‘Canada’s antisemitism crisis’: Jews targeted in 71 per cent of religious hate crimes, StatCan says

Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, looks at bullet holes fired at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Synagogue in Vaughan, March 12, 2026. Photo by Peter J. Thompson /National Post

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Hate crimes in Canada fell last year for the first time since 2018, but Jewish Canadians remained one of the most-targeted groups.

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Police reported 4,708 hate crimes in 2025, down three per cent from 4,841 the year before, Statistics Canada said Wednesday. The decline follows six straight years of increases that more than doubled the national count between 2018 and 2024. Measured against population, the rate fell four per cent to 11 incidents per 100,000 people, still more than twice the 2018 rate.

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Hate crimes motivated by religion fell 18 per cent to 1,115 incidents. Of those, 788 targeted Jewish people, down 16 per cent from the year before but still 71 per cent of all religion-motivated incidents. Muslims were targeted in 204 incidents, Catholics in 36 and 71 attacks targeted other religions. In 16 cases, the religion was not specified.

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Jewish Canadians represent just about one per cent of the overall population but were the target of more than 16 per cent of all hate crime incidents.

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Noah Shack is chief executive of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA.

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“The latest hate crime data further reinforce Canada’s antisemitism crisis, with Jews targeted at rates disproportionate to any other community,” he said in a statement.

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Shack said a Jewish Canadian is 22 times more likely to be the victim of a hate crime than any other Canadian.

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Shack said much of the antisemitic violence is carried out by extremists in Canada and foreign actors abroad, driven by conspiracy theories and anti-Israel hate, and he called on governments to enforce the law consistently.

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“When criminals attack Jews, it’s not because of how we pray,” he said.

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Race or ethnicity remained the largest category at 2,391 incidents, one fewer than in 2024. Black people were targeted in 858 incidents. Attacks targeting South Asians rose 49 per cent to 483, an increase Statistics Canada said was concentrated in Ontario and British Columbia and ran against the declining trend for most other racialized groups.

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Hate crimes targeting sexual orientation fell 19 per cent to 534, a second consecutive decline. A category covering other motivations, including disability, language, sex, age and immigrants or newcomers to Canada, rose 52 per cent to 562.

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Statistics Canada cautioned that year-over-year changes may reflect shifts in reporting, how police identify incidents and local investigative practices, not only changes in how often hate crimes happen. The agency said its counts include both confirmed and suspected incidents, and has previously reported that about one in five hate-motivated incidents are brought to police.

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Incidents targeting Jewish people peaked at 959 in 2023. Last year’s 788 was still 60 per cent higher than the 492 police reported in 2021.

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