London Police say a man involved in a verbal altercation with a group of women on the Western University campus will not face charges.
Much of the incident was caught on cell phone video. And while racist language can be heard, police say it does not constitute a crime, but rather a hate-incident.
“Hate crime is defined as a crime in the Criminal Code of Canada. It’s a criminal offense. A hate motivated incident is an incident that does not meet the definition of a crime,” explained LPS Acting Insp. Michelle Romano.
In an interview with CTV News Wednesday, the man identified himself only as Tom, and referred to himself a nationalist.
In both the interview and the video-taped altercation, Tom invokes Christianity. That’s something that long time social justice advocate Dean Kevin George of St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral takes issue with.
“I find it quite offensive when people invoke the name of Christianity to support or prop up their own hatred. The fact is, when people commit to become a Christian, across a whole variety of denominations, the basic promises we make are to seek and serve God and all persons, and love our neighbour as ourselves,” said Dean George
According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, the nationalist movement in Canada is the largest it has ever been, and it poses a growing threat to public safety.
“The largest white nationalist group has a political agenda. It is trying to influence politics (…) in order to achieve their main goal, which is racist mass deportations,” said Evan Balgord, executive director of CAHN.
According to the London Police Service, there were 70 hate/bias motivated crimes in 2025, with a total of 53 charges in 24 of these occurrences. There were 98 reported hate/bias motivated incidents
“We encourage everyone that if they experience any type of hate crime or hate incident, that it’s reported and it will be fully investigated by our team. And even if they’re unsure that it meets the definition of either, let our officers determine that. That’s their specialty,” said Acting Insp. Romano.
She added that there’s no tolerance for hate crime in London. LPS recently increased its Hate Crime Unit to three full-time investigators, and one outreach officer. It also launched an online hate-crime platform.
