Waterloo Regional Police Service is getting $300,000 from the province to develop a new hate reporting app designed to gather data and help combat a dramatic rise in hate-related incidents across the region.
It's among 23 different initiatives underway by police across the province using $6 million in cash and other proceeds from crime.
The new mobile app is being designed to gather data and boost accessibility using "real time reporting" tools, said a release from the province last week.
The app will also provide two-way communication between police and users as they report hate related incidents, and will improve access to resources that support victims of hate-related incidents, which saw a dramatic spike last year.
Director of communications for WRPS Cherri Greeno said there were 277 hate-motivated crimes reported to police from Jan. 1 to Nov. 11, 2023 compared to 190 in all of 2022.
Police believe that's just a fraction of the number of hate incidents experienced in the region every year.
According to Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey on Social Identity, one-third of all criminal incidents aren't reported to police, hate incidents among them.
For that reason, WRPS doesn't currently have the full picture of the problem in Waterloo region, Greeno said in an email.
Many victims of crime, including those who experienced violent victimization, choose not to report an incident to the police for reasons that include "structural oppression," lack of awareness, fear of consequences, lack of trust, and accessibility, she said.
The new app hopes to address those issues by making it easier for victims of hate crimes and hate incidents to communicate with police in a secure and confidential way, while providing the data necessary to develop programs that lead to societal change.
"Public trust and confidence in reporting hate is paramount," Greeno said. "Data reported as a single unified source will be best posited to affect social policy."
"Local agency data is extremely relevant and important. When the data is not factored into national reporting, it arguably lacks the visibility needed to advance its true intent and purpose."
The app, she added, "will be invaluable to providing a comprehensive report on hate in Waterloo Region" and is being developed in close collaboration with a number of local community organizations, including the Coalition of Muslim Women of KW (CMW KW), which launched its own hate reporting tool online three years ago.
"We're so happy to see this application has been approved," said executive director of the coalition, Fauzia Mazhar. "We see this as another way our work has impacted Waterloo region."
The CMW KW launched reportinghate.ca, an online portal for anyone experiencing hate, in April 2021.
In its first year, it collected 87 formal reports, including 82 related to hate and five related to discrimination. Of those incidents, 54 per cent were reported in Kitchener and 21 per cent in Cambridge.
The hate crime reporting system was the first of its kind in the region when it was introduced and was designed to fill a "big hole" in reporting non-criminal incidents of hate.
Data collection is the "higher level goal" of these tools. Holding the perpetrators of hate crimes accountable is something Mazhar admits is next to impossible given the complexity of proving hate motivation in the criminal code.
But now that WRPS is working on a tool of its own, Mazhar believes it will create an "additional layer of intersectionality" to give everyone a better picture of what's happening in the community.
And what's happening is grim.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, hatereporting.ca logged 55 hate incidents through the end of last year. That's compared to 30 from the same time period in 2022.
Mazhar said for them the number represents a 100 per cent increase in antisemitic hate incidents reported in the region.
Another example of local hate reporting numbers not reflecting what's actually going on is the experience of some international students, Mazhar said.
Few of those students would know there are supports and ways to report hate incidents. But Mazhar knows it's a huge problem after speaking to students who've experienced hate in the community.
That's why tools like reportinghate.ca and the new police app are important, she added.
"Nobody will believe it's a problem until there is evidence," Mazhar said. "We need the whole village to work on this issue. Once the community understands it's an issue, the work can begin to solve the problem."
Others who have expressed support for the project include the Hilel Jewish Support of Canada (UW/Laurier), the African Canadian Association of Waterloo Region, Grand River Pride, the Muslim Association of Canada, The YMCA of Three Rivers, and Spectrum, Waterloo Region’s Community Space.
Part of the $300,000 investment in WRPS will fund a partnership with the YMCA on an established dropout prevention program that offers support to students having trouble at school.
The money is part of a more than $1.7 million investment from the province to help stop hate-motivated crimes.
“All community spaces in Waterloo Region must be safe and protected from hate crimes,” said Cambridge MPP Brian Riddell in a press release. “This funding will help our police service carry out the important work of wiping out hate-motivated acts and keeping our schools safe.”
