Canada’s response to hate needs more than punishment

On June 18, 2026, Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, received Royal Assent and came into force one month later. The legislation significantly expands the Criminal Code’s response to hate at a time when police-reported hate crimes have risen sharply across Canada.

The urgency is understandable. But while the Combatting Hate Act strengthens the criminal law’s response to hate, Canada risks relying too heavily on punishment while investing too little in preventing hate from escalating into harm.

The Act creates new offences for intimidating or obstructing access to places such as houses of worship, schools and community centres, establishes a standalone hate crime offence, adds a statutory definition of “hatred” to the Criminal Code and prohibits the public display of certain terrorism and hate symbols when intended to wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group.

These measures strengthen accountability for hate-motivated conduct. But legislation alone cannot address the conditions that allow hate to take root and spread.

Hate in Canada has risen sharply

Since 2018, the number of police-reported hate crimes has more than doubled, rising 169%, climbing for six consecutive years to reach 4,882 incidents in 2024. The pace has recently eased: the 2024 count was up just 1% from 2023, and once population growth is considered, the rate declined by 2%. But the longer-term increase remains substantial.

The burden is also unevenly distributed. In 2024, Black populations were the most frequently targeted racial or ethnic group identified in police-reported hate crimes, while incidents targeting South Asian and Arab and West Asian populations increased by 15% and 16%, respectively. Among religiously motivated hate crimes, 70% targeted Jewish people and 17% targeted Muslim people. Hate crimes targeting gender identity or expression increased for a fourth consecutive year, while those targeting sexual orientation declined from their 2023 peak but remained higher than in any year before 2023.

At the same time, these figures only capture incidents that come to the attention of police. In Statistics Canada’s 2019 General Social Survey on Victimization, Canadians reported experiencing more than 223,000 criminal incidents they perceived as motivated by hate, but only 22% were reported to police.

The consequences are visible across the country. Places of worship, schools and community institutions have been vandalized, threatened, shot at and firebombed.

Hate also circulates extensively online. A 2023 UNESCO/Ipsos survey across 16 countries found that 67% of internet users, and 74% of those under 35, had encountered hate speech online. Digital platforms can intensify the problem because recommendation systems built around engagement can amplify divisive or harmful material and contribute to online environments in which increasingly extreme content circulates.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has also raised concerns about youth radicalization, noting that threat actors are seeking to radicalize younger Canadians largely through online echo chambers that promote hateful rhetoric and encourage violence. The concern is particularly important from a prevention perspective: identifying vulnerability to violent radicalization early creates opportunities to intervene before conduct reaches the threshold of criminal offending.

Criminal law has limits

Canada needs laws that protect communities from targeted violence, intimidation and hate-motivated crime. But criminal law is, by design, largely reactive and intervenes only after harm has already occurred.

Research on deterrence has repeatedly found little evidence that increasing the severity of punishment, by itself, produces substantial reductions in crime. Research into violent extremism also suggests that heavy-handed institutional interventions and punitive responses can sometimes backfire, reinforcing alienation or pushing already vulnerable individuals further along extremist pathways.

These limits matter as Canada expands its criminal response to hate. The Combatting Hate Act also drew concerns from dozens of civil liberties, community and labour organizations about its potential effects on freedom of expression and peaceful protest.

Whatever one’s position on those debates, they illustrate the limits of relying primarily on criminal law. Criminal prohibitions may be necessary to address serious conduct, but they operate near the end of the process. By the time hatred has become intimidation, violence or criminal harassment, opportunities for earlier intervention have already been missed.

Prevention must begin earlier

If Canada is serious about reducing hate, prevention cannot begin at the courthouse door. It requires identifying the conditions and pathways that allow prejudice, isolation, grievance and extremist beliefs to develop into harmful behaviour, and creating opportunities to intervene before that progression reaches violence or criminality.

Canada already has examples of what this can look like. The Organization for the Prevention of Violence, based in Alberta, established its Evolve program in 2019 to provide specialized psychosocial intervention for people involved in extremism or hate-motivated violence and their families. Its approach includes counselling, mentoring, advocacy and assistance with practical needs. A report on its first two years described progress in addressing participants identified needs and strengthening protective factors against radicalization to violence. However, the organization also acknowledged its small number of participants and the need for better measures of intervention outcomes.

That qualification matters. Prevention should be evidence-based too. Promising programs need rigorous evaluation, not simply good intentions.

Evidence from youth-focused anti-hate interventions is also encouraging. Germany’s HateLess: Together against Hatred program was evaluated with 820 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16. Of those, 567 participated in the one-week program and 253 were assigned to a control group. One month later, participating students showed significant increases in empathy, self-efficacy and willingness to engage in counter-speech, while no corresponding changes were found in the control group.

The lesson is not that a single program provides a blueprint for Canada. Rather, it shows that targeted prevention can strengthen some of the skills young people need to recognize and respond to hate.

Schools, workplaces and community organizations therefore have an important role alongside police and courts. Young people need opportunities to develop critical thinking, media literacy, empathy, resilience to manipulation and the skills to challenge hateful material when they encounter it. Families and communities also need accessible places to seek help when they recognize signs of escalating extremism, before the criminal justice system becomes the primary response.

Canada needs a broader strategy

Canada already recognizes prevention as part of its national response. The federal Action Plan on Combatting Hate includes prevention, community capacity, victim support, research and institutional readiness alongside law enforcement.

The challenge is ensuring that prevention receives the same sustained attention as responding to hate after it occurs.

Hate cannot simply be legislated away. Laws matter; communities deserve protection and serious hate-motivated conduct requires accountability. But criminal law addresses only part of the problem. A broader strategy must also address how hate develops and where early intervention can prevent it from escalating into harm.

By the time the criminal justice system becomes involved, harm has often already occurred. If Canada wants safer and more inclusive communities, prevention must become a more central and sustained part of its response to hate.

Lisa Monchalin, Ph.D., J.D., is Lab Director of the Applied Justice Lab and teaches in the Criminology Department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.