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Racism in Canada

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If we want to fix this, the first step is to admit something is wrong. Start by saying it to yourself, but say it out loud: “Canada has a race problem.” ~ Scott Gilmore

Racism in Canada traces both historical and contemporary racist community attitudes, as well as governmental negligence and political non-compliance with United Nations human rights standards and incidents in Canada. Contemporary Canada is the product of indigenous First Nations combined with multiple waves of immigration, predominantly from Asia and Europe.

Quotes

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  • [F]acts tell us one thing: Canada has a race problem, too. How are we not choking on these numbers? For a country so self-satisfied with its image of progressive tolerance, how is this not a national crisis? Why are governments not falling on this issue? ... [C]ollectively, we don’t say it out loud: “Canada has a race problem.” ... Canada has a race problem. We do and it is bad. And it is not just with the Aboriginal peoples. ... If we want to fix this, the first step is to admit something is wrong. Start by saying it to yourself, but say it out loud: “Canada has a race problem.”
  • Canada harbours its own disgraceful legacy. Down through the decades, scores of federal and provincial laws isolated, dispossessed and ghettoized one racial or ethnic minority after another. Asians weren't allowed to vote in Canada until the late 1940s; federally-registered Indians had to wait until 1960... For Canada’s young Aboriginal people, it’s not clear that the arc of the moral universe is even bending in their direction at all.
  • In Canada, successive federal governments have been apologizing and in some cases paying compensation for policies carried out—however distasteful they may be to us now—by their properly constituted predecessors. The practice leads to some interesting questions. Canada used to charge a head tax on immigrants coming from China. Its intent was undoubtedly racist, to discourage “Orientals” from settling in this country But does present- day Canada have to pay recompense to the descendants of those who chose to pay the head tax? Would it make more sense to use funds for the community as a whole rather than for individuals? How much is enough? Sadly, there have been some unedifying squabbles among different groups claiming to speak for Chinese Canadians about how any government money ought to be distributed.
  • Aboriginal Canadians have been preoccupied for decades by the residential schools issue, arguing that Aboriginal children not only suffered harsh treatment, from verbal to sexual abuse, but were stripped of their culture. Their leaders have talked of “cultural genocide” and a former United Church clergyman has claimed to have uncovered evidence of murders, illegal medical experiments, and pedophile rings. The Canadian government has offered compensation to each former student and has set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that will spend five years gathering information and writing its report. Already the chair of the commission is talking of possible criminal charges. Of course, Canadian society must deal with the charges, but it sadly shows little willingness to expend the same resources on dealing with the ghastly conditions on many reserves today. Leon Wieseltier, the distinguished Jewish- American man of letters, warns that the message minority groups too often get from such a focus on the past is “Don’t be fooled ... there is only repression.” Dwelling on past horrors such as the Holocaust or slavery can leave people without the resources to deal with problems in the here and now.
  • Everything was fine for the first several years. Then in about 1973, the liberal party, headed by then-Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, out of compassion took in five thousand Uganda Asians who were Ismailis by religion. They had British citizenship, but Idi Amin expelled them from Uganda, and Britain refused to accept them in spite of their British passports. It was an act of kindness by the Canadian government led by Trudeau to accept this group of five thousand refugees. There was, however, an unexpected, immediate, and violent racist reaction against these non-Europeans, who had money and who were buying houses in good neighborhoods. Suddenly, the Canadian government at that time floated policy papers asking the question, "What kind of Canada do we want?" in purely racial terms. The government described people like me, with brown skin and still Canadian citizens, as "the visible minority." That's the government phrase. The policy papers also stated that we, the visible minority, were "straining the absorptive capacity" of Canada. Meaning that there were too many brown people and that Canada wouldn't remain the same.
    • 2005 interview in Conversations with Bharati Mukherjee Edited by Bradley C. Edwards (2009)
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