The number of hate motivated crimes reported to Sudbury police is climbing. So what does that tell us?

The number of reported hate crimes in Canada is on the rise. That's according to new information released by Statistics Canada.

In 2020, the agency said, police across the country reported 2,669 criminal incidents that were motivated by hate. This is the largest number recorded since comparable data became available in 2009.The first year of the pandemic saw the number of police-reported hate crimes increase by 37 per cent compared with the previous year.

So how does this translate in northern cities likeSudbury, Ont.?

According to the Greater Sudbury Police, in both 2019 and 2020, four hate motivated crimes were reported by the public.However, that number climbed to 10 last year.

The trend is that we're recognizing the impact and the public is reporting it. We encourage the public to report it. Sgt. Steven Train, Greater Sudbury Police

What's more is that of the 10 hate motivated crimes, four were committed against the city's Jewish community.

Sgt.Steven Train is a hate crime investigator with the Sudbury police service.

"Honestly, it's concerning because of the serious impact that these types of crime have," he said.

Train added, however, that while the numbers are troubling it does indicate that people are more willing to come forward to police.

"The trend is that we're recognizing the impact and the public is reporting it. We encourage the public to report it," he said.

"We would encourage that it's not only the Jewish community or the Chinese community or the Korean community or the Indigenous community that should be responsible for bringing that forward -- it's members of the public that are responsible to say that that is not right."

Additionally, out of the 10 reported hate crimes last year, one was directed at the Indigenous community and one was categorized under sexual orientation. Two of the incidents targeted the Black community, and one was directed toward the South Asian community.

The remaining incident was categorized as unknown.

Building trust

While the numbers are low, Train acknowledges that couldbe due to people's mistrust of police.

To address the issue, he saidthe police service has various community-based initiatives such as the Diversity Advisory Committee.

He said it's through these kinds of actionsthat the service is working to improve and build trust with diverse communities in the region,to allow them to feel more comfortable in interacting with police andreportinghate motivated incidents.

He added that Sudbury police are in the process of producing a hate-motivated and bias incident information video to bring awareness to the issue.

I think it's an important thing to pay attention to because it's consistently true and it's not getting better it's getting worse. Emily Caruso Parnell, board president of Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue

So how many of these local incidents have been cleared or have resulted in charges being laid?

Sudbury police said 2021's clearance rates aren't available yet as they're generated from Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) which is the standard form of reporting across Canada and isn't submitted until May becausemany investigations are still ongoing. This reporting is what's used by Statistics Canada to compile their Crime Severity Index.

'It doesn't surprise me'

Emily Caruso Parnell is board president ofShaar HashomayimSynagogue in Sudbury. She said she's not surprised by the number of hate motivated crimes committed against her community.

"More broadly across the country, we've certainly seen an uptick in anti-Semitichate crimes over the past several years. So it doesn't surprise me that that same uptick is being reflected in statistics, locally," she said.

"This idea of what's acceptable speech or acceptable symbolism has shifted, particularly over the course of the pandemic. And there are anti-Semitic tropes that we've seen come back, be given new life during the pandemic."

Caruso Parnell also acknowledged that the number of crimes reported was small but she did note that in communities like Sudbury where there is a small Jewish community, the percentage of hate motivatedcrimes directed at Jews is far higher than the percentage of Jews.

"And that's true Canada-wide. So I think it's an important thing to pay attention to because it's consistently true and it's not getting better it's getting worse."