Don’t
be fooled by drop in city hate crimes, officer says
KRISTA
SYLVESTER
METRO CALGARY
June 15, 2010 5:38 a.m.
Calgary is no longer the hate-crime capital of Canada, but
city police say the numbers in a new Statistics Canada report
can be misleading.
While
the report released yesterday indicated there were 1,036
reported hate crimes in the country in 2008 — a 35
per cent spike — Calgary dropped to 57 reported hate
crimes, down from a leading 83 in 2007.
But
Calgary police hate-crimes co-ordinator Const. Brian Denison
said he is reluctant to get too excited about the statistics,
since most hate crimes and hate-motivated incidents go unreported.
“In
reality we know hate crimes are under-reported, and our
goal is to educate people and let people know every hate
incident and every hate crime should be reported,”
Denison said.
According
to the report, 55 per cent of national hate crimes were
related to ethnicity — with 43 incidents in Calgary
alone.
Calgary
musician Tristin Chanel is not surprised as she was the
recent victim of an extreme case of racism in the city.
“I
am really disappointed but I do see it all the time, and
even though I’ve lived in New York, Toronto and other
big cities, I see racism the most in Calgary,” Chanel
said.
“It’s
really sad because you would think it would going away,
but it seems like it’s getting worse and being instilled
in children.”