Open Letter to the Leaders of Canadian Federal Parties

Systemic Change to Address Racism

© CBC News

The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P., Prime Minister of Canada
The Honourable Andrew Scheer, M.P., Leader of the Opposition
Jagmeet Singh, M.P.
Elizabeth May, M.P., O.C.
The Honourable Maxime Bernier, P.C., M.P.
Yves-François Blanchet

Dear Leaders,

Elections are an opportunity to create change. I am writing to you as I believe it is timely to consider measures to address racism, systemic discrimination, unconscious bias and past atrocities such as slavery and its by-products including blackface, in order to advance racial equity, true freedom, fairness and respect.

I have worked on issues related to discrimination with government agencies, community organisations and the private sector. Many of these issues require leadership by governments. For this reason, I have drafted recommendations — not exhaustive — which I believe are easily attainable, to correct the conditions of disadvantage which prevent the full participation of racialized Canadians in this country’s social, economic and political spheres, and bring the healing necessary for those who have been unjustly treated.

A. SYSTEMS CHANGE LEADERSHIP

1. Appoint a Minister responsible for Anti-Racism
Former Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, appointed Michael Coteau as the Minister responsible for Anti-Racism with the following overarching priorities¹:

• Develop a cross-government approach to combat systemic racism
• Provide anti-racism leadership and expertise focused on systemic issues, and
• Increase public education and awareness of racism.

Consider also that Randy Boissonnault was appointed Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on LGBTQ2 issues to assist in coordinating the government’s LGBTQ2 agenda.²

Appointing an individual with a record of anti-racism and human rights experience to advise your government’s actions will ensure they are effective, equitable and meaningful, and elevating the portfolio to the ministerial level will ensure the individual has the capacity and resources necessary to better effect change.

B. FAIRNESS IN EMPLOYMENT

2. Amend the Employment Equity Act to include race-based data demographics
The Employment Equity Act identifies four designated groups: women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and visible minorities.³ The term “visible minorities” masks the social, economic and political differences experienced by the groups, especially the pronounced effect of racism.

Ontario’s Anti-Racism Directorate prepared the Data Standards for the Identification and Monitoring of Systemic Racism “to identify and monitor racial disparities in order to eliminate systemic racism and advance racial equity.”⁴

Using disaggregated race-based data will ensure that we avoid making assumptions about how specific groups experience discrimination and develop specific strategies to improve the employment outcomes of racialized Canadians.

3. Amend the Pay Equity Act to account for race-based discrimination
The purpose of the Pay Equity Act is to redress “systemic gender-based discrimination in the compensation practices and systems of employers”.⁵ This ignores the disparity in compensation based on race.

The 2011 report “Canada’s Colour Coded Labour Market: The gap for racialized workers” by Sheila Block and Grace-Edward Galabuzi says racialized Canadians earn 81.4 cents for every dollar paid to non–racialized Canadians. According to the report, Koreans fair the worst as they earn 69.5 cents for every dollar a non-racialized worker earns, with an annual earnings gap of $11,403.⁶

Accounting for race in pay equity analyses will ensure racialized Canadians are compensated fairly and have increased buying power.

C. JUSTICE REFORM

The Supreme Court of Canada in its judgment on R. v. Spence in 2005, citing Doherty J.A., wrote “Racism, and in particular anti‑black racism, is a part of our community’s psyche. A significant segment of our community holds overtly racist views. A much larger segment subconsciously operates on the basis of negative racial stereotypes. Furthermore, our institutions, including the criminal justice system, reflect and perpetuate those negative stereotypes. These elements combine to infect our society as a whole with the evil of racism. Blacks are among the primary victims of that evil.”⁷

4. Amend the Cannabis Act to automatically expunge criminal records
According to VICE News, Black men and women have been overrepresented in cannabis possession arrests across Canada.⁸ In 2017, an analysis by Toronto Star showed that Black people with no history of criminal convictions have been three times more likely to be arrested by Toronto police for possession of small amounts of marijuana than white people with similar backgrounds.⁹

Eliminating the records of the estimated 500,000 Black Canadians will ensure they move forward without the weight of a process that leaves them susceptible to disproportionate scrutiny.

5. Adopt measures to ensure fairer sentencing decisions
In the case of R. v. Jackson 2018¹⁰, Justice S. Nakatsuru wrote, “I find that for African Canadians, the time has come where I as a sentencing judge must take judicial notice of such matters as the history of colonialism (in Canada and elsewhere), slavery, policies and practices of segregation, intergenerational trauma, and racism both overt and systemic as they relate to African Canadians and how that has translated into socio-economic ills and higher levels of incarceration. While this does not in and of itself justify a different sentence, it is an important first step in providing the necessary context in which to understand the case-specific information in sentencing. I have come to this conclusion not simply because it provides substance to the principle of restraint found in s. 718.2(e), but also because it is in keeping with the development of the doctrine of judicial notice and the legal recognition in the jurisprudence of the discrimination against African Canadians.”

Justice Nakatsuru also cited studies done by the Office of the Correctional Investigator which found that:

• African-Canadians currently constitute 8.6% of the total incarcerated population, while only representing 3% of the total population in Canada.
• Black inmates are one of the fastest growing sub-populations in federal corrections. From 2002 to 2012, the number of federally incarcerated Black inmates increased by 75%. From 2005 to 2015, the Black inmate population grew by 69%. From 2003 to 2013, African Canadian federally sentenced inmates have increased each year growing by nearly 90% while white inmates declined by 3% over the same period. These increases have occurred though the problem has been consistently raised.

If we are to be a truly just society, Black Canadians must be entitled to equal and fair treatment before the law.

D. RECONCILIATION

6. Establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Slavery in Canada
According to Ontario Heritage Trust, the first recorded instance of slavery in Canada was in 1628 and was later expanded and institutionalised under the French and British regimes.¹¹ In “The story of slavery in Canadian history”, Matthew McRae writes that slavery continued until March 25, 1807 when it was abolished throughout parts of the British Empire.¹²

This year in the United States of America, Democratic Congresswoman, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, introduced a bill to establish the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.¹³

While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission may seem novel, the first such endeavour was the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in 1995 to address the ills of apartheid.¹⁴

Dullah Omar, former South African Minister of Justice, said, “… a commission is a necessary exercise to enable South Africans to come to terms with their past on a morally accepted basis and to advance the cause of reconciliation.”

The commission will ensure an independent and factual examination of the deep entrenchment of racism and its enduring harm to Black Canadians.

I appreciate that some may find these recommendations as pandering to identity politics. I also acknowledge that there is a fatigue from discussing race, racism, diversity, inclusion, equity and multiculturalism. The reality is that racism and systemic discrimination produce harms and have disproportionate effects on particular segments of the population, especially Indigenous peoples and Black Canadians. Taking steps to eliminate racism will bring about greater social cohesion and unlock the economic and social capital of racialized Canadians.

Yours sincerely,

Dave A. D’Oyen

___________________________
¹https://www.ontario.ca/page/september-2016-mandate-letter-anti-racism-directorate
²https://www.canada.ca/en/privy-council/campaigns/free-to-be-me/about-us/about-special-advisor-lgbtq2-issues.html
³https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-5.401/page-1.html
⁴https://files.ontario.ca/solgen_data-standards-en.pdf
⁵https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-4.2/page-1.html
⁶https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2011/03/Colour%20Coded%20Labour%20Market.pdf
⁷https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2253/index.do
⁸https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/d35eyq/black-and-indigenous-people-are-overrepresented-in-canadas-weed-arrests
⁹https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2017/07/06/toronto-marijuana-arrests-reveal-startling-racial-divide.html
¹⁰https://handbook.law.utoronto.ca/sites/default/files/users/alzner/R%20v%20Jackson%20%28Nakatsuru%29.pdf
¹¹https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/en/pages/our-stories/slavery-to-freedom/history/slavery-in-canada
¹²https://humanrights.ca/story/the-story-of-slavery-in-canadian-history
¹³https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/40?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22Rep+Jackson+Lee+Sheila+TX18%22%2C%22Rep+Jackson+Lee+Sheila+TX18%22%5D%7D
¹⁴http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/