COLLINS: Hate crimes, bullying will not go away quickly
A 500-PAGE REPORT THIS WEEK by Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender is a document designed as a pathway to reducing hate-related crime. The report, entitled From Hate to Hope, is a litany of crimes ranging from serious incidents threatening lives and property to crimes against ethnic and religious groups to bullying and trolling on social media.
Govender’s report contains a number of recommendations, the major one being a centralized, all-inclusive reporting system to track incidents and try in some way to deal with the perpetrators.
Govender says there has been a sharp rise in hate crimes during the pandemic. Some of that rise may have been due to fear. When we get frightened, we tend to lash out, but that’s a very simplified answer. Hate crimes jumped 118 per cent from 2019 to 2021 in B.C. That’s big. Hate incidents against Indigenous peoples were up 367 per cent. Because white society is afraid of all the land claims? No idea. But the results are there. Crimes against Asians, Blacks and members of the LBGTQ+ community are all on the rise. And that doesn’t include bullying and online harassment.
Those numbers are probably much lower than the actual numbers, because people are becoming less trusting of people in authority. They’re afraid to call the police because many police officers and, indeed, entire departments are being investigated for their behaviour toward specific groups. Many complaints are just not given the time of day.