Anti-immigration flyers distributed in Brampton, Ont., last month do not meet the definition of a hate crime, according to police.
The flyer questions the direction of the city's racial demographics, contrasting an apparently old, black-and-white photo of a group of white people with a colour photo of a group of Sikhs.
The caption under the latter reads: “Is This Really What You What?”
“While the flyers may be considered racist and offensive, they do not cross the legal line into hate crime as determined by the Supreme Court of Canada,” Peel Regional Police said in a release Thursday after concluding an investigation.
“As such, there are no reasonable grounds to warrant criminal charges in this case.”
The flyers were distributed by a group called Immigration Watch Canada which, according to a spokesman in B.C., is opposed to mass immigration.
The flyers brought condemnation from politicians and community leaders. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath, leader of the New Democratic Party, both denounced the flyers.
Balpreet Singh of the World Sikh Organization of Canada previously said that, although the flyers were "quite upsetting" to some members of his community, he doubted they qualified as a hate crime.
"I think the pamphlets are in very bad taste, but I don't think that they go into the territory of hate crime, so I don't expect anything to be done," he said.