I do think there's a data problem; I think we don't have full information about what exists.
At the very root, to go back to something Mr. Cameron said at the outset in his comments, we need to understand what we mean when we talk about a hate crime or a hate incident. Typically I think of a hate crime as a criminal act that's motivated by hatred, but it can be quite difficult to establish in a court of law the motivations of the perpetrator of a crime. It's more obvious in cases where they spray a swastika or they assault someone wearing a hijab. However, there are other cases that will target particular individuals because of their race or religion or gender, and it will not be obvious. I think there's a definitional problem that we need to address.
I also think we shouldn't conflate hate crimes and hate incidents. An incident might be someone shouting a racial slur to a stranger in a grocery store. That's something we might want to know about, but it's not something that the criminal law should be dealing with. I think we need to address that definitional question and figure out how to gather the data.
I know that some of the witnesses you've heard from have questioned whether government is in the best position to gather that data, and I'm not sure of the answer to that question. There are some people who feel that, in certain communities, incidents will not be reported if the only place to report them is to police. In some cases, we have faith groups or other groups that are suited to doing that.
I think there probably needs to be a collaborative approach on that.