Quebec turns down federal funding for addressing systemic racism in justice system
2025/09/03 2 Comments
Willful blindness:
The Quebec government has turned down federal funding aimed at combatting systemic racism in the criminal justice system, saying it doesn’t agree with the program’s approach.
The federal government first offered $6.64-million in funding to provinces and territories in 2021 to improve fairness in the courts. Spread out over five years, the money was aimed at addressing the overrepresentation of Black people in the criminal justice system by promoting the use of race and cultural assessments before sentencing.
These assessments – known as Impact of Race and Culture Assessments, or IRCAs – analyze how a convicted person’s experience of systemic racism contributed to their criminal charges.
While most provinces have accepted the federal funding aimed at supporting defendants or to cover the costs of assessments through their legal aid programs, Quebec has been opposed to providing this type of support.
“We are not party to any funding agreement involving Impact of Race and Culture Assessments, as Quebec doesn’t subscribe to the approach on which the funding program is based, namely systemic racism,” Marie-Hélène Mercier, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Justice Department, told The Canadian Press in an e-mail….
Source: Quebec turns down federal funding for addressing systemic racism in justice system
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
How do we know that the Quebec justice system is plagued with systemic racism, as opposed to a few individual racists?
“plagued” is too strong a term but the data I have seen is similar to other provinces in terms of higher incarceration rates for some visible minority groups and Indigenous peoples. But presumably, the Quebec government could use the funds to assess the extent of racism or bias to better understand the extent and the factors involved.