Special Crown prosecutor will focus on hate crimes in Manitoba, government says

Manitoba will soon have a Crown attorney specifically designated to prosecute hate crimes, the government announced Wednesday.

Justice Minister Matt Wiebe will appoint a lead provincial Crown prosecutor to tackle the issue and co-ordinate efforts of a working group providing guidance on prosecuting hate crimes, which can be complex.

The government says it will provide additional training to Crown attorneys so that offenders are held to account. Wiebe said Wednesday afternoon the province will apply for federal funding for the training for the prosecutors.

"This will just expand the toolbox in terms of the skills that they have … to fully prosecute these hate crimes," the minister said.

"What we want to do is ensure that communities that have felt hurt and the pain from these kind … of crimes, that they see that we're taking clear action on it."

Bernie Faber, chair with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, says he's been calling for something like this for a long time.

Faber, who's also a former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, says hate-crime charges are rare across the country.

Crown attorneys and police are often reluctant to pursue hate-related charges, he said, because they don't know what could be successfully proven to be a hate crime.

"It's easy when you catch somebody robbing a bank, right? Guy's got a gun, he's robbing a bank, he's a felon, off he goes," he said. 

"It's a little bit more difficult when you're dealing with what is become known as 'thought crimes.' Now, these are not thought crimes, these are hate crimes — and very often neither the police nor the Crown attorney have the ability to discern what a hate crime is."

Another problem, Faber says, is that some hate-crime charges are among the few that require the approval of a government official — the attorney general — to prosecute. 

Kenneth Grad, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba's faculty of law, says that distinction only applies to certain types of offences related to hate speech and the willful promotion of hatred or genocide. However, he added, he's not sure that's still much of a barrier.

Grad said the province's announcement is a natural response to "skyrocketing" hate-motivated crime in recent years.

Actual numbers hard to capture: Law scholar

There were 178 police-reported hate-motivated crimes in Winnipeg between 2017 and 2022, the province said.

A Winnipeg Police Service report from last year found that hate crimes hit a recent historic high in 2023, with about 46 incidents reported.

"The amount of charges is only a proxy to what is actually going on because of the difficulty of prosecuting these crimes … especially when it's not one of these crimes that are inherently hate crimes," Grad said.

On Tuesday, Winnipeg police charged a 19-year-old with 26 counts of mischief in connection with antisemitic graffiti found throughout a neighbourhood in the city.

Police said the offences did not meet specific criteria outlined in the Criminal Code, which designates vandalism targeting religious or cultural buildings as an inherent hate crime.

Grad said police could still have pursued hate-crime charges, but that the prosecution would have to prove hate was a motive and aggravating factor.

"Usually, the kind of rule in criminal law is that motive … is always relevant, but it's never essential," he said.

"When it comes to establishing hate crime, the Crown basically has … to go an extra step."

Grad says the announcement is a good step, though he would like to see more resources put into education and other areas outside the justice system to address the root causes of the issue.

Faber said he would like to see more collaboration with schools, to stop the perpetrators of these crimes while they're young.

"Canada has to be very clear as a country of laws," he said. "Muslims and Jews and people of colour … ought not to worry about walking the streets at night."