This Act Doesn't Represent Us:
​A five-year (2018 - 2022) study on Canadian race-based hate incidents collected through English media-reported incidents

People from around the world cross land and sea to reach the promised land of Canadian multiculturalism and diversity — an international image that Canada eagerly promotes and prides itself on as one of its greatest strengths.

Beneath that veneer, however, is racism ingrained so deeply in Canadian society that it appears natural to the naked eye — normalized so extensively, since the first moment of colonial contact, that it is the prevailing factor in how people engage not just with their neighbours, but also with the institutions that run the nation. While Canadians may clutch their pearls in horror at the rawer, more physically violent forms of race-based hate incidents, the daily experiences of racialized and Indigenous peoples are obscured behind the veil of purported multiculturalism.

What does racism in Canada really look like?
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This first-of-its-kind research project seeks to answer this question by tracking and collecting data on race-based hate incidents reported by mainstream, English-language media sources in Canada. Over a five-year period (2018-2022), Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation collected and analyzed race-based hate incidents, creating a unique data set that begins to paint a fuller picture of interpersonal, systemic and other forms of racism across the nation. The research illustrates characteristics such as frequency and locations of incidents, ethnicities targeted, intersectionalities (religion, gender identity, sexuality, etc.) and more.

This unprecedented data set highlights the varied nature and complexity of race-based hate incidents perpetrated against racialized and Indigenous peoples in Canada as reported by the media. The harm caused by such incidents is both palpable and clearly pervasive. As such, we are sharing our data with researchers, governments and institutions to build towards a more equitable future for all Canadians. We hope this data will inspire more Canadians to advocate change locally in their respective communities. 

Snapshot of the data

This unique race-based data set begins to paint a fuller picture of interpersonal, systemic and other forms of racism in Canada, through incidents in:
  • Government services showing:
    • denial and inaction on racism is present in all public sectors; and
    • politicians continuously minimize experiences of racialized peoples and discourage anti-racist education, while holding responsibility for policies related to public safety, services and education;
  • Publicly accessible spaces showing:
    • race-based hate incidents are commonplace across the nation in businesses, workplaces, places of worship, online, and in both recreational and professional sports; and 
    • race-based hate incidents in these spaces grew significantly in step with the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Overarching violence against racialized women, children, youth and seniors, manifested in ways such as:
    • racial slurs and verbal attacks;
    • individual physical assaults; and
    • group-based physical assaults (including groups of people perpetuating harm, as well as organized hate groups)

The above findings illustrate the profound way in which racism is deeply woven into the foundational fabric of Canadian society — with far-reaching and devastating implications. These are the areas we must focus on for reform.

Call to Action

Government policies and practices currently in place to address racism are insufficient, at best. Our primary purpose for this study has always been to highlight the critical need for nation-wide data on race-based hate incidents to drive necessary anti-racist reform. Canada must become a data-driven country to improve equity and outcomes for racialized and Indigenous peoples, thereby creating transparency so all Canadians understand the importance of anti-racism work in Canada. 

We ask the Government of Canada to hire an independent agency — not Statistics Canada or law enforcement/policing organizations, due to broken trust in racialized communities — to collect national data on race-based hate incidents and their characteristics. As previous initiatives have failed due to government agendas and lack of funding, it is paramount that this work is data-driven and done in partnership with provincial and municipal governments, but without interference from any governments, including law enforcement or the wider justice system. The independent agency must receive adequate, ongoing funding (separate from Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy budget), in order to collect data as trends evolve over time, and a comprehensive understanding of anti-racism pedagogy.
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While our study is urging one major recommendation — for the federal government to hire an independent agency to collect nation-wide data on race-based hate incidents — we encourage policy-makers to use our data to generate further recommendations in areas such as politics, government services, media, policing, education, sports, workplaces, businesses, online and other industries/sectors where racialized Canadians are negatively impacted.

Next step: Lobbying
We will be connecting with different Members of Parliament and Senators to support our Call to Action.
We will also be putting up an e-petition in a couple of days. 

WHY ARE INCIDENTS OF RACISM UNDERREPORTED?
It is a well-established fact that incidents are vastly underreported. As such, this project includes credible accusations of racisms made by individuals and groups against another individual, group or institution. Incidents often go unreported because of:
  • Fear of retaliation and/or repercussions
  • Distrust of systems
  • Lack of awareness of rights and protections
  • Normalization of racism
 
The lack of data as a result of underreporting provides an excuse for governments and systems to continue ignoring a problem that deeply and directly impacts nearly the quarter of Canadians who are racialized. Human rights aside, racism is also a social determinant of health — meaning that it is a strain on taxpayer-funded systems (Source). Reducing inequity by addressing racism is actually good for the economy.
LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT
CCMF is an entirely volunteer-run organization. Thus, we are limited in terms of time, funding and other resources. As such, we have included only mainstream, Canadian English-language media sources in the project.
 
The project relies on Google Alerts to provide a list of potentially relevant news articles.​ Thus, the research is limited by that system of monitoring. Incidents must have occurred between 2018-2022, regardless of when the report was published, and only English-language mainstream Canadian media sources were included.

Google Alert keywords include:
  • Racial profiling
  • Racially profiled
  • Racialization
  • Racialized
  • Racism
  • Racial tension
  • Racist
  • Cultural appropriation
  • Discrimination
  • White supremacist
  • White supremacy
  • Hate crime
  • Hate crimes
  • Race relations
  • Neo-nazi
  • Islamophobia
  • Islamophobic
  • Xenophobic
  • Xenophobia​
DATA SET CRITERIA
  • Incident must have occurred between 2018-2022, regardless of when article was published
  • Opinion pieces are not included as incidents, although they can be used as the reference article if referring to a particular incident
  • MAJOR ENGLISH-LANGUAGE CANADIAN NEWS SOURCES: Due to limited people-power and data, we aim to use news sources that are both familiar and reliable wherever possible to increase accuracy. Occasionally, we have included lesser-known but reputable sources when necessary. Student newspapers are used as sources when the incident pertained to that particular school and wasn’t reported by any other major outlets. Sources referenced include, but are not limited to, the following news outlets/conglomerates:
    • Alta Newspaper Group
    • APTN
    • Bell Media
    • Black Press Media
    • Blackburn News
    • BlogTO
    • Canadaland
    • Castanet
    • CBC
    • CHEK Media
    • Continental Newspapers
    • Corus Entertainment
    • Dougall Media
    • Durham Radio News
    • Glacier Media Group
    • Globe and Mail
    • Great West Media
    • Halifax Examiner
    • HuffPost Canada
    • Kamloops This Week
    • Maclean’s Magazine
    • Media Central Corporation
    • National Observer
    • Nortext Publishing Corp.
    • Passage
    • Pattison Media
    • Postmedia
    • Prince Albert Herald
    • QuickBiteNews.com
    • Ricochet
    • Rogers Media
    • Saltwire Network
    • Sudbury.com
    • The Brunswickan (University of New Brunswick student newspaper)
    • The Conversation
    • The Eyeopener (Ryerson University student newspaper)
    • The Gazette (Western University student newspaper)
    • The Hill Times
    • The Link (Concordia University student newspaper)
    • The Narwhal
    • The Tyee
    • The Varsity (University of Toronto student newspaper)
    • Times colonist
    • Toronto.com
    • Torstar
    • Ubyssey (University of British Columbia student newspaper)
    • Village Media
    • Winnipeg free press
  • If media reports a lawsuit, protest, HR complaint, hearing, reports, (including media reports of multiple incidents within one article), etc. that involves multiple incidents, including at least one that occurred (or LIKELY occurred/is likely an ongoing issue) within the 2018-2022 timeframe, it will count as ONE incident. If there are multiple SPECIFIED incidents between 2018-2022, then we will include them as separate incidents.
    • If the date of the most recent incident isn’t specificied “e.g. “complaints date back to the 1990s”, but the statement of claim was filed within the 2018-2022 timeframe, the article is included.
  • Reported to police is checked when the article mentions that the incident was reported to police or mentions any police investigation or criminal trial. Due to limited data and nuances in legal definitions, we are unable to quantify all incidents that result as a hate crime. For information on hate crimes reported to police that meet the criteria in the Criminal Code of Canada, visit Statistics Canada.
  • Organized white supremacy is checked when the perpetrator of the incident has affiliations with an identifiable organization(s) with a stated or implied mandate to uphold current structures of white power.
  • Racial profiling is checked when when a non-police perpetrator assumes, solely based on the person’s race, that the victim is committing an illegal or otherwise nefarious act. Carding is checked when police racially profiling someone in a legal capacity. Examples of (non-police) racial profiling:
    • Assuming an East Asian person has COVID-19
    • Not allowing a Black youth to wear a do-rag at school
    • Warning others about allowing First Nations people into their store because a particular First Nation has a COVID-19 outbreak
  • Hate speech: other is checked when the perpetrator imparts racist language in a verbal or written manner. Harassment: other is also checked when this racist language is interpersonal (directed at a person(s)).
  • Vandalism + hate speech: imagery is checked when vandalism contains racist symbols. Vandalism + hate speech: other is checked when vandalism contains racial slurs or other racist language.
  • Hate speech: letter/flyer includes emails as letters, while hate speech: imagery includes posters if the document is more image-based. Racist job ads fall under hate speech: other.
  • Workplace is checked when (1) an employer is perpetuating racism against an employee(s), (2) the victim’s coworkers are perpetuating racism, (3) an employee experiences racism while on the job.
  • If a racist incident took place prior to 2018 but a jury finds the perpetrator not guilty between 2018-2022, the incident will be considered racism perpetrated by the jury.
 
If you are aware of a media report that you believe meets the benchmarks for this project but is missing in the data set, please contact us.

Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by generous volunteers from both:

Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation:
Author: Iman Bukhari
Editor: Megan Eichhorn
Researchers: Avery McNarland, Gabriela Urrego, Gilary Guzman, Huong Hoang, Iman Bukhari, Mansharn Toor, Megan Eichhorn
Graphic Designer: Jasmine Tan 
Communications and Marketing: Astrid Tam

​Data For Good:
Dashboard: Jennifer Walker, Jeremy Fan, Melissa Valgardson
Database: Fekrat El Wehedi
Project Management: David Chan

​Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation consists of Millennial and Gen. Z volunteers working to improve race relations across Canada through research, advocacy, services, projects, programs and events, with a passion for a truly inclusive and equitable Canada. Data For Good is a collective of data scientists helping non-profit and social service organizations harness the power of their data through analytics and visualizations to leverage their impact in the community.
This report, published by Canadian Cultural Mosaic Foundation, in partnership with Data For Good, contains nation-wide research and was produced on the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy in Calgary — traditionally known as Moh’Kinstsis by the Blackfoot, Otos-kwunee by the Métis, Wicispa Oyade by the Stoney Nakoda Nation, and Guts-ists-I3 by the Tsuut’ina Nation. We would like to honour and acknowledge all who reside on this land, including the Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, Stoney Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We further acknowledge that Treaty 7 is home to many Métis communities and Region 3 of the Métis Nation. 
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