23% decrease in hate-crime reporting year-over-year in Ottawa
Ottawa police are seeing another drop in hate-crime incidents in 2025, according to new data shared by the force.
Of the 358 incidents reported to the unit, 263 are classified as criminal offences and 95 are considered hate-motivated incidents. This is a 23 per cent decrease, from 467 incident reported, in 2024.
A hate crime is described as “a criminal offence committed against a person or property motivated by hate/bias or prejudice based on race, national or ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, or other similar factors.”
Fifty people were charged in the 163 offences investigated by Ottawa police. Four youths were charged in relation to investigations under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
The Jewish community saw the most reported incidents, with 73 investigated, followed by the Black community (51), 2SLGBTQAI+ (26) and Muslim (18) groups.
The most serious violations of 2025 were mischief to property, threats, assault, harassing communication, assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.
“Hate crimes can be underreported. We encourage anyone who has experienced a hate incident to report it to us for further investigation,” officials said in the release.
This comes on the heels of another decrease in 2024 in hate-crime reporting in the nation’s capital.
In 2024 there were 461 incidents — 351 criminal and 116 hate-motivated — police dealt with compared to 487 the year before.
High-profile hate investigation
One of the cases launched in 2025 included an act of vandalism at the National Holocaust Monument in the LeBreton Flats area of Ottawa.
Police say the incident occurred June 8 when the monument was defaced with red paint that reads the words “FEED ME.”
“We were disgusted to learn that the National Holocaust Monument was defaced overnight,” Adam Silver, CEO & President of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa said in a statement released on Facebook.
Weeks later, a man, whom Mayor Mark Sutcliffe identified as a City of Ottawa employee, was charged in connection with the case.
“While it’s encouraging to see that the police investigation into the incident at the National Holocaust Monument has progressed, I’m very disturbed to learn that the person charged is a city employee who was on leave,” the mayor wrote. “As a community and as an employer, the actions at the Monument do not represent our values.”
A 46-year-old man faced offences of mischief to a war memorial, mischief exceeding $5,000 and harassment by threatening conduct.
