Data released under a Freedom of Information request provides greater insight into hate crimes in Vancouver.

Data from the Vancouver Police Department covers the period from December 2022 to December 2023 and shows an increase in hate-related incidents for a number of racial and ethnic groups.

During this period, anti-Semitism increased by 62 percent, hate incidents directed against black people by 23 percent and those targeting indigenous people by 67 percent.

Regional Chief Terry Teegee of the Assembly of First Nations of British Columbia called the increase worrying.

“It just speaks to the general problem that there is a racism problem in this country,” he said.

There was also an 83 percent increase in hate incidents targeting trans, non-binary, agender or intersex people. Hate incidents against Arabs and West Asians increased by 100 percent, while Muslims saw a 25 percent increase.

During a press conference in JanuaryThe VPD did not share the exact number of anti-Muslim or anti-West Asian hate crimes, but said these events were “absolutely” happening.

“Information they forget”

The FOI was filed in May by Anthony, a Tri-Cities resident, who asked CTV News not to use his last name for security reasons.

He said he filed a freedom of information request because he noticed the VPD was primarily issuing press releases related to a rise in anti-Semitism and wanted to see if other ethnic and racial groups experienced similar trends.

“I thought, ‘OK, well, let’s look at the rest of the data, because I feel like there’s other pieces of information that they’re forgetting,'” he said. declared.

Anthony said he wasn’t surprised by the results, but added they left him wondering why the VPD only released certain data.

“They should have, or they should have, informed the public about all of this equally.”

CTV News reached out to the VPD for comment but did not receive a response.

According to FOI, the civilian analyst who responded to the request said: “Hate crime cases are reviewed by hate crime investigators and a hate crime team. Although many cases are reviewed, not all cases are coded as motivated by hatred, bias, or bias. Reviews are subjective and therefore statistics may be affected by subjective opinion.

The analyst added that hate crime data includes hate incidents, hate crimes and hate crimes.

“This means that the data includes hate incidents, such as racial slurs, hate crimes, such as hate-related Criminal Code offenses such as “willful promotion of hatred” and “willful incitement to hatred” , as well as hate crimes, such as an assault proven to be motivated by hate. With this in mind, events can fall within a wide range of severity,” the analyst said.

“Under-reported”

According to VPD data, despite a 19 percent decrease in reported hate incidents against people from East and Southeast Asia, in 2023 the force recorded 46 such incidents.

Vivian Nguyen, a member of the Vietnamese Professionals Association of British Columbia, said the real numbers are likely higher.

“I don’t think the data is extremely accurate, just knowing that many police departments don’t even have accessible ways to report hate crimes,” Nguyen said. “I think many hate crimes are still underreported. »

Nguyen is part of a project called Fix Police Reporting that advocates for greater accessibility to hate crime reporting. She said she would like to see law enforcement be more proactive in releasing this data.

“I think it gives everyone a better idea of ​​how our community and our society is improving in terms of how the government supports us and provides us with resources so that we can actually report these crimes and feel heard and seen in this way,” she said. said.

Kasari Govender, British Columbia’s human rights commissioner, said it is important to provide the full extent of information when sharing data on hate incidents.

“We need to have a complete picture of the situation in the province to really understand how to solve the problem,” Govender said.