Hamilton has the second highest number of hate crimes in Canada

At first, it paints an unfriendly portrait of Hamilton — the second highest number of hate crimes per capita in Canada, behind Thunder Bay.

But local police and civic leaders insist that's only part of the story.

A Statistics Canada report this week shows Hamilton as having 17.4 hate crimes or incidents per 100,000 people in 2013, second only to Thunder Bay with 20.9. That's lower than major cities such as Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

On the surface, it looks bad for Hamilton, says Det. Carmen Pietroniro, who serves as Hamilton Police Service's one-person hate crime unit. But he insists it's not.

That number includes not only hate crimes, but all incidents where a racial slur was uttered, or there was any bias overtone at all.

I believe that it's a very safe city.- Det. Carmen Pietroniro, Hamilton Police Service

Hamilton Police have made such a push to get people to report such incidents that it's now showing up in those numbers, he said.

"We're pretty proud of that," said Pietroniro of the increased reporting.

As for Hamilton being unfriendly to minorities, "I would say that's completely untrue," he said. "I believe that it's a very safe city."

Hamilton police have met with local associations representing minorities, he said. It's distributed flyers and tried to spread a message by word of mouth: if you're victim of a hate/bias incident, report it.

That's been so successful, he said, that Hamilton's numbers are now higher.

Racism is here. Racism is present.- Pat Wright, Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion

Pat Wright, interim executive director for the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, has the same take.

"Racism is here. Racism is present," she said.

But "one of the things we found when we did hate crimes training is that an increase in numbers doesn't necessarily mean an actual increase in the number of crimes."

Overall, police reported 1,167 hate incidents across Canada in 2013, down 17 per cent from 2012. Canada's overall average is 3.3 hate incidents per 100,000 people.

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About half were directed at people who are black, Asian, Arab or Aboriginal, or other races and ethnicities. Twenty-eight per cent of victims were members of a religious group, including Jews, Muslims and Catholics. Another 16 per cent were based on sexual orientation, and 5 per cent on language, disability, sex or age.

Charges included mischief, assault, uttering threats and harassment.

Of the hate crimes reported, 43 per cent were reported in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

As for Hamilton, Pietroniro says it's important for people to report hate/bias incidents for several reasons. 

For one, evidence of hate or bias leads to harsher sentences. Police push for that, he said, and it works. It's also important in training and equipping front-line officers.

The numbers fluctuate year over year. In 2014, police investigated 121 hate incidents, 76 of which were related to racial bias. Forty-one involved black victims. Police investigated 122 incidents in 2013, and 143 in 2012

As for crimes, police investigated 19 in 2014, up from 11 in 2013. There were 16 in 2012.

In Statistics Canada reports, the Hamilton census metropolitan area includes Burlington and Grimsby. This report excludes the area policed by Halton Regional Police Service.