Prince George has been selected as one of the launching grounds for a new provincial hate-crime awareness campaign.
On Monday, the B.C. government announced the start of Know Hate, a campaign and resource aiming to teach residence about online hate crimes.
Available at www.HateCrimeBC.ca, the tool provides information about what constitutes a hate crime, how to report them and links to resources for victims. The awareness campaign will run in print, social media, television, radio and transit ads for six weeks.
The project is in partnership with the BC Hate Crimes Team and Abbotsford Community Services.
"As Canada's most ethnically diverse province, B.C. benefits greatly from its diverse populations," said Teresa Wat, Minister of International Trade and Minister Responsible for the Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism. "There are still people who lack the openness to accept different beliefs, backgrounds or lifestyle choices and this sometimes leads to hate. Hate crimes are not acceptable."
Defined as a criminal offence motivated by hate towards an identifiable group, the primary motive of more than half of Canadian hate crimes is race or ethnicity, according to Statistics Canada. The second-highest motivation is religion.
