Anti-Muslim hate crimes spike 91% in a Greater Toronto Area

New data shows a 91 percent spike in hate crimes against the Muslims in Peel Region in the Greater Toronto area or GTA, according to a police report.

According to a Peel Police Services Board report released on Thursday, there were 158 incidents reported to police in 2017, up from 59 the year before.

It said the majority of the crimes, 106 of the total number of incidents, were mischief-to-property offences like graffiti, the CBC News reported.

Peel is one of the five regions along with Central City, York, Durham and Halton that comprise GTA, and located around 48 kilimetres from the downtown Toronto.

Last month, Peel Police investigated two incidents which they believe were "hate-motivated" in which a woman was seen placing torn-out pages of the Quran and making Islamophobic comments in one of those incidents.

The woman had also gone to two Islamic centres in Mississauga, around 30 kilometres from downtown Toronto, and verbally abused the worshippers.

Police said a man filmed the woman while she was distributing 'inflammatory flyers' and openly saying her name to the passersby.

Police believe two suspects are responsible for approximately 60 percent of those crimes.

"In some ways, it wasn't necessarily a big surprise," said Det. Feras Ismail of Peel police's diversity, equity and inclusion bureau. "The numbers are reflective of what we're seeing."

He added that public awareness was another factor that empowered people to come forward, leading to an uptick in reports.

Ismail believes the spike is partly due to an increase in police training that helped officers understand how the Criminal Code defines hate crimes.

"This is a step in the right direction," he said. "We need to know about these files; we need to know how to deal with them, and also how to reassure the public from a public safety perspective that they're safe and that we're looking into these matters."

The rise of alt-right movements, both internationally and across the country, also played a role, he explained to the media.

While this increase is alarming, Ismail noted the number comprises 0.4 percent of all crimes in the area.

Toronto also has seen a jump in hate and bias incidents in 2017, according to the report.

Last summer, a Mississauga man was charged with one count of wilful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group after he posted a YouTube video offering a $1,000 reward for recordings of Muslim students during prayer.

Meanwhile, the Statistics Canada data showed the number of incidents targeting Jewish people declined to 178 in 2015, compared with 213 the previous year.

Jewish Canadians remained the most targeted religious minority, a trend that Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, called "disturbing and clear," the CBC earlier reported.