condemned gay sex as immoral. • John Ross Taylor, a self-described fascist, was jailed in Ontario in the 1980s for telephone hate messages. • James Keegstra had been teaching anti-Semitism to students in Eckville, Alta., for 14 years when a parent complained to the local school board about his lessons. It was 1982 and Keegstra was also Eckville's mayor.

11. Shaping Hate Legislation in Canada • David Ahenakew, a once-powerful leader of the Assembly of First Nations, was stripped of his Order of Canada for remarks about Jews in 2002. During a speech at a gathering of First Nations leaders in Saskatoon, Ahenakew made anti-Semitic remarks. He repeated those comments to a reporter. • Two children were permanently removed from their Winnipeg home in 2008 after one, a seven-year-old girl, showed up at her elementary school with racist writings and symbols on her skin.

12. Shaping Hate Legislation in Canada • On Feb. 21, 2010, a wooden cross was set aflame on the front lawn of an interracial couple and their children in Poplar Grove, N.S. Brothers Nathan and Justin Rehberg were convicted of public incitement of hatred, as well as criminal harassment.

13. Free Speech – Hate Speech • Universal Declaration of Human Rights, says: "Everyone has the right to opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." • Free speech is protected in Canada under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the right is not absolute. • It is also a "discriminatory practice" to send hate messages via telecommunications equipment, including the internet.