Do you qualify
Communities at Risk: Security Infrastructure Program

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• Intended recipients
• Hate-motivated crimes and incidents
• Eligible recipient classes
• SHMIS Incident Severity Threshold

Intended recipients

This program is intended for communities at risk of being victimized by hate-motivated crimes and incidents, who belong to an eligible recipient class as defined in this section and in the program's Terms and Conditions.

Organizations who believe they meet these minimum program eligibility requirements are encouraged to apply.

A preliminary eligibility assessment is completed at the start of an application. This is to help organizations determine if they are likely to qualify for funding before continuing with the rest of their application. A final determination on eligibility will be conducted once Public Safety Canada receives the application.

Hate-motivated crimes and incidents

For the purposes of this program, a hate-motivated crime is an unlawful activity^{Footnote 1} committed to cause damage, harm, fear, intimidation, or threaten the security and property, of an identifiable individual/group, where motivation for the crime is based solely, or in part, because of their race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, language, gender or their physical or mental disability.

Hate-motivated incidents are activities with the same harmful intent but which do not meet the threshold of a criminal offence.

Gender-based violence is a form of hate-motivated crime/incident, as motivation for the violence and abuse may be based solely because of the victim's gender.

Eligible recipient classes

Funding is available to four (4) types of private, not-for-profit organizations, as defined below, who are at risk of being victimized by hate-motivated incidents and/or crime. As such, you will also need to demonstrate that your organization is at risk of hate-motivated incidents/crimes. A project may be proposed as a preventative measure, as long as the risk of a potential hate incident occurring at the project site is explained in the application.

Crown corporations, government bodies, publicly funded institutions, for profit organizations, and individuals are not eligible for funding. Residential dwellings and daycares are also not supported, with the exception of those who may fall under the gender-based violence shelters recipient class.

Types of recipients eligible for the Security Infrastructure Program.

Eligible Recipient Class	Program Definition	Examples
Place of Worship	Permanent building, sacred site, or structure, or portion thereof, that is owned or leased by a not-for-profit organization for the primary purpose of regular gatherings to share, express or practice a commonly-held faith, spiritual belief or religion. A place of worship does not include portions of such building or structure used for any commercial or residential purposes, including but not limited to onsite daycare spaces and senior residences.	Temple Mosque Synagogue Gurdwara Church
Community Centre	Permanent building, structure, or portion thereof, that is owned or leased by a not-for-profit organization, with the primary purpose of various regularly occurring culturally significant activities and programming. This includes community activities that promote the culture and well-being of those who occupy the space such as camps, arts, crafts, physical, social, charitable, and educational activities as well as social services primarily directed to the identifiable community. A community centre does not include portions of such building, site or structure used for any commercial or residential purposes. A club is not a community centre.	Community drop-in centre Cultural centre Aboriginal Friendship Centre
Provincially/Territorially Recognized Educational Institution	Permanent building, structure, or portion thereof, that is owned or leased by a provincially or territorially-recognized or accredited not-for-profit institution with a primary mandate related to education and training, and which identifies with a specific cultural, spiritual or religious community (e.g., faith-based schools, cultural and language schools, seminaries and other institutions that provide theological instruction).	Kindergarten Junior Kindergarten Primary School Secondary School Seminaries Heritage language schools
Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Shelter	Permanent building, structure, or portion thereof, that is operated as a 24/7 temporary housing facility by an organization that has as a primary mandate of serving individuals at-risk, victims and survivors of gender-based violence (including 2SLGBTQI+ peoples). The facility may be a primary stage support as a temporary emergency shelter or a secondary stage support as transitional supportive housing. Transitional supportive housing facilities must be for the purposes of supporting individuals experiencing gender-based violence and cannot be leased property. The transitional housing must be under the organization's legal ownership to be eligible.	2SLGBTQI+ Shelters Women's Shelters Transitional Housing

Facilities currently under construction

A permanent building or structure is required to receive funding and install security enhancements. If applying for a property currently under construction, it must be within one (1) year of completion by the time of application. You will need to demonstrate clear timelines for the construction and subsequent security upgrades.

Please note that if construction is not at a point where security enhancements can be installed by the time your project is approved, Public Safety Canada may be unable to move forward with supporting your project and your application may be withdrawn as a result.

Depending on the timeline of your construction project, you may wish to defer applying to a future call. Review the phases of the program to help you plan accordingly.

SHMIS Incident Severity Threshold

In addition to the minimum program eligibility requirements described above, applications under the Severe Hate-Motivated Incident Support (SHMIS) stream must have had an incident occur that is severe enough to qualify. The severity threshold ensures fairness, transparency and integrity of the program for all applicants.

The threshold includes five (5) conditions to be met:

1. The organization has been the victim of a severe incident related to a hate or bias-motivated crime resulting in bodily harm, injury, death, significant threat of physical violence (e.g. presence of armed intruder) or significant property destruction that took place at their physical location;
2. The severe incident occurred within the last six (6) months;
3. The severe incident was reported to police and involved a police response;
4. A police report was filed; and,
5. The severe incident had demonstrated links to hate crime, terrorism or extremist factions.

Upon submission of an application, Public Safety Canada will assess the request and determine whether the applicant qualifies for prioritized funding. Please note that other criteria may be determined and reviewed on a case-by-case basis however, general threats to a particular community or stakeholder would not be considered severe enough to qualify for this stream.