WARMINGTON: Hate crimes on rise as politicians dump problem on overworked cops
Article content
Toronto Police are called to investigate reports of hate crimes five times a day in Toronto (once) the good.
It’s not so good anymore when it comes to people getting along. More than half of those calls are for alleged anti-Semitic crimes.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
WARMINGTON: Hate crimes on rise as politicians dump problem on overworked cops Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
“We are attending an average of 145 hate crime calls for service a month,” Deputy Chief Rob Johnson told the Toronto Police Services Board on Monday. “Since Oct. 7, we have attended 1,378 hate crime calls for service.”
Of those calls, “we have confirmed” 333 hate crimes and 107 arrests, while laying 268 “hate crime occurrence-related” charges, Johnson added.
“Hate crime occurrences are up 54.9% over the same period last year,” Johnson said. “Anti-Semitism continues to account for more reported hate crimes than any other category. Of the 221 hate crimes so far in 2024, 44.8% were anti-Semitic.”
Our great city should be better than this. This has to stop.
Chief Myron Demkiw told the board that Toronto Police are working on “community engagement and building public awareness” since “we recognize that we police in a city of great diversity and as such we have built cultural competency and are driving a policing model that embeds the community’s perspectives in our operational decision-making, whenever we can.”
This means he has Jewish and Muslim liaison officers “continue building relationships.”
Since Oct. 7, “our Muslim liaison officers have been attending and praying at local mosques on a regular basis” while delivering 109 school presentations, attending multi-faith meetings and engaging with and attending dozens of meetings with Muslim organizations and community groups, Demkiw said.
He added that “our Jewish liaison officer has made 52 synagogue visits, 45 school visits and presentations and has engaged with and attended dozens of meetings with Jewish organizations and community groups since Oct. 7.”
Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy with B’nai Brith Canada, told the Toronto Sun the statistics released by the Toronto police board “demonstrate that anti-Semitism continues to unabatedly fester at an alarming rate across the city. Toronto’s civic leaders cannot continue to remain idle while the city’s Jewish community endures an unprecedented wave of hate.”
B’nai Brith feels “the inaction on the part of the municipal leadership is emboldening those who wish to incite against, and harm, Toronto’s Jewry. How can Toronto continue to advertise itself as a world-class metropolis if it cannot guarantee the well-being and sanctity of all of citizens?”
Fair questions.
To Robertson’s point, in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s post-national state where Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow finds herself too busy to attend the United Jewish Appeal’s annual Walk With Israel but is hamming it up at everything else, the problem is being dumped on the police.
In an impossible position, police can’t win no matter what they do. They let protests go on, they are scolded for being too lenient. They come in with a heavy hand and they are derided.
Police are figuratively handcuffed and overworked. As Toronto Police Association president Jon Reid told Jerry Agar on NewsTalk 1010 on Monday, his officers are overwhelmed with daily difficult protests and exhaustion is setting in.
This is when you need your leaders to unite people and look for common ground instead of ways to keep people hating each other. An example of the vitriol was on display Monday during a byelection rally in the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding as Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said people should back Liberal candidate Leslie Church “because the alternative is really cold and cruel and small. The alternative is cuts and austerity, not believing in ourselves as a country, not believing in our communities and our neighbours.”
It’s not inspiring when the government says there is only one way to think or else you are cold, cruel and small. While there won’t be any call for the hate crimes unit, it offers insight into the problem that could lead to violence. The leaders will not be able to say they were not warned.
Everybody is worthy. Everybody is equal. All ideas are important. There should be zero hate crimes in Toronto. There is nowhere on Earth that is more accepting than Toronto. It’s time to go back to that and fast.
And politicians can’t expect the police to fix this. It’s not their job.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Talk to community leaders from the Muslim community and they are outraged the police dare to conduct intelligence operations to try to learn just who are covering their faces while occupying the University of Toronto or blocking a downtown street while yelling, “There is only one solution, Intifada revolution.”
Talk with people in the Jewish community living in fear and they can’t understand how Torontonians can terrorize their neighbourhoods, how their synagogues and businesses are firebombed and schools shot up because they are Jews.
The problem is Canadians have to start calling out hate and soon before those five calls a day increase any further.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.