Canada’s continuum of hate: time to address COVID-accelerated bigotry

Regardless of COVID-19, the federal government needs to go beyond rhetoric and marshal a national consensus to get a lot tougher on hateful behaviour.

The climate of anti-Asian antagonism has been fed by political figures criticizing Beijing’s early handling of the outbreak, in particular by former president Donald Trump, who has repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” as part of his effort to deflect blame for his own mishandling of the pandemic when it first broke out in the U.S. Unsplash photograph by Jason Leung

Opinion

BY LES WHITTINGTON

April 7, 2021

OTTAWA—How big of a problem is hate-motivated violence in Canada? The fact is, no one knows. Only a small portion of all hate crimes are reported to police, with estimates of incidents going unreported ranging from 60 per cent to 95 per cent. That’s partly because many people, particularly newc...

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