Parliamentary Committee Notes: Funding to expand the capacity of the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence
Proposed Response
- We are deeply concerned by the rise in hate-motivated crimes in Canada, which have surged by more than 70% since 2019; in 2023, reported hate incidents rose another 32% compared to 2022 – a stark reminder of the need for urgent action.
- In response, Budget 2024 invested $273.6 million over six years, starting in 2024-25, with $29.3 million ongoing, for Canada's Action Plan on Combatting Hate.
- The funding of $19.5 million over 3 years allocated by the Government to Public Safety’s Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence is primarily related to:
- Expanding the Community Resilience Fund grants and contributions program to boost support to academic and frontline initiatives, such as psychosocial services, aimed at countering radicalization to violence.
- Continuing the Government of Canada’s strong commitment to the Christchurch Call to Action, targeting online extremist content and advancing collaboration between governments, industry and civil society.
- Building an open-source data integration and behavioural analysis team to better identify and mitigate emerging risks.
Financial Implications
- This Supplementary Estimates B proposal is seeking to access a total of $5.0 million in budgetary expenditures, with a total of $2.3 million in Vote 1 and $2.8 million in Vote 5 appropriations.
Background
Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate (CAPCH): The 2024 Federal Budget announced $273.6 million over six years, starting in 2024-25, with $29.3 million ongoing, to support CAPCH.
CAPCH is built on a community-based approach with three pillars for actions: 1) Empowering communities to identify and prevent hate; 2) Supporting victims and survivors, and protecting communities; and 3) Building community trust, partnerships and institutional readiness.
PS’ Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence (Canada Centre): The Canada Centre leads the Government of Canada's efforts to counter radicalization to violence, complementing national security, criminal justice, and anti-hate initiatives. The Canada Centre collaborates with several domestic and international partners, including the Christchurch Call Foundation, which seeks to combat terrorist and violent extremist content online. Since 2017, the Canada Centre’s grants and contributions fund – the Community Resilience Fund (CRF) – has supported 79 research and frontline support projects to improve understanding and responses to violent extremism of all forms. Funding under CAPCH for the Canada Centre will advance work in three areas:
- increase research on and frontline support to counter radicalization to violence through increased funding to the CRF;
- to support and advance the Government of Canada’s commitments to the Christchurch Call to Action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content; and,
- increase understanding of radicalization to violence in Canada by establishing a new data integration and behavioral analytics capacity.
Canada Community Security Program (CCSP): PS, through the Canada Community Security Program (CCSP), contributes to the Government of Canada’s efforts to help everyone feels safe in their community gathering spaces, particularly community centres, schools and places of worship. CCSP supports communities at-risk of hate-motivated crimes by providing time-limited funding for security infrastructure. Funding is available to private, not-for-profit organizations that are at risk of being victimized by hate-motivated crime, including: places of worship; provincially/territorially recognized private educational institutions; shelters for victims of gender-based violence, community centres and/or other publicly accessible community-based facilities used by Canadian private, not-for-profit organizations, associations, or societies for their operations.
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