Perth County OPP and the Avon Maitland District School Board are partnering up to host a Hate Crime Forum Information Session.
The event will be May 30 at Listowel District Secondary School from 6-8 p.m.
Constable Jillian Johnson explains that the forum will be addressing some concerns within the community related to hate and bias-motivated incidents. She says a number of community based organizations will be in attendance.
"Victim Services Huron Perth, our mobile crisis response team with the OPP and Crime Stoppers of Huron Perth. Also, our Huron Perth Centre and we are waiting on a few others to confirm that they will attend. So it's gonna be a really great night with two guest speakers," said Constable Johnson.
The guest speakers will be Jason Burt, the Human Rights and Equity Lead with the AMDSB, and Detective Sergeant Tara Bolstad, with the Perth County OPP Major Crime Unit. Following the talks, there will be time for questions and answers.
Constable Johnson notes that hosting something like this is very important with the community becoming more diverse.
"We wanna make sure that our community knows that everyone is welcome here and we won't tolerate anything hate related, and maybe there's just more education that needs to be done within the community and this is an opportunity to have those discussions and learn about what it is that we're seeing and what we can do as a community to come together and reduce the number of incidents that are happening and prevent things from happening in the future," Constable Johnson explained.
Constable Johnson gave examples of some that the OPP have responded to in the past.
"Certain things like during Pride Month, when the Pride flags are flying, we've seen incidents where those are damaged or stolen, things like that, different graffiti and mischiefs around town. But any of those incidents that we have affects more than just the business where the flag was flying, it affects the entire group of people that identify in that community," Constable Johnson pointed out.
Registration for the event is preferred, but not required. Visit eventbrite.ca, and search for events from the Perth County OPP.
