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Hate crimes and hate incidents

 

What is a hate crime?

It is a CRIMINAL offence.


A crime is considered hate-motivated when it is motivated, or suspected of being motivated, by hatred of race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor.

Examples of hate crimes

  • Physically assaulting a person because of the colour of their skin
  • Uttering threats against a person because of their religious faith
  • Vandalizing a home or any other place of interest, e.g.: antisemitic graffiti

What to do?

As citizens, it is important to report these acts in order to counter this type of crime.

If you are the victim or a witness of a hate crime, you can:

  • Call 911 immediately in the case of an emergency
  • Or go to your neighbourhood police station (Find my neighbourhood police station)
  • Report the hate crime to the police officers, giving them as much information as possible, e.g.: words spoken by the suspect and any evidence or information confirming the hateful nature of the crime
  • Report the event anonymously and confidentially to Info-Crime Montréal at 514 393-1133 or through the reporting form available on the website infocrimemontreal.ca


What is a hate incident?

It is a NON-CRIMINAL act.

An incident is considered hate-motivated when it is motivated, or suspected of being motivated, by hatred of race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor. Such an act could affect the sense of safety of a person or an identifiable group of people.

Examples of hate incidents

  • Distributing offensive or insulting material targeting an ethnic group
  • Insulting or verbally abusing an individual in person or on social media because of their social status
  • Making offensive gestures towards a person because of their sexual orientation

What to do?

As citizens, it is important to report these incidents.

If you are the victim or a witness of a hate incident, you can:

  • Call 911 immediately in the case of an emergency
  • Or go to your neighbourhood police station (Find my neighbourhood police station)
  • Report the hate incident to the police officers, giving them as much information as possible, e.g.: words spoken by the suspect and any evidence or information confirming the hateful nature of the incident
  • Report the event anonymously and confidentially to Info-Crime Montréal at 514 393-1133 or through the reporting form available on the website infocrimemontreal.ca

You can also report a hate incident online by clicking the button below.

Report a hate incident

 

DOCUMENTS

 

To find out more about hate crimes and hate incidents, you can consult this pamphlet. To print the document, click on the image.

This pamphlet is also available in:

Arabic (PDF)

Armenian (PDF)

Farsi (PDF)

French (PDF)

Hebrew (PDF)

Japanese (PDF)

Korean (PDF)

Mandarin (PDF)

Punjabi (PDF)

Russian (PDF)

Spanish (PDF)

Tagalog (PDF)

Tamil (PDF)

Turkish (PDF)

Ukrainian (PDF)

Vietnamese (PDF)

You can also print this poster by clicking on the image and display it in a visible spot in a busy location to help raise awareness in your community about the importance of recognizing and reporting these situations.

 It is preferable to print this poster in colour.

 

This poster is also available in:

French (PDF)