By Michael Coren

It’s a sobering thought. If you’re Jewish or gay the chances are that as soon as you leave the house someone will show hatred towards you. Or even lots of nasty bias. It must be true because a government agency tells me so and, as we know, they’re never wrong and have no political agenda whatsoever.

According to the most recent Toronto Police report the number of hate crimes rose in the city last year by almost 18%, increasing from 130 to 153. The Jewish population was top of the list with the "Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community" coming in at a respectable second place. So, at least, says the 2008 Annual Hate/Bias Crime Statistical Report; and we’re told the trend is replicated across the country.

So incredibly shocking was this revelation that Canada is living hell for everybody other than members of the Ku Klux Klan that the report was trumpeted on Canada Yahoo headlines as "Canada’s largest city sees huge spike in hate crimes," though the actual story replaced "huge" with a mere "large." The civil servants and police officers involved have promised to take appropriate action to make sure that there is less hatred and bias in the future.

Not being someone who understands the intricacies of contemporary policing, I’d always rather hoped that cops were there to arrest rapists, killers, burglars and drug pushers rather than deal with social bias. But no. And there are lots of these anti-bias police, from coast to coast to ethnic minority and sexual sub-group coast.

The truth, of course, is that the Jewish and gay community are arguably for their size by far the most influential groups in Canada. They’ve worked hard for that position and if others resent it they should work just as hard. There is, naturally, some dislike of all identifiable groups – particularly those who are obsessed with making themselves identifiable – and generally there isn’t much we can do about it. It’s not pleasant but people have a right to dislike whomever they want as long as they don’t break the law.

There are Jews who dislike gentiles, gays who dislike heterosexuals, even Jews who aren’t fond of gays – golly, what a confusion that will be for the police computer. If anybody abuses or attacks anyone they should be dealt with by ordinary cops, not zealots whose entire existence is based on there being hate in society.

What these so-called hate crimes really are is open to debate. That they include the ludicrous concept of "bias" says a great deal. If it’s now a felony to show bias we may all be in quite a lot of trouble, which I suspect is the intention of those people who want the state to be able to control as much individual freedom as possible.

Many of the reports involve perceived hatred and some of them are by no means conclusively accurate. In other words, the person feels he has been hurt because of his race or sexuality – and the sort of people who most complain about these things tend to be, with exceptions, people who see hatred everywhere. In more robust times it was children and the mentally ill who were scared all the time and while we cared for them we didn’t form national policy based on their fantasies.

There are inevitably a few nasty Canadians, which should not come as some massive revelation. I receive hundreds of abusive e-mails and comments on my blog, in the comments section at the end of my columns and even as personal e-mails. It’s part of being in the public square and, important, part of being a grown-up and a big boy. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger and, anyway, most of the people who write are illiterate and probably never leave their mum’s basement.

There are also some neurotic, controlling Canadians who have too much time on their hands. There are people who want to impose their view on everybody else in the country and prosecute or persecute those who disagree. Instead of dealing with serious and genuine issues of crime and poverty they obsess about other Canadians not being as "enlightened" and "progressive" as they are. I hate that sort of thing. Whoops, there’s me with a police record – come and get me copper, come and get me.