Barrie police chief Kimberley Greenwood says the criminal code doesn’t allow hate crime charges for the attack on a young black woman in downtown Barrie.
In Canada, hate crimes fall under very narrow categories that must include advocating for genocide or inciting hatred of an identified group. There are very few times in Canada where that threshold is met.
In the face of rising hate crimes and other hateful ideologies, it is time for our elected leaders to take a lesson from others and begin with legally defining hate so that 1) victims feel heard and 2) they don’t blame the police for the vagueness in the law and 3) community’s grievances don’t erode police-community trust relations.
Interestingly, we have examples of how others clearly define hate crimes, such as the UK (Latest report: https://lnkd.in/eJhnRH2F) and the US (https://lnkd.in/eEWKjveC) or New Zealand, where the Summary Offenses Act 1981 makes it illegal even to use racist slurs.
