About the Campaign

Addressing hate is essential to a safe and well community. The anti-hate campaign is a community-wide effort to build belonging and raise awareness of hate and harm that is based on one’s identity. Campaign goals include:  

• Inspiring children and youth to champion a kinder world.  

• Fostering acceptance and love before hate can take root.  

• Celebrating diversity. 

• Helping each other see the strength of unity.  

• Encouraging allies to stand beside those facing hate.  

The campaign is one way that the Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan (www.safeandwellwr.ca) is taking action to address identity-based hate and harm. The CSWP is a community-led initiative that includes partners from across the region working together on four key priorities, including combating hate. Recent hate crime data shows this region has the highest incidents of hate-related crime in Canada. Regional Council and the network of partners  actioning the CSWP believe building belonging is essential to achieving a  safe and well Waterloo Region.   

The campaign launches in October 2025 and includes social media, radio and print ads, bus wrap, and posters at many locations across the region including schools, municipalities, hospitals, Waterloo Regional Police, and grassroots organizations.  

In Canada, knowing how to classify hate and crime can be confusing. When hate is reported to WRPS, there are three ways to classify the behavior: hate crime, hate-motivated crime and hate-motivated incident.

To learn more, visit wrps.ca/learn/what-you-need-know-about-hate-crime

You can be an ally in these ways:  

• Share campaign materials  

• Report hate speech and actions to security staff and the police at 519-570-9777.  

• Support people who have experienced harm  

• Take the pledge and commit to personal actions to combatting hate 

• Be kind to work towards a community where everyone feels a sense of belonging. 

The campaign came together with input from across the community. A combatting hate action table made up of more than 30 leaders led the creation of the campaign. Indigenous designer Katie Wilhelm brought it to life based on ideas and feedback collected from meetings, community consultations, public engagement, and focus groups with youth, CSWP steering committee members, and community leaders.  

Please feel free to use the campaign hashtag, #keepwaterlooregionkind

Many of the campaign materials (posters, lawn signs, stickers, etc.) include translations for the top languages requested for interpretation or translation in Waterloo Region (in order of request frequency) these include: Arabic, Tigrigna, Spanish, Persian (Farsi), and Turkish 

The campaign website webelongwr.ca also includes a translation feature

To request campaign materials in alternative formats please contact cswp@regionofwaterloo.ca

Please email cswp@regionofwaterloo.ca if you have any questions about the campaign that are not included in this FAQ.

Hate:

Hate is a breakdown or distortion of relationship — an orientation of disconnection that denies the shared humanity, dignity, and interdependence between people or groups. It emerges and is sustained within social and structural conditions that normalize exclusion, devalue certain identities, and erode mutual care. From a community perspective, hate is not only a feeling or act of hostility, but a collective wound that fractures belonging and weakens the relational fabric that holds communities together.

• Relationally, hate reflects a refusal or failure to be in right relationship — an abandonment of empathy and reciprocity.

• Socially, it is sustained through narratives, policies, and practices that mark some as less worthy of safety, voice, or love.

• Communally, healing from hate requires rebuilding connection, accountability, and trust — not only punishing harm but restoring the conditions that make belonging possible. 

How Hate Happens

Hate grows in spaces where people don’t feel connected or seen. 
It takes root when:

• People have little chance to know or understand those who are different from them.

• Stereotypes and misinformation go unchallenged.

• Systems and institutions treat some groups as less valuable or deserving.

• Conflict or fear isn’t addressed in healthy, restorative ways.

Left unchecked, these conditions allow hate to spread — moving from private beliefs to public harm.

Protecting Belonging

Communities can prevent and respond to hate by building relationships and accountability:

• Listen to and believe people who experience hate or exclusion.

• Speak up when harm happens, even in small ways.

• Create spaces where people can share stories, learn, and repair relationships.

• Challenge systems or norms that leave some community members unsafe or unseen.

Belonging grows when we take responsibility for each other’s dignity and safety — when we choose connection over separation, and care over fear.

Identity-based Harm

Identity-based harm is any action, behaviour, or structural condition that targets, devalues, or excludes a person or group because of aspects of their identity — including race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, faith, culture, language, or other characteristics that are central to who they are.

This harm can take many forms: verbal, emotional, physical, social, or systemic. It can be explicit, like harassment or violence, or subtle, like exclusion, microaggressions, or institutional barriers.

Identity-based harm affects not only individuals but communities, eroding trust, belonging, and safety. It operates both through direct acts and through systems or cultural norms that normalize inequality or dehumanization.

Key Principles:

• Relational: It damages relationships, trust, and connection between people and within communities.

• Cumulative: Even small, repeated harms can have deep and lasting impacts.

• Beyond legal frameworks: Identity-based harm exists even when no law has been broken. Justice, accountability, and healing can occur outside the criminal legal system.

In short: Identity-based harm is harm rooted in who someone is, shaping experiences, relationships, and communities — and calling for responses that restore dignity, belonging, and safety.