5 | O akville B eaver | T hursday,M arch 4,2021 insidehalton.com Ying Yang Chartered Professional Accountant Member of Canadian Tax Foundation (647) 989-1276 Oakville Office: (289) 291-3924 Toronto Offiffice: (647) 255-8049 yy@yangaccounting.ca For an affordable solution to your Business and Individual tax difficulties … Make an Appointment Today for a Free Confidential Consultation CRACRACRACRA PPPPrroblobleems?ms? Individual, Corporati &on & Trust Payrayroll, HST includiudingng Overseas & O& Offffshorshore Tax Issueax Issues Yang Tang Tang Tang ax Resolsolution $79 Over 120,000 satisfied custOmers 9 Locations to serve you better Heating & Cooling www.aireonewest.ca high efficiency central air & furnace *Call for Details *Call for Details FURNACE DIAGNOSTIC SPECIAL *Call for Details $49$49 * Starting from Starting from $2799$2799 * 10 Year Factory Warranty 10 Year Factory Warranty $1/DAY OAC* AIRE ONE MADNEss sAlE!AIRE ONE MADNEss sAlE! 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In discussing the possi- ble causes for the in- crease, Tanner noted a number of factors could be responsible. Racism related to CO- VID-19 was listed as one possibility. Pushback against the Black Lives Matter move- ment may have been an- other, he said. Tanner also said the greater level of attention directed toward racial in- equality may also have re- sulted in a larger number of hate-related incidents being reported. "I think it is very under- reported," said Tanner. "I would suggest even these numbers are proba- bly under-reported when it comes to people saying very inappropriate things to one another." According to the re- port, eight of the 2020 hate crimes and three of the suspected hate crimes in- volved assaults. Seven of these assaults resulted in charges being laid. Two other hate crimes and 10 suspected hate crimes involved property damage such as hate-re- lated graffiti. One incident involved a young person in Oakville who wrote a racial slur on a sidewalk in chalk just prior to a Black Lives Mat- ter march. "I think I heard after, that this individual was remorseful and regretful and didn't realize the hurt they were doing," said Tanner. The police chief said nearly all of the property damage incidents remain unresolved as they were random in nature, had no definable pattern, and are believed to have been com- mitted by individuals and not organized groups. Another 33 incidents mostly involved the use of hate-related slurs and did not rise to the level of a criminal act. Oakville and Burling- ton had the most hate crimes last year, with sev- en reported within each municipality. The other four were re- ported in Milton. So far this year, Halton police say there have been five hate crimes in Halton; however, Deputy Chief Jeff Hill says four of those incidents involved proper- ty damage and appear to have been committed by the same person. "Hate crimes and hate speech can have a pro- foundly negative impact on the overall sense of well-being within a com- munity. They disturb peaceful coexistence by creating tensions between social groups, disrupting public peace and public order, and sow distrust within the community. The effects on private lives range from threat- ened individual rights and human dignity to physical harm in the case of violent hate crimes," said Tanner. "In the past year, Hal- ton Region has experi- enced a sharp increase in both hate speech and hate crimes, which is a great concern to all community stakeholders. It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary spike as a re- sult of a significant social impact factors and the cor- responding unrest or a new trend." Hill said police take these incidents very seri- ously and rigorously in- vestigate them. Halton police define a hate crime as a criminal offence committed against a person or prop- erty that is perceived to be motivated and/or is moti- vated in whole or in part by the suspect's hate, bias or prejudice based on real or perceived race, nation- al or ethnic origin, lan- guage, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physi- cal disability, sexual ori- entation or any other sim- ilar factor. HALTON SAW SIGNIFICANT RISE IN HATE INCIDENTS IN 2020 DAVID LEA dlea@metroland.com NEWS "I would suggest even these numbers are probably under reported when it comes to people saying very inappropriate things to one another." - Halton Police Chief Stephen Tanner