words of comfort aren't enough, says a waterloo resident who wants to see regional politicians take action against racism. last week, ashwin annamalai was told to "go back to india." his posted video of the incident has amassed almost two million views. local mps, mpps and councillors responded to the video he posted to x, condemning the racist act. "ashwin, i'm sorry that you and so many others in this community continue to face such hateful racism," regional coun. colleen james replied to annamalais post. others like kitchener-centre mp mike morrice, regional coun. rob deutschmann, waterloo mpp catherine fife, kitchener-centre mpp aislinn clancy and waterloo mayor dorothy mccabe also reached out. when he heard only words of comfort and no action, annamalai said he decided to address waterloo regional council along with his spouse, shiva subramanian. on wednesday, he told councillors racism has reached alarming levels in waterloo region and prompted james to call for an anti-racism action plan. according to statistics canada's police-reported crime data kitchener-cambridge-waterloo has the highest rate of reported hate crimes among metropolitan areas in canada, with peterborough and ottawa-gatineau following closely. in 2023, waterloo region reported 34 hate crimes per 100,000 people, up from 23 in 2022 and 13 in 2021. last year, peterborough reported 33.5 hate crimes per 100,000 people, followed by 31 in ottawa-gatineau and 24 in kingston. "we want waterloo region to be no.1 but not for the wrong reasons," said subramanian. she said some may attribute this to better data collection but the reality is reflected in the experiences of those targeted.
Nazi