About the Data
The Data Tracker, developed by the CanAfro Research Institute, documents and visualizes reported daily Anti-Black Racism (ABR) and anti-Black hate incidents across Canada since 2018.
It addresses a gap in Canada's data landscape by bringing together documented incidents across locations, settings, incident types, and time periods.
What is Anti-Black Racism?
Anti-Black Racism (ABR) refers to prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination, and related practices directed toward Black people, including forms embedded in institutions and broader social structures. The concept is strongly associated in Canada with the work of Dr. Akua Benjamin.
This tracker focuses on reported and documented daily ABR incidents. It does not attempt to measure systemic ABR as a whole.
What Does the Tracker Record?
The tracker records reported or documented incidents, including incidents that may not be criminal offences.
Users can explore the data by year, province/territory, city, incident type, setting, and other available categories.
Where Do the Data Come From?
Data come from:
- Individuals and community organizations/partners
- Daily monitoring of media and news sources
- CanAfro's own data collection and monitoring
- Relevant open data, including police-reported hate-crime data
Each record is reviewed, verified, and categorized before being included.
Coding and Privacy
Incidents are coded into categories such as hate speech, harassment, physical violence, discrimination, vandalism/graffiti, online hate, denial/inaction on racism, and other/unknown.
The coding framework will continue to evolve as we learn from the data and receive feedback.
For privacy, counts below five are not displayed, and map locations are shown only at the city-centre level. No names, addresses, or personal identifying information are displayed.
Important Limitation
The tracker does not capture every ABR incident occurring in Canada.
Many daily experiences are never reported or documented, while some relevant data sources cannot be shared. The dashboard therefore represents documented incidents captured through our current sources and methods, the tip of the iceberg.
How Can the Dashboard Be Used?
Use the filters and visualizations to explore patterns and trends and support:
Research | Journalism | Policy | Human Rights | Community Planning | Education | Advocacy | Reports | Funding Applications
CanAfro will also produce policy reports based on dashboard findings and offer training for organizations and communities on using the dashboard.
An Evolving Platform
The dashboard will be continuously updated. CanAfro will continue to improve data collection, coding, verification, and visualizations.
We welcome feedback, questions, corrections, and collaboration.
Future Scope
The tracker currently focuses on Canada. Subject to continued funding and support, CanAfro Research Institute aims to expand the tracker in the future to include reported daily ABR incidents globally, creating a broader resource for understanding Anti-Black Racism across countries and communities.
Project Support
Funded by the Foundation for Black Communities (FFBC) through the Catapult Stream, April 2026–March 2027.
CanAfro Research Institute
Questions, corrections, or incident reports: contact@canafroinstitute.com