Jewish people in Canada were the target of more hate crimes than any other religious minority in their country in 2021. Only Black Canadians were the victims of more attacks. However, Canada’s Jewish population makes up 1% of the nation; Black Canadians account for 3.5%.
There are about 380,000 Jews living in Canada, and nearly 1.3 out of every 1,000 reported some kind of racial incident in 2021, accounting for 14 percent of the hate-motivated crimes reported in Canada last year. That is a 47 percent increase over 2020 and a trend that mirrors the meteoric rise in antisemitism across the globe in 2021.
“We are deeply concerned that incidents of hate crimes rose yet again in Canada in 2021. This disturbing trend clearly proves the need for more proactive measures to stop the rising hate targeting diverse Canadians based on their identity,” said Shimon Koffler Fogel, head of the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
“Statistically, Canadian Jews were more than 10 times more likely than any other Canadian religious minority to report being the target of hate crime. This is alarming.”
Canadian statistics officials put a caveat on how to interpret the numbers— “fluctuations in the number of reported incidents may be attributable to a true change in the volume of hate crimes, but they might also reflect changes in reporting by the public because of increased community outreach by police or heightened sensitivity after high-profile events.”
However, Canada’s trend tracks right along with the rise in antisemitic attacks seen in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and France last year. In the US, the Anti-Defamation League said there were more hate crimes against Jewish people last year than they had seen at any other time since they started recording incidents in 1979.
