A lead provincial Crown attorney will be designated to handle hate crimes, provincial Justice Minister Matt Wiebe announced today.
“Hate has no place in our province,” he said in a news release. “We’re protecting families and the democratic freedoms we value. We want Manitobans from all walks of life to know their government is going to show up for them.”
The province currently has a hate-crime working group within the prosecution service, which provides expertise and guidance in such cases. The prosecution service will designate a lead Crown attorney to co-ordinate the group’s work, the release said.
New terms of reference for the working group are being drafted, the minister said in the release. Hate-crimes prosecutions can be complex and have a significant impact on the community, Wiebe noted.
The government also plans to provide additional specialized training to Crown attorneys to enhance their existing expertise and support the prosecution of hate crimes, Wiebe noted.
There were 178 police-reported hate-motivated crimes in Winnipeg between 2017 and 2022, the province said. There were 3,576 hate-motivated crime incidents across Canada in 2022.
On Tuesday, Winnipeg police announced a 19-year-old man was arrested Sunday and charged with 26 counts of mischief under $5,000 for antisemitic graffiti in Charleswood between Sept. 28 and Dec. 31.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca