Contents
- School bullying prevalence in Canada statistics: national trend in victimization and bullying others
- School bullying prevalence in Canada statistics: how often students are bullied by grade and gender
- School bullying prevalence in Canada statistics: common forms and reasons for repeated bullying
- School bullying prevalence in Canada statistics: cyberbullying experiences among students
- School bullying prevalence in Canada: Grade 4 bullying at school by province and frequency
- School bullying prevalence in Canada: Québec school-context bullying and disclosure
- Sources
School bullying prevalence in Canada statistics: national trend in victimization and bullying others
The Canadian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey offers a series of snapshots of students who reported being bullied. The reported share was 19% in 2006, 20% in 2010, 22% in 2014 and 20% in 2018. In the survey’s 2022 cycle, it was 32%. These observations come from separate survey cycles, not annual measurements. The latest figure in this series is higher than the earlier figures shown, while the sequence itself does not explain why the reported share changed.
| HBSC survey cycle | Students reporting being bullied |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 19% |
| 2010 | 20% |
| 2014 | 22% |
| 2018 | 20% |
| 2022 | 32% |
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Figure 11.3.
The same figure reports two other response categories: students who said they bullied others, and students who reported both bullying others and being bullied. In 2014, 3% reported bullying others and 5% reported both experiences. In 2018, the figures were 6% and 9%; in 2022, they were 2% and 5%.
| HBSC survey cycle | Bullying others | Both bullying others and being bullied |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 3% | 5% |
| 2018 | 6% | 9% |
| 2022 | 2% | 5% |
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Figure 11.3.
These are separate categories in the figure. They should not be added to the victimization figures to create a single total. The 2022 result belongs to the survey cycle, not the report’s publication year. The report was published in 2025 and describes students in grades 6–10. Data collection occurred during the 2021–22 and 2022–23 school years; New Brunswick and Nunavut could not participate. It therefore does not represent every Canadian student, age group or school.
The figures describe students’ reported experiences. They are not counts of incidents, and an unpleasant peer interaction is not automatically equivalent to the survey’s bullying measure. Other findings below ask more specific questions about frequency, forms and settings, so their percentages have distinct meanings and reference groups. Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, report scope and Figure 11.3.
School bullying prevalence in Canada statistics: how often students are bullied by grade and gender
HBSC Figure 11.1 asks students how often they experienced school bullying over the past couple of months. For grades 6–8, 10% of cisgender boys and 13% of cisgender girls reported being bullied two or three times a month. For once a week, the figures were 8% and 11%; for several times a week, they were 14% and 16%.
| Grades 6–8, 2022 | Cisgender boys | Cisgender girls |
|---|---|---|
| Two or three times a month | 10% | 13% |
| Once a week | 8% | 11% |
| Several times a week | 14% | 16% |
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Figure 11.1.
For TGD youth in grades 6–8, 12% reported school bullying once a week and 28% several times a week. The checked observations do not include a figure for the two-or-three-times-a-month response for this group. These percentages describe the reported frequency responses for TGD youth in this grade band; they should not be generalized to every individual student.
In grades 9–10, 8% of cisgender boys and 14% of cisgender girls reported bullying two or three times a month. Once-a-week figures were 7% for boys and 10% for girls. For several times a week, both groups reported 13%.
| Grades 9–10, 2022 | Cisgender boys | Cisgender girls |
|---|---|---|
| Two or three times a month | 8% | 14% |
| Once a week | 7% | 10% |
| Several times a week | 13% | 13% |
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Figure 11.1.
For TGD youth in grades 9–10, 28% reported being bullied several times a week. A two-or-three-times-a-month estimate is not included in the reported observations. The report prints inconsistent confidence intervals for TGD estimates, so the percentages can be described, but these observations do not establish whether group differences are statistically significant.
Each frequency response refers to a particular answer to the survey question. The categories should not be summed into a total or interpreted as stages through which students move. These data concern grades 6–10; the Grade 4 findings later in this article come from a different study, with different frequency labels. Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Figure 11.1 and report scope.
School bullying prevalence in Canada statistics: common forms and reasons for repeated bullying
HBSC Table 11.1 details forms reported by TGD youth who experienced bullying at least two or three times a month. Among those in grades 6–8, 30% said other students left them out, 21% said other students told lies about them, 17% reported being hit or kicked, and 27% said other students made sexual jokes about them.
For TGD youth in grades 9–10 meeting that same repeated-bullying threshold, 24% reported being called mean names, 25% said other students left them out, 5% reported being hit or kicked, 15% said other students told lies about them, and 18% said other students made sexual jokes about them.
| Reported form among TGD youth bullied at least 2–3 times a month | Grades 6–8 | Grades 9–10 |
|---|---|---|
| Called mean names | — | 24% |
| Left out by other students | 30% | 25% |
| Hit or kicked | 17% | 5% |
| Other students told lies | 21% | 15% |
| Other students made sexual jokes | 27% | 18% |
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Table 11.1. The source observations provided do not include a grades 6–8 figure for “called mean names.”
The reported forms include social exclusion, name-calling, physical acts, statements about a student and sexualized remarks. Respondents could report multiple forms, so these figures describe overlapping experiences and should not be summed. They apply to the specified TGD groups who met the frequency threshold, rather than to all students or all TGD youth. The table describes reported experiences, but does not give every circumstance in which they occurred.
Table 11.2 records reasons students gave for repeated bullying. Among TGD youth in grades 6–8 who were bullied at least two or three times a month, 19% said it was because of body weight, 28% because of gender identity and 27% because of sexual orientation. For grades 9–10, the respective figures were 13%, 28% and 23%.
| Reported reason among TGD youth bullied at least 2–3 times a month | Grades 6–8 | Grades 9–10 |
|---|---|---|
| Body weight | 19% | 13% |
| Gender identity | 28% | 28% |
| Sexual orientation | 27% | 23% |
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Table 11.2.
These are reasons reported by students within a specific subgroup, not explanations for bullying across Canada. The categories need not be mutually exclusive, and the percentages do not show that each student chose only one reason. Read alongside the forms table, the results distinguish what students experienced from what they said the bullying was about. Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Tables 11.1 and 11.2.
School bullying prevalence in Canada statistics: cyberbullying experiences among students
HBSC Figure 11.4 asks whether students had been cyberbullied during the past two months. In grades 6–8, 17% of cisgender boys, 24% of cisgender girls and 38% of TGD youth reported that experience. For grades 9–10, the figures were 17%, 23% and 27%, respectively.
| Grade band, 2022 | Cisgender boys | Cisgender girls | TGD youth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grades 6–8 | 17% | 24% | 38% |
| Grades 9–10 | 17% | 23% | 27% |
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Figure 11.4.
Among cisgender boys, the reported share was 17% in both grade bands. Among cisgender girls, it was 24% in grades 6–8 and 23% in grades 9–10. TGD youth reported 38% in grades 6–8 and 27% in grades 9–10. These are descriptive percentages for separate groups. They do not establish that grade level caused a change in cyberbullying experiences.
Cyberbullying is measured separately from school bullying frequency. Figure 11.4 refers to experiences during the previous two months, while Figure 11.1 asks how often students experienced school bullying over the past couple of months. Because the questions and measures differ, their percentages should not be combined or treated as interchangeable.
The HBSC report covers the participating students in grades 6–10, and New Brunswick and Nunavut could not participate. Its findings therefore do not represent all ages, schools or students in Canada. The cyberbullying values describe reported experiences among the groups shown, not a single rate for every student nationally. Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, The health of young people in Canada: Focus on mental health, Figures 11.1 and 11.4 and report scope.
School bullying prevalence in Canada: Grade 4 bullying at school by province and frequency
PIRLS 2016 offers a separate measure of how often Grade 4 students were bullied at school. In Canada, the reported distribution was 50% “almost never,” 33% “about monthly” and 16% “about weekly.” The labels matter: “almost never” is not the same response as “never.”
| Province or Canada, 2016 | Almost never | About monthly | About weekly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 50% | 33% | 16% |
| British Columbia | 55% | 31% | 15% |
| Alberta | 51% | 32% | 17% |
| Ontario | 47% | 35% | 18% |
Source: Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, PIRLS/ePIRLS 2016: Canada in Context—Canadian Results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, Table 3.15, 2016 columns.
British Columbia’s reported shares were 55% “almost never,” 31% “about monthly” and 15% “about weekly.” Alberta’s were 51%, 32% and 17%; Ontario’s were 47%, 35% and 18%. These provinces are examples, not a ranking of all provinces and territories. Table 3.15 also presents standard errors, while the percentages here are descriptive; the figures alone do not establish meaningful differences among provinces.
The response categories distinguish experiences reported almost never, about monthly and about weekly. Rounded response-category figures may not sum to an exact whole. Although Table 3.15 includes observations from more than one cycle, the figures shown here are from the explicitly labelled 2016 columns. Québec estimates need caution because international sample participation-rate guidelines were not satisfied, so no Québec result is presented here.
PIRLS concerns Grade 4 students and bullying frequency at school. HBSC concerns grades 6–10 and uses its own frequency questions and categories. These studies offer different views at different school stages; they are not directly comparable measures in a single trend. Source: Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, PIRLS/ePIRLS 2016: Canada in Context—Canadian Results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, Table 3.15 and participation-rate note.
School bullying prevalence in Canada: Québec school-context bullying and disclosure
A Québec study describes people aged 12 and over who took one or more classes at an educational institution in the province during the preceding 12 months. About 13% experienced bullying or cyberbullying during that period. The study population included people attending elementary or secondary school, college or university, so this is neither a student-only estimate nor a Canadian national prevalence figure. It combines bullying and cyberbullying in an educational context.
The study also reports bullying within specific educational settings. Among people who attended elementary or secondary school in Québec, 27.9% experienced bullying in that setting. The corresponding reported shares were 7.2% for people who attended trade or vocational schools, 7.6% for those who attended CEGEPs and 3.4% for those who attended universities.
| Québec educational setting, 2022 | People reporting bullying in that setting |
|---|---|
| Elementary or secondary school | 27.9% |
| Trade or vocational school | 7.2% |
| CEGEP | 7.6% |
| University | 3.4% |
The setting-specific figures describe reported bullying in each educational context among the study population. They are not percentages of all Québec residents or of everyone aged 12 and over. The broader estimate of about 13% instead concerns bullying or cyberbullying among people who took classes at an educational institution during the prior year. It should not be substituted for any one setting-specific result.
Disclosure is another distinct measure. About 60% of people who experienced bullying or cyberbullying in a school context said they told someone. The denominator is people with those experiences, not everyone who attended an institution. The reported result does not identify whom they told, so it cannot be assigned to a specific role or person.
Across these sources, the populations and questions differ: HBSC reports students in grades 6–10, PIRLS reports Grade 4 frequency at school, and the Québec study covers people aged 12 and over who took classes at an educational institution during the preceding year. Their periods, definitions and reference groups should remain distinct when interpreting the findings. Source: Institut de la statistique du Québec, More than 1 in 10 people experienced bullying or cyberbullying in Québec in 2022.