Edmonton Police deleted its 'report hate' tweet — but it's still tracking non-crime 'hate incidents'
If you check the Edmonton Police Service's online hate-reporting portal today, you'll see that it remains fully active, describing a 'hate-motivated incident' as a 'non-criminal action' that can include 'verbal insults (name-calling, offensive jokes) and slurs.'
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Article by Rebel News staff
Tonight, on The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra weighs in on the Edmonton Police campaign against “offensive” words.
The Edmonton Police Service touched off a firestorm over the weekend when their campaign urging the public to report "hate" — not hate crimes, just hate, the feeling — exploded across social media. The EPS eventually deleted the offending tweet. But the campaign, and the online complaint form behind it, is still fully operational.
The tweet featured a video built around a string of rude comments, followed by the line: "You typed it. Someone lived it. Online hate isn't ‘just a comment.’ It hurts real people and harms real communities. Hate has no home here."
None of that would raise an eyebrow coming from a typical taxpayer-funded PR shop. But this wasn't Crime Stoppers, the government-organized non-governmental organization that fronted the original 2024 launch. This was a police force — an institution with the power to arrest, charge and, in extreme cases, use lethal force.
The video closed with a call to "report hate." Hate is an emotion. It cannot be policed any more than love can be ordered to switch off. What can be policed is conduct — and conduct, whether or not it's motivated by hate, is already covered by the Criminal Code. If someone murders another person and does so because of racial animus, that's rightly classified as a hate crime. But "crime" is the noun. "Hate" is only the adjective.
The 2024 launch video, still posted on the EPS YouTube channel, ran over 20 minutes and featured Alberta's Minister of Public Safety, Mike Ellis, alongside Edmonton police officials and a city councillor. Ellis, a former police officer, told the room: "Every Albertan deserves to feel safe, respected and valued." Fine words — but respect, unlike safety, isn't something government can hand out on demand. It has to be earned. And disrespect, however unpleasant, has never been a policing matter.
Facing public backlash, Ellis posted that Alberta's policing priorities "continue to be cracking down on violent crime, theft, illegal drugs and vandalism."
We are committed to supporting and respecting everyone's right to free speech. We have duty to uphold these rights and freedoms, regardless of an individual's religious or political beliefs.
— Mike Ellis (@MikeEllisUCP) August 4, 2026
Alberta's government does not condone hate speech or violence, but we believe law…
Premier Danielle Smith went further, declaring free speech "a foundational Alberta value" and warning against "policing unpopular or religious-based statements even if they are controversial."
Free Speech is a foundational Alberta value. We don’t believe in policing unpopular or religious-based statements even if they are controversial. That’s a slippery slope other countries have fallen into and we can’t go down that road.
— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) August 4, 2026
Our Minister of Public Safety and Emergency… https://t.co/C6ZmgCUZnR
Welcome words. But if you check EPS's online hate-reporting portal today, you'll see that it remains fully active, describing a "hate-motivated incident" as a "non-criminal action" that can include "verbal insults (name-calling, offensive jokes) and slurs." The broader EPS hate-and-bias webpage is also untouched. Only the single tweet and its embedded link are gone.
Nor is Edmonton unique. Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, York Region, Peel Region, Halton, Hamilton, Montreal's SPVM, Halifax Regional Police and the RCMP all operate near-identical online hate-incident reporting systems. Regina police pre-emptively deployed officers to a press conference over a local mosque's call to prayer, announcing in advance they were prepared to lay charges. Plus, remember when our big beautiful billboard truck was pulled over for a "hate crime" investigation only weeks ago?
Ezra has personal experience with this style of enforcement. Two decades ago, he was investigated for 900 days by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Danish cartoons of Muhammad — a case so widely condemned that then-prime minister Stephen Harper later repealed the equivalent federal censorship provision. The provincial version, Section 3 of the Alberta Human Rights Act, remains law, stating it is illegal to publish anything "likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt."
Ezra is calling on Ellis to order all Alberta police services, including the RCMP detachments under provincial contract, to halt hate-incident data collection, destroy existing databases, and redirect the associated funding and staff elsewhere. He is also calling on the Alberta government to repeal Section 3 of the Human Rights Act outright — a fight, he'd argue, an overwhelming majority of Albertans would support.
For now, congratulations are in order for the political pushback. But nothing has actually changed. Sure, they took down a tweet. Everything else — in Edmonton, and across the country — is still running.
GUEST: Unreleased footage from Alexa Lavoie's on-the-ground reporting in Ceuta, Spain.
