Black and gay people are more likely than others to become victims of a hate crime in Canada.

Latest numbers indicate that incidents against people of black skin colour and sexual minorities accounted for nearly a third of hate crimes in 2019.

In that year, overall police-reported hate crimes increased seven percent from 2018, for a total of 1,946.

“Other than a single peak of 2,073 hate crimes in 2017, police-reported numbers are the highest since 2009,” Statistics Canada stated in a report Monday (March 29).

Hatred of a race or ethnicity accounted for almost half of all police-reported hate crimes.

Statistics Canada noted that police reported 876 crimes motivated by race or ethnicity, up 10 percent from 2018, and two incidents fewer than the record high in 2017.

“With 335 police-reported incidents, hate crimes targeting the Black population reached their highest number recorded dating back to 2009,” the federal agency noted.

Moreover, hate crimes targeting the Black population accounted for 18 percent of all hate crimes in Canada.

Statistics Canada noted that Black people were the “most targeted group overall in 2019”.

Ontario and B.C. accounted for the largest increases in hate crimes against Black people. Meanwhile, Alberta reported the largest decrease.

Members of the LGBT community were also hit hard.

Police reported 263 hate crimes targeting sexual orientation in 2019, up 41 percent from 2018.

“This was the highest number of hate crimes targeting sexual orientation dating back to 2009,” Statistics Canada reported.

The federal agency noted that nearly nine in 10 or 88 percent of these crimes “specifically targeted the gay and lesbian community”.

The remainder were incidents against bisexual people (two percent); people with other sexual orientations, such as asexual, pansexual or other non-heterosexual orientations (six percent); and people whose sexual orientation was unknown (four percent).