Given the current trend, the Red Coalition sees a specific need to focus its attention on speech, incidents and crimes motivated by
or leading to the hatred of a race or ethnicity, including the use of racial slurs in the public space. As such, the organization will
monitor, research and sound the alarm on ethnic and race-based hate groups and individuals encouraging such hatred, to the
public, law enforcement, and community organizations. Hate-motivated crime rose sharply in 2020, reaching the highest number
recorded since comparable data have been available.
Historically, the Black, Jewish, gay and lesbian, and Muslim populations have tended to be the most targeted groups. However, in
2020, police services in Canada reported 663 incidents motivated by hatred against the Black population, the highest number
recorded dating back to 2009. This represented 42% of all hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity, and 26% of all hate crimes in
2020. The Black population was the most commonly targeted group overall for 2020, more than double the next highest group,
the Jewish population. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of police-reported crimes motivated by hatred of a race or ethnicity
increased 80%, from 884 to 1,594. Much of this increase was a result of more police-reported hate crimes targeting the Black
population (+318 incidents). Hate crimes targeting the Black and Jewish populations remained the most common types of hate
crimes reported by police, representing 26% and 13% of all hate crimes, respectively.

Four provinces reported relatively large increases in hate crimes targeting the Black population (Ontario +175 incidents, British
Columbia +47 incidents, Alberta +46 incidents and Quebec +37 incidents) and the East or Southeast Asian population (British
Columbia +106 incidents, Ontario +55 incidents, Quebec +20 incidents and Alberta +18 incidents). Hate crimes are a specific
example of discrimination and exclusion. Hate crimes target the integral and visible parts of a person’s identity and may affect
not only the individual but the wider community (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights 2018; Perry 2010).

As this behaviour impacts individuals, their communities and society generally, hate crimes are a focus of social concern in Canada
and other countries. As a member of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe, Canada works with other countries to monitor and combat hate crimes (Office for Democratic Institutions
and Human Rights 2021). Police-reported hate crime data include only those incidents that come to the attention of police services
and are determined to be motivated by hate at the discretion of police following an investigation. Hate crimes contribute to disunity
in society, compromise democratic values, and maintain inequality. They send an explicit message that entire groups of citizens are
unworthy of respect, lack redeeming characteristics and are worthy of contempt.
In extreme cases they promote the corrosive concept that “to be different is to be dangerous” On Saturday, May 14, 2022 a racially
motivated terrorist attack on Black shoppers at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York killed ten people and injured three. Eleven of
the thirteen were Black. It should also serve as a warning about the grave dangers that white supremacy, far-right extremism, and
hatred pose to our communities not just in the United States but also here in Canada. As seen by deadly attacks on Muslim communities
in London, Ontario and Quebec City, Quebec, this evil threat transcends borders. Anti-Black hatred in Canada remains a huge concern
for Black communities everywhere. The path to hate crime can begin with unabated wide-spread use of racial slurs. Each uttered racial
and ethnic slur is intended to completely dehumanize “the other”, rendering disdain and hatred justifiable. In that sense, the “n-word”
is by far “the nuclear bomb of racial epithets.”
Among all of the deplorable racial and ethnic slurs, no other racial or ethnic slurs are so inflammatory that they have been truncated to a
single letter (the “n-word”). We must call out its use and condemn it wherever it rears its ugly head! The Red Coalition will! Racially motivated
hate incidents, crimes or acts of violent extremism are harmful to all of us, and we must do everything we can to ensure that our communities
are safe from such actions. “Ignorance and indifference, I don’t know, and I don’t care attitudes, can no longer be tolerated or prevail”.
Anti-Black and racialized people hate must stop!