Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 8th, 2017

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Will they be included for 2016?

[Yvan Clermont]

They don't provide the detail, but they provide the incident. We know if there has been an incident, and the nature of the incident. We just don't have details about....

[Rebecca Kong]

The victim and the accused....

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Are the three going to be included in the 2016 one, with this detailed information?

[Rebecca Kong]

Calgary has converted over, so we will have them. Quebec has not, yet. Saint John has transitioned over as well.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Would you be able to give us the uniform standards that you say they are all abiding by? If we can have that in writing, that would be helpful for us.

[Rebecca Kong]

Absolutely.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I want to jump quickly to one other piece. We have a lot to cover.

The data from the general social survey on Canadians' safety, on victimization, differs from what is reported by the police because it is coming from the victims. Two-thirds of the individuals in the last survey who said they had been victims of hate-motivated crimes had not reported the incidents to the police.

Did you have a follow-up question as part of that about why they had not reported to the police?

[Yvan Clermont]

Yes, we did. We also compared it with non-hate crime to see if there was a comparison or differences. For most reasons that are brought forward or proposed to the respondents when they are being asked, the distribution is about the same for hate crimes and non-hate crimes.

The two bigger differences we saw were the fear of revenge, which was higher among victims of hate crimes, and the fear that the police would be biased, which was another area where the prevalence was higher among the victims of hate crimes compared to victims of non-hate crimes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have one and a half minutes.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

If we were looking at how we could improve the quality of the data we are gathering on hate crimes, what would be your suggestions as to how we can improve our collection of that information, from the victims as well as from police services?

[Yvan Clermont]

I'm going to give a brief summary of this, and I would invite my colleague, Madam Kong, to supply more information about that.

I believe that, with time and with all the mechanisms in place with the police forces in order to report through the uniform crime report.... The standards are given. There is training online. There is data validation that goes with them, individually, when we find there are big differences from year to year. There is a big process of data certification that goes with police forces. I would think that the mechanisms in place are very good at the moment, especially for an administrative data survey.

Of course, there may be room for improvement to that, but there is sensitivity from the respondents' side and a lot of interaction between the people working on the survey and the respondents. I think that what is in place is pretty good, but if there are other ways of improving it, I would ask Madam Kong to supply information about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Perhaps Ms. Kong can provide information when another person asks her a question, because we have finished the seven-minute round here.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Or in writing, if no one else asks....

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I now go to Mr. Anderson, who is sharing with Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

I'll go first, Madam Chair, if you don't mind. I just have a couple of quick questions.

How long have you been collecting data from law enforcement agencies in regard to hate crime?

[Rebecca Kong]

We started collecting in 2005. The survey was developed in the early 2000s, under the national action plan against racism at the time.

It was developed in 2005, and police services came on gradually as they rolled into the newest version of the survey.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

So you have had varying degrees of vigour and compliance in regard to collecting. Is there any kind of incentive for them to comply?

[Rebecca Kong]

Typically, the way it works in terms of collecting the uniform crime reporting survey data is that the new versions are implemented in their records management system, the automated system they use to input their records. When they upgrade to the next version of that with their vendor, they will get the new requirements for the survey. Essentially, that was the impetus behind when police services would switch.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

I think that even one hate incident or crime is appalling and we should do the best we can to prevent that, but I want to make sure that in our quest to prevent that we also make sure our language is appropriate.

In this motion, we have the terminology of rising “climate of hate and fear”. I am looking at your numbers here in regard to hate crimes from 2009 to 2015, and I am looking at the population of Canada, which has risen by about two million. Do you see any evidence of a rising climate of hate and fear in those numbers?

[Rebecca Kong]

Accounting for the population, the rates are relatively low. The overall fluctuations year to year are not great, but we have seen differences in terms of particular groups—some of the differences that Mr. Clermont identified in the slides in terms of shifting targets for hate-motivated crimes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

I'll turn it over to my colleague.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I want to follow up on that. We do have this “increasing public climate of hate and fear” as one of the assumptions of the report. How would you statistically determine something like that? How do you determine something systemic—such as that we have an increasing public climate of fear—or do you not go into that area? Do you just report the numbers and then it's up to policy-makers to make the declaration?

[Yvan Clermont]

I would say—in addition to what Madam Kong said in answering Mr. Sweet's question—that the uniform crime report collects only data about what has been recognized as a crime. This is not the right vehicle to measure fear or to measure hate if the hate is not a crime, per se. There would need to be other statistical vehicles to do that. Maybe the best way to do it is to use a general social survey, for example, and have some questions about tolerance.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Then you would have people report whether they felt others were tolerant or intolerant, and that would be your determination of whether the climate has changed.