'Geopolitical tensions' drove increase in protests and hate crimes in Vancouver in 2023: police

The Vancouver Police Department is blaming "geopolitical tensions" for a rise in both hate crimes and protests in 2023.

The department says it investigated 265 reports of hate crimes last year, a 31-per-cent increase from the year before.

Some of those incidents were directly related to the 1,018 protests in the city in 2023, according to Staff Sgt. Astrid Bonter, of the VPD's diversity, community and Indigenous relations section.

In a news release announcing the data, police said the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists and Israel's subsequent invasion of the Gaza Strip were "the single biggest reason for the increases" in both hate incidents and protests.

Of the 47 reported anti-Semitic hate incidents the VPD investigated in 2023, 33 of them were reported after Oct. 7, the department said.

Notably, the VPD's release does not include any mention of anti-Muslim hate incidents, something previous statements about increases in hate-related incidents since the start of the war in Gaza from both B.C. Premier David Eby and human rights commissioner Kasari Govender have done. 

At a news conference Tuesday, Bonter mentioned several instances of Islamophobic or anti-Palestinian graffiti, but noted that police had investigated fewer hate incidents directed at Muslims or West Asians than those directed at the Jewish community in 2023.

Pressed CTV News for specifics, she said of the 50 investigations police launched in response to protests related to the situation in Gaza, 33 were related to anti-Semitic hate, 10 were related to Islamophobia or anti-Palestinian hate, and the rest were not hate motivated.

"I think it's really important to acknowledge the fact that there may be underreporting," she said, after sharing the numbers.

"Part of this, here, why we're here today, is to break down those barriers, to invite those communities who may, historically, have not had a positive relationship with police to come to us. We are here to listen and not discriminate about who's coming to us with their complaints."

The VPD said it saw a 27-per-cent increase in officers being deployed in response to protests in 2023, with more than $4 million being spent on protest-related overtime.

Police attributed $2.5 million of that overtime spending to protests related to the Israel-Hamas war.

Asked how much the department budgets for policing protests, Insp. Jeff Neuman, of VPD’s emergency operations and planning section, told reporters it has risen in recent years.

"The VPD budget for protests was approximately $1 million in 2022," he said. "Based on the amount of environmental protests we saw with the highway blockades, as an organization we increased the budget to $2 million for 2023. We've quickly surpassed that."

The total VPD budget for 2023 was more than $400 million.