The Daily UbuntuThread 07 · Digital Solitude · September 25, 2026
The hate that goes unreported
Police-reported hate crimes have more than doubled since 2018, but most hateful acts are never reported.
1 · The scene
On the metro, orange line, Aminata rereads the comment under her daughter's video. Three words about the colour of her skin, a laughing emoji. She hesitates, then closes the app. What's the point? No one files a complaint over a comment.
At the next station, the woman in the next seat notices her red eyes and hands her a tissue, without asking anything. Aminata shows her the screen. The woman sighs, then says gently: "You're not the only one who saw this. Shall we report it together?"
Original vignette
2 · The documented case
Rising numbers, a reality kept quiet
On March 30, 2026, Statistics Canada published its data on police-reported hate crimes in 2024. Police services recorded 4,882, a slight increase of 1% over 2023. Over six years, the curve keeps climbing: the number has more than doubled since 2018 (+169%).
Half of these crimes (2,377) targeted race or ethnic origin, up 8% in one year. Black people remain the most targeted, with 873 incidents. In Quebec, 724 hate crimes were reported, 506 of them in Montreal. Between 2022 and 2024, about 6% of these crimes had a digital component. But police data tell only part of the story.
Indeed, according to the last major victimization survey, from 2019, Canadians had experienced more than 223,000 incidents they perceived as motivated by hate, and only just over one in five had been reported to police. The rest is often lived in silence, alone in front of a screen or in a hallway.
Ubuntu reminds us that a wound inflicted on one person touches the whole community. Reporting, listening, standing with the person targeted: these are simple acts that refuse to let hate isolate someone.
3 · The voice
“Just over one in five (22%) of these incidents were reported to police.”
4 · The question
The next time you see a hateful act, online or in the street, who could you become for the person targeted?
Sources
- Statistics Canada, The Daily, "Police-reported hate crime in Canada, 2024," March 30, 2026. www150.statcan.gc.ca
Every figure on this page links to a verifiable public source.
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