The number of hate crimes committed in Canada jumped 35 per cent between 2007 and 2008, while black and Jewish people were the most targeted groups for the attacks, according to data released by Statistics Canada on Monday.

The study said police forces reported 1,036 hate crimes in 2008, just more than half of which targeted the victim's race or ethnicity and a quarter of which were motivated by religion. Of all race-based attacks, blacks were targeted four out 10 times; Jews were the subject of 165 attacks, or about two-thirds of all religious hate crimes.

While 16 per cent of the crimes were motivated by the victim's sexual orientation, the agency said that those crimes had doubled in number from the year previous and "were the most violent in nature."

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