Hate crimes and hate incidents, non-criminal acts, increased in Montreal in 2024, an annual police report presented June 11 revealed. Last year, 375 hate crimes, and 202 hate incidents were reported in Montreal, increases of 6 percent and 18 percent respectively.
Montreal police (SPVM) presented their 2024 report to Montreal’s Public Security Committee, comprised of eight city councillors and island suburban mayors, outlining gains in diversity hiring and reporting crime statistics for 2024; everything from murder to car thefts, both of which were down significantly.
According to the annual report, nearly half (47.7%) of all reported hate crimes targeted ethnic or national origin, or race (39 additional cases from the previous year), while a third (32.5%) targeted religion.
Half of all hate incidents targeted religion, with nearly a third targeting ethnic or national origin or race (up 12 cases). The SPVM did not specify the victim’s religion.
A hate crime is a crime motivated or suspected to be motivated by hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, race, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or any other similar factor. Hate incidents are non-criminal acts, but with similar motivations, and may affect the feeling of security of an individual or identifiable group, such as offensive and unsettling graffiti targeting an ethnic group, or committing a vexatious act against a person due to their national origin or sexual orientation
Hate incidents involving gender accounted for 8 percent of reports. Two crimes and six incidents related to xenophobia, immigration and newcomers to Canada were reported.
SPVM deputy-director Marc Charbonneau told commissioners the spike in hate is due primarily to “obviously the global context. There are international conflicts,” he said, adding SPVM efforts increased the number of people reporting, “whether validated or not, whether an incident or a crime.”
Police offer few details
Montreal police delivered their short presentation with few specifics just a few weeks after Toronto Police Services reported that antisemitic hate crimes in Toronto continue to rise and crimes targeting Jews account for the single biggest category in 2024. Hate crimes targeting Jewish people in Toronto topped the total number of occurrences for three straight years, with 177 reported in 2024, up from 149 in 2023, and 65 in 2022. TPS also provided detailed breakdowns of the crimes and victims, in advance of its public police board meeting.
In Montreal from Oct. 7, 2023, to October 2024, 287 crimes and incidents were reported against Jews and Arabs/Muslims. Of that number, 212—some 74 percent—targeted Jews. From Oct. 7, 2023, to January 2024 there were 131 reported antisemitic crimes and incidents, according to Statistics Canada data.
Statistics Canada’s preliminary police-reported hate crime data shows that 2,384 hate crimes were reported to police in Canada during the first six months of 2024, about half of the 2023 total. Hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity (48%) were the largest proportion, followed by religion (29%) and sexual orientation (13%).
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ (CIJA)Quebec spokesman Julien Corona took particular note of the increase in incidents in the SPVM report, “particularly targeting religion and ethnic or national origin, which goes hand in hand with the meteoric rise in antisemitic attacks, both in number and severity, that we’ve seen since the October 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel.”
That’s why CIJA has pushed for every level of government to act decisively against “a phenomenon that is targeting not only our community but Quebec as a whole and our common values.” Corona says those who propagate hatred, glorify terrorist groups at demonstrations, and attack Jewish community institutions must understand such behaviour will not be tolerated. “This report reiterates the need for these measures.”
The report’s imprecision irked Montreal’s only Jewish city councillor, Sonny Moroz, who has long deplored the Valérie Plante administration’s response to the explosion in antisemitism in Montreal since October 2023. “I hear from residents who feel less safe today than they did a year ago,” the Snowdon councillor told The CJN. “The rise in hate crimes is real, but without clear data, it’s impossible to protect the people most at risk. The city needs to take this seriously and show leadership, not just issue vague reports.”
At the June Côte des Neiges—Notre Dame de Grâce borough council meeting he spoke in favour of “new laws to help guide police officers in their enforcement. Giving tools (bubble legislation) like Vaughan has and Toronto has is what most police departments are looking for in order for there to be a predictability with these kinds of issues.”
Bubble legislation: Not all agree
Moroz says police need that to avoid the situation that occurred at a May 27 protest outside Chevra Kadisha synagogue, “where people were crossing, going about their day, and running into something halfway through a street. That caused conflict, and I’d like to see protests continue in areas where it’s allowed. For those in front of educational facilities or religious institutions or areas where vulnerable communities gather, there should be a larger buffer zone.”
In neighbouring island suburb Côte Saint-Luc, Mayor Mitchell Brownstein told The CJN the clear increase in hate crimes requires immediate action by Montreal: “Bubble legislation requiring that any protest be a clear distance from religious institutions, anti-mask legislation ensuring no one hides their face during protests, and a zero tolerance for hate speech and illegal disruption of public and private gatherings must be enforced.”
B’nai Brith’s Quebec director Henry Topas did not comment on the report, except to say “we understand that the SPVM is doing the best possible work with the limited funds they are allocated and with the difficulties in the judicial system.”
Not everyone feels new laws are required. Montreal attorney Michael Hollander, who has worked with attorney and former Conservative candidate Neil Oberman to secure injunctions around institutions and represented Jewish students on campus, said while Ottawa should amend the Criminal Code to update the definition of antisemitism beyond Holocaust denial, “the Criminal Code already amply provides sufficient legislation to deal with hateful, intimidating and/or harassing demonstrations, including and/or specifically while masked.”
Hollander says bubble legislation sends a message that there is “no courage to enforce existing legislation,” and that “such behaviour including but not limited to blocking entrances and pathways, is unacceptable in some places and tolerable in others.”
SPVM spokesperson Mélanie Bergeron confirmed to The CJN that 264 of the 610 demonstrations in 2024 were related to the Gaza-Israel war. That number includes weekly protests, sometimes thrice weekly, outside the Israeli consulate in Westmount and in and around McGill and Concordia’s downtown campuses.
While short on details about statistics or operations, the SPVM disclosed after repeated queries from The CJN, that it responded to 676 crowd control situations and 311 events related to the Middle East conflict from Oct. 7, 2023 to March 20, 2025.
For the year following Oct. 7, 2023, police management of these events cost the city almost $9 million, all for overtime, director Fady Dagher said last November. Police presence at the city’s many encampments, including McGill’s, cost taxpayers almost $500,000.
The Toronto Police Service reported that the city spent more than $9 million to police protests in the first four months following the Hamas attacks in Israel and ensuing war in Gaza, said police chief Myron Demkiw. The total cost is now $20 million, with almost half of that for overtime pay.
In May, Ontario’s Inspector General of Policing Ryan Teschner reported that between October 2023 and April 2024, Ontario cities spent $12 million policing the protests, noting there were 500 demonstrations related to the Gaza-Israel war in Toronto alone. Vancouver police spent $2.9 million covering more than 900 protests in 2024, although did not specify how many were related to the Middle East conflict.
The SPVM, counting 4,677 officers and a 2024 budget of more than $820 million, continues to have a manpower shortage with some 300 officer vacancies and increased demand on its ranks due to the explosion in demonstrations and interventions, including recent crackdowns on organized crime and firearms activities.
The Montreal Policemen’s Brotherhood union has frequently denounced underfunding,given the increased demand on police ranks often related directly to the Middle East conflict. Indeed, many SPVM officers, particularly newer recruits with four or less years’ experience comprising about a quarter of serving officers, are reportedly wearing heavier, cumbersome, older-generation body armour, and some Montreal neighborhood stations frequently see reduced patrol shifts owing to a shortage of safely functioning cruisers.
Brotherhood president Yves Francoeur has publicly acknowledged the public’s waning confidence and cynicism when they see police acting passively in the face of unruly protests that disrupt everyday public life and has appealed for lawmakers to ban masks during protests. The Brotherhood would not respond to a request for an interview.
“The most important thing,” said deputy-director Charbonneau, “is the right to demonstrate. It’s in the Canadian Charter… But even in terms of bylaws, there have been several judicial decisions in past years where it was determined that for certain types of offences, it was not serious enough to prevent a demonstration, because there is something else that can be done.”
The SPVM would not clarify what “something else” means, nor which decisions he referred to, although most understand it to be the P-6 municipal bylaw struck down by a Quebec court in 2016, following Quebec’s wide-scale 2012 student protests against the government’s then-proposed $1,500 tuition hike.
P-6 banned masks and required organizers to provide police with an advance itinerary, something the court felt prevented people from participating in spontaneous protests. Thousands of infractions were cancelled as a result, and police faced lawsuits over kettling and arresting protesters, costing the city millions.
The SPVM strategy, Charbonneau explained, is firstly “to be present so that demonstrators are safe, such as if they are on a street and want to march, we have to make sure that there will be no traffic during that time. The second is to ensure the safety of anyone in the surrounding area, citizens or property owners.” The force relies on a “communicative approach” to tell organizers what police expectations are, “and in almost all cases, we have full collaboration on how to proceed.”
Director Fady Dagher wrote in the report that the SPVM “accomplished each of our achievements, each activity, each step, while thinking of the public’s welfare and safety and the tranquillity they have a right to expect in their neighbourhoods.”
Protests outside bedroom windows
“Tranquility” is news to Snowdon resident Noémi, (who did not want to use her last name) who told The CJN she was “appalled” on May 27, seeing about two dozen protesters occupy one side and two corners on her residential street for hours—chanting slogans and profanities, including through bullhorns and a speaker—near the Chevra Kadisha Synagogue. The protest targeted an event supporting IDF veterans wounded in the war in Gaza and featured former Chief of Defence Staff General (ret.) Rick Hillier, who criticized federal and local inaction in the face of rising hatred in Canada.
“This is OK?” she exclaimed to The CJN, walking her bicycle past the small phalanx of police lining the sidewalk into the night. “People shout ‘fuck you baby killer piece of shit’ for hours outside bedrooms and five metres from their front doors? I’m supposed to be happy because police make sure nobody gets hurt? That’s the Montreal low bar?”
Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi said the time for data analysis has passed. “We’re well beyond that. The numbers are in—and have been. The overwhelming majority of hate crimes in Montreal and across Canada target Jews. That’s not opinion—that’s reality. If someone insists otherwise, I’ve got a lovely bridge they might want to buy.”
“Other communities face hatred too and that must never be ignored” said Levi, “but let’s not pretend all forms of hate are equal in scale or intensity,” citing the firebombing of synagogues and Jewish schools under lockdown.
Montreal’s executive committee member responsible for public security, Alain Vaillancourt, delivered little more than praise at the committee for the SPVM “for its excellent work,”, but did not respond to The CJN’s requests for comment.
Despite decrying soaring antisemitism and growing outrage online over police responses, no one questioned SPVM leadership about it during the well-advertised June 11 open hearing. It was streamed live (with repeated technical issues) and held during a transit strike. Only one citizen showed up.
The SPVM refused requests for interviews with senior officials about the report and its handling of protests including those violating court injunctions, citing unavailability, but said local station commanders do meet with Jewish community leaders “to discuss the situation.”
Charbonneau told the commission his department, in partnership with “local communities,” has implemented visibility plans, citizen meetings, and involved the SPVM’s Hate Crimes and Incidents Module (MICH), which has three detectives investigating and pressing criminal charges, and two specialized consulting officers logging, analyzing and quantifying incidents and crimes.
