Thank you, gentlemen. I have the pleasure of knowing all four of you and the two organizations that are represented here, B'nai Brith and CIJA. Thank you for your advocacy and the work that you do in representing the Jewish community.
One of the focuses of this study is to make recommendations to the government on how it could collect data, contextualize hate crime reports, and conduct needs assessments for impacted communities.
It's been mentioned, but I'm going to mention it again, that according to Statistics Canada's 2015 report on hate crimes, Jewish Canadians are the most targeted religious group in Canada. According to the Toronto police's hate crimes statistical report, since 2016 anti-Semitic incidents make up the largest group of hate crimes in Toronto. Jewish constituents in my riding of York Centre have been victimized by anti-Semitic incidents, including swastikas being painted on school playgrounds. These incidents are often not considered hate crimes.
My question is this: how are hate crimes and hateful incidents that do not formally qualify as hate crimes currently quantified, and how can this data be better collected, quantified, and analyzed? Can you provide some insights? I know that all of you gentlemen did a certain amount of this work, but can you provide some insights into strategies, whether they be legal or educational, that we can use to counter this very serious issue? Can you provide some insights and perspective on that?
I think for this question I will limit it to Mr. Fogel and Mr. Mostyn, and then I'll do have a follow-up question that I want to particularly direct at Rabbi Bulka, please.