Diversity is on a collision course with bilingualism at Canada’s top court

2021/03/08 1 Comment

Tend to agree:

Should all Supreme Court of Canada judges — or at least the next one — be bilingual? Should the next vacancy go to a Black, brown or Indigenous jurist, whether they are bilingual or not, to reflect Canada’s population in all its diversity?

It’s a legal dilemma wrapped up in a language debate, tinged with electoral politics, and an existential question about what kind of country Canada is.

The Trudeau government has kicked off both.

On the same day it announced the launch of a search for an Ontario jurist to take the seat of soon-to-retire Justice Rosalie Abella, the Liberal government said it plans to put into law Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s practice of appointing only “functionally bilingual” judges to the top court.

It was a campaign commitment, and with a whiff of a possible election in the air, Trudeau is ticking off political boxes.

But the “how?” he proposes to do it is less clear. And advocates of greater diversity say mandatory bilingualism will block many qualified candidates from being elevated to the Supreme Court.

Six months ago the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers wrote an open letter to the Trudeau government urging swifter action to address systemic anti-Black racism throughout the justice system and noting “only three Black judges have been appointed under the Trudeau-led government.”

Raphael Tachie, senior counsel for TD Financial Group and president of the association, in an interview said the top court should be a bilingual institution but the requirement “that each individual justice be bilingual disqualifies a lot of really qualified Black and racialized jurists that we think would be great appointments to the court.”

Many practising outside Quebec have not been exposed to French language or training, or “come to the language later on in life and might not always be as proficient as they ought to be. That’s the challenge,” he said, adding “I think the court can compensate for that,” using translators and interpretation. He urges Trudeau to look beyond the Ontario Court of Appeal to lower courts and the bar: “You need to elevate your talent,” he said.

Brad Regehr, the first Indigenous lawyer to lead the Canadian Bar Association, says the same is true for Indigenous candidates who “already face systemic barriers in terms of achieving that proficiency in official languages.” Regehr says it’s time for Trudeau to name someone who is Black, Indigenous or a person of colour to the Supreme Court.

A member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Saskatchewan who lives and practices law in Winnipeg, Regehr argues that Canada is “not just a bijuridical state where there’s English common law and French civil law; Indigenous legal traditions form part of the law of Canada and that seems to be forgotten or ignored and the only way you’re going to get any perspective on that is by having an Indigenous judge.”

Both want Trudeau to walk his progressive talk, and do something concrete to promote reconciliation and diversity.

Right now, the Supreme Court of Canada is the only federally-appointed court that is exempt from the Official Languages Act which says all Canadians must be able to access services in federal courts in either English or French. In other words, it puts the onus on federal courts to provide bilingual services, not on prime ministers to appoint only bilingual judges. The Liberals propose to drop the exception.

Trudeau does not intend to change the Supreme Court Act which sets out the eligibility criteria for judicial appointments to the top court.

Rachel Rappaport, a spokesperson for Justice Minister David Lametti, says the bilingual services exemption for the Supreme Court “was never intended to be permanent.”

In 1988 Conservative justice minister Ray Hnatyshyn said during debates on the Official Languages Act that, “It is probably in the national interest at this time that we not put any constraints on the court in the way in which it does its business.” He said that “until we reach a more developed stage of bilingualism across the country,” governments should be able pick from among “the best people who are unilingual, in both languages.”

There have been at least 10 bills introduced over the past 10 years to require top judges be bilingual, according to Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin, a doctoral candidate at University of Toronto’s faculty of law. None has passed.

But unilingualism has had an impact, says Bédard-Rubin, who with a colleague has done the first empirical study of the impact of unilingualism on the Supreme Court’s operations. They analyzed cases from 1969 to 2013. In an interview, he said, “There tends to be a linguistic separation of labour at the Supreme Court.”

Despite access to interpreters and translation, anglophone judges “will sit more and write more in cases argued in English and francophone judges will sit more and write more on cases argued in French. And this is regardless of their areas of expertise,” he said. Unilingual judges are less assertive on cases argued in another language and litigants “might lose that expertise” where unilingual judges stand down or just “go with the flow.”

“The general picture that emerges is that language proficiency superimposes itself as another kind of legal specialization in the inner-working of the court,” he wrote.

There’s another twist. Some legal scholars suspect that the Liberals are trying to do through a back door (via the Official Languages Act) what they may not be able to do through the front door (via the Supreme Court Act): that is, rewrite the eligibility rules for judges. That’s because in 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Parliament “cannot unilaterally modify the composition or other essential features of the court,” saying it requires a constitutional amendment.

Gerard Kennedy, assistant professor in the faculty of law at the University of Manitoba, said it’s debatable whether making bilingualism mandatory is the kind of “essential” characteristic that is protected by the Constitution. And if the Liberals took that route, he said it would quickly become very divisive. “By amending the Official Languages Act, it draws less attention to it.”

But the government seems to have allowed itself some wiggle room — at least for the next appointment. There is one Ontario vacancy coming open on July 1, and another one within two years when Michael Moldaver will turn 75.

The languages law reform document states in drafting the change, the government is weighing the appointment of Indigenous judges to the Supreme Court of Canada along with case law on the court’s “composition and eligibility criteria.”

Meanwhile, the Liberals are using their plan it as a “political chip” as Bédard-Rubin calls it, part of a political strategy to paint the Conservatives as soft on bilingualism.

Trudeau challenged Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole outright in the Commons two weeks ago to commit to naming only bilingual judges on the top court, claiming Conservatives do “not support bilingualism in Canada.”

Conservative justice critic Rob Moore declined an interview request but in an email said, “Conservatives expect appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada are based on competency and legal excellence. Bilingualism or a commitment to learn or improve one’s French will also be a key principle in appointments to the Supreme Court for a future Conservative government.”

The NDP and the Bloc Québécois have long called for bilingual Supreme Court judges.

It’s not clear if the latest proposal will come to pass before a federal election, whenever it comes.

Source: ANALYSIS Diversity is on a collision course with bilingualism at Canada’s top court

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Public Service Disaggregated Data for Visible Minorities and Indigenous peoples, Citizenship status

2021/03/01 Leave a comment

Over the past few months, I have been analyzing the various datasets breaking down public service employment and employee survey data by the individual visible minority and Indigenous groups.

The three articles, What new disaggregated data tells us about federal public service diversity (Policy Options, October 2020), What the Public Service Employee Survey breakdowns of visible minority and other groups tell us about diversity and inclusion (The Hill Times, November 2020) and Diversity and Inclusion: Public Service Hirings, Promotions and Separations (The Hill Times, March 2021) allow for a more comprehensive view of visible minority and Indigenous groups in the federal public service. Moreover, recent Public Service Commission studies analyzing recruitment of employment equity groups add an important element to discussions on public service staffing and recruitment practices.

Much of the debate and discussions have understandably focussed on Blacks in the public service. Yet public service data indicates that their situation is not unique in terms of representation, hirings and promotions and the employee satisfaction, with many commonalities with the other groups. A more granular analysis within each occupational group (i.e., comparing representation at each level by occupational group, as some departments are conducting, may very well provide such evidence).

Key findings are:

  • Overall EE analysis shows considerable variation among the different visible minority and Indigenous groups
  • Visible minorities
    • Correlation between lower educational attainment and representation for most groups save Chinese
    • Overall under-representation common to most groups
    • Blacks, West Asian/Arab small over-representation
    • EX: All groups under-represented save Japanese with Filipino, Latin American and Blacks having the largest gaps
    • Hirings: Hirings of visible minorities have increased for all groups in most occupational groups save for technical and administrative support. Hirings at the EX level have increase for Black, Chinese, South Asian/East Indian and West Asian/Arab, with other groups showing no increase.
    • Promotions: While promotions have increased marginally for virtually all groups at the agregate level, promotions by occupational category provide a mixed picture, with most groups and most occupational categories experiencing a marginal decline in promotions.
  • Indigenous peoples
    • First Nations under-represented, Métis and Inuit over-represented
    • Hirings: While hirings at the EX level have increased slightly, this is less the case for the other occupational categories. Hirings of Métis have increased the most in the operational category, hirings of First Nations the most in the technical category, while hirings of Inuit the most at the EX level.
    • Promotions: A marginal decline across all Indigenous groups and occupational
  • Harassment/Discrimination experiences vary
    • Harassment: Japanese report the most as do First Nations and Métis, Chinese and Filipino least satisfied with resolution as is the case with Métis
    • Discrimination; Blacks report the most, but all groups encounter discrimination on the basis of race, ethnic origin or colour. Black, Japanese and Latin American least satisfied with resolution. All Indigenous groups report having been discriminated against, mainly based on race or ethnic origin, with Métis also least satisfied with resolution

The recent PSC Audit of Employment Equity Representation in Recruitment provides some interesting data and analysis of the staffing process and how the different employment equity groups, and visible minority largest sub-groups, fare at each of the five stages in the staffing process: job application, automated screening, organizational screening, assessment and appointment (FY 2016-17 data).

The most significant stages were organizational screening and assessment where most filtering took place as shown in the table below:

The next table breaks down visible minorities by the largest groups:

As noted in the audit, Blacks have the largest decrease in representation at all stages save for appointment, with a non-negligible being screened out by automatic screening. Chinese are screened out more by organizational screening whereas West Asian and South Asian are more likely to be screened in as the assessment stage.

The audit provides the following explanation for visible minority groups. Overall, visible minority women have higher success rates than visible minority men at the organizational screening and assessment stages. Visible minorities screened out at the organizational screening stage due to citizenship status (Canadian citizens are given preference over non-citizens) and experience qualifications. Those with public service work experience were more likely to be screened in at this stage but overall “experienced less success than their counterparts regardless of whether or not they had federal public service experience.”

At the assessment stage, visible minorities were less successful when written tests were used, particularly the case for Black candidates.

A separate PSC report addresses the Citizenship of applicants and external appointments. While Canadian citizens have a hiring preference, the share of non-citizen applicants has risen from 9.4 percent in 2015-16 to 14.5 percent in 2018-19, with the share of hires has increased to 2.5 percent from 1.5 percent over the same period

Non-citizen visible minority applicants account for 22.9 percent of all visible minority applicants, for non-visible minorities, the share is only 12.1 percent.

The table below contrasts applicants and appointments by citizenship status for the past four years. For Canadian citizens, the percentage of applicants and appointments are comparable, for Permanent Residents and others, appointments are significantly greater than applicants suggesting that citizenship may be less of a barrier than commonly believed.

Visible minority Canadian citizens represented 17.2 percent of all applicants and 19.5 percent of all hires (2018-19).

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Omidvar: The diversity deficit in the boardrooms of Canada’s charities

2021/02/24 Leave a comment

Good op-ed and practical recommendations by Senator Omidvar:

As we celebrate Black History Month, we continue to hear loud calls for more diversity in newsrooms across the country, in corporations, and in Parliament. Canadians have correctly pointed out a diversity gap in all those power structures.

But the diversity deficit doesn’t end there; it’s also in the boardrooms of charities and non-profits. It’s always been an open secret that, despite the amazing work it does to help Canadians from all backgrounds, the sector’s leadership wasn’t that diverse.

In June last year, I issued an open letter challenging charities and non-profits to take a hard look at themselves, and ask what they could do to increase diversity in the sector. Many heard my call and wanted to do more. The first step was getting data.

After learning about my challenge, Statistics Canada, along with sector leaders, designed a survey to provide the first-ever snapshot of diversity in governance. The recently released survey found that, outside of gender, the boards of charities were not yet inclusive of Indigenous peoples, racial minorities, LGBTQ2+, and the disabled.

From Dec. 4, 2020, to Jan. 18, 2021, 8,835 people completed the survey. Among them, 14 per cent identified as immigrants to Canada; 11 per cent said they belonged to a visible-minority group; eight per cent identified as LGBTQ2+; six per cent said they had a disability; and three per cent identified as First Nations, Metis, or Inuit.

Readers may well ask: Why does it matter who sits on the boards, as long as people receive their services? It matters, because the boards of charities set the course, decide on priorities, determine how money gets allocated and spent, and approve institutional policies ranging from hiring to procurement, from harassment to promotions.

Charities are not an insignificant part of our society. More than 85,000 charities and 85,000 non-profits are registered in Canada. Before the pandemic, they employed close to two millions Canadians and contributed eight per cent to the GDP. What they do and how they do it matters.

Now there’s some hard evidence to stand on, we have a clear way forward. Both the government and the sector must respond.

The government must collect diversity data every year. The StatCan survey is a start, but no further studies have been planned. For the sake of certainty, the Canada Revenue Agency should include questions about diversity on boards of directors on the T3010 and the T1044 tax forms.

This way, the data could be fulsome, disaggregated, and provide an accurate picture of diversity in the sector every year. Based on clear, ongoing evidence, the country and the sector could see if progress is being made.

The government should also compel the sector to disclose its diversity plans, as it did with corporations under Bill C-25. Only 30 per cent of the survey participants said their organization had a diversity plan. That is unacceptable, and the government should require that this information be made public.

I’m encouraged that the sector responded to the survey by saying, “(These data are) an important opportunity for us to look critically at who is at the table and who has decision-making power in our organizations.” Now that the evidence is clear, it needs to take concrete action.

First, charities and non-profits must proactively create diversity plans and publish them for their members and Canadians to see; they mustn’t wait for the government to compel them. Second, the plans should include diversity targets to increase the representation of under-represented groups on boards and in senior management. Last, they should convene a sector-wide conversation about race, racism, and diversity.

If we’re truly determined to stamp out racism, we need all sectors to step up to the plate. Charities and non-profits do so much good for Canadians. Now is the time for them to look inward, be intentional, and truly reflect the diversity of Canada.

Source: The diversity deficit in the boardrooms of Canada’s charities

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Audit of Employment Equity Representation in Recruitment

2021/01/29 Leave a comment

PDF Version

Significant and useful, in that it breaks down the various steps in staffing and how different groups are affected at the organizational screening and assessment stages.

Like all research, this begs further work to assess the particular factors that resulted in visible minority and Indigenous candidates being rejected at those stages.

Notable that Black candidate respresentation declined more than other visible minority groups, again suggesting the need for some qualitative analysis of the reasons and rationales for them being selected out:

This audit was undertaken as part of the Public Service Commission (PSC)’s oversight mandate to assess the integrity of the public service staffing system. It is part of a series of initiatives that looks at the performance of the staffing system with respect to the representation of employment equity groups.

Achieving priorities related to diversity and inclusion in the federal public service will ensure that Canadians benefit from a public service workforce that is representative of Canada’s diversity. To date, progress towards a representative federal public service is being made. Of the 4 employment equity groups, 3 are represented at or above workforce availability; persons with disabilities are currently underrepresented in the federal government. These results show that more work and a sustained focus on diversity are required.

This audit focused on advertised recruitment processes as one of the key drivers to improving the representation of employment equity groups in the federal public service. The audit had 2 objectives:

  1. to determine whether the 4 employment equity groups remain proportionately represented throughout recruitment processes
  2. to identify factors that may influence employment equity group representation

This audit looked at 15 285 applications to 181 externally advertised appointment processes from 30 departments and agencies.

We examined employment equity group representation at 5 key stages of the external advertised appointment process (Figure 2 in this report provides more detail on each of these stages):

5 key stages of the external advertised appointment process: job application, automated screening, Organizational screening, Assessment, Appointment

Our focus was to explore whether employment equity groups experienced changes in representation at each stage of the appointment process, and to examine these stages for factors that may have influenced their representation.

Main findings

We found that employment equity groups did not remain proportionately represented throughout the recruitment process.

Our audit results showed that:

  • women were the only group to experience an overall increase in representation from job application to the appointment stage
  • Indigenous candidates experienced a reduction in representation at the assessment stage
  • persons with disabilities experienced the largest drop in representation of any of the employment equity groups, with decreases in representation at the assessment and appointment stages
  • visible minority groups experienced reductions in representation at the organizational screening and assessment stages
  • of the visible minority sub-groups examined in our audit, Black candidates experienced a larger drop in representation than other members of visible minorities, both at the organizational screening and assessment stages

Our ability to identify factors that may influence employment equity representation in recruitment was limited to the information available in the staffing files. Some factors were identified to partially explain the drop in representation of members of visible minorities at the organizational screening stage. However, limited information in staffing files did not provide conclusive evidence of other factors that may be associated with lower success rates of employment equity groups at later stages of the recruitment process. More research will be required to determine potential barriers in externally advertised appointment processes and to develop concrete solutions.

This audit report makes 3 recommendations intended to address the lower success experienced by some employment equity groups in external advertised recruitment processes. The development and implementation of concrete corrective measures will require collaboration between multiple stakeholders including deputy heads, the PSC, other central agencies and employment equity groups.

The audit makes clear that despite efforts across departments and agencies to advance diversity, work remains to achieve inclusive hiring processes in the public service. The PSC will need to further support organizations by providing systems, tools and guidance for implementing a barrier-free appointment process. Most importantly, deputy heads are responsible for reviewing their staffing framework and practices to ensure barrier-free appointment processes for all employment equity groups, including visible minority sub-groups.

Source: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-service-commission/services/publications/audit-of-employment-equity-representation-in-recruitment.html#2_0

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Australian national anthem changes by one word to reflect ‘spirit of unity’ and indigenous population

2021/01/06 Leave a comment

Of note. Commentary that I have seen to date suggests not having much impact, with more critical voice included below:

The Australian national anthem has been changed to reflect the nation’s “spirit of unity” and its indigenous population, the country’s prime minister has said.

The one-word change to Advance Australia Fair, from “For we are young and free” to “For we are one and free” takes effect on Friday.

Speaking on New Year’s Eve, Scott Morrison called Australia the “most successful multicultural nation on Earth,” adding that “it is time to ensure this great unity is reflected more fully in our national anthem”.

“While Australia as a modern nation may be relatively young, our country’s story is ancient, as are the stories of the many First Nations peoples whose stewardship we rightly acknowledge and respect,” he said.

“In the spirit of unity, it is only right that we ensure our national anthem reflects this truth and shared appreciation.”

The move has been welcomed by the first indigenous Australian elected to the federal parliament’s lower house.

Ken Watt, Minister for Indigenous Australians, said in a statement that he had been asked about the change and supported it.

He called the one-word alteration “small in nature but significant in purpose”.

Mr Watt added: “It is an acknowledgement that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures date back 65,000 years.”

The change is not without its critics, however.

New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian has expressed support for indigenous Australians who said the national anthem does not reflect them and their history.

University of New South Wales law professor Megan Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman from the Barrungam nation in southwest Queensland state, criticised the lack of consultation with indigenous people about the change.

“This is a disappointing way to end 2020 and start 2021. Everything about us, without us,” she wrote on social media.

Last month, Australia’s national rugby team, the Wallabies, became the first sporting team to sing the anthem in an indigenous language before their match against Argentina.

Advance Australia Fair was composed by Peter Dodds McCormick and first performed in 1878.

It was adopted as the national anthem in 1984.

Source: Australian national anthem changes by one word to reflect ‘spirit of unity’ and indigenous population

And a critical Indigenous voice,

Last night the Morrison government announced that they were changing the national anthem, to be more inclusive of Indigenous peoples and of migrants (the not white ones anyways), by changing a single word, ‘young’. It’s now ‘one’.

We are one and free.

We are One Nation.

Pauline must be stoked.

This, from the same political party who every Invasion Day assure us that Indigenous peoples aren’t interested in meaningless symbolic gestures like Australia no longer throwing a party on the anniversary of invasion, are now confident that Indigenous peoples will be so excited about this meaningless symbolic change that presumably we will no longer refuse to sing it at national sporting events.

Changing the anthem from ‘young’ to ‘one’ is not only problematic because it’s symbolic tokenism aimed at silencing dissent that completely misses the nature of the dissent in the first place, but it’s also problematic because it’s the same wrongly labelled ‘one’ as the one made famous by ‘One Nation’.

The original version of ‘we are one’ was a view of multiculturalism which tried to encourage white Australia away from its traditional view of a fair go meaning ‘if your skin ain’t fair, you gots to go’ and to accept instead the notion that we could be ‘one nation with many cultures’. This was quickly co-opted by racist ideologues who replaced that sentiment with the assimilationist idea that one nation meant ‘one culture with many races’ and that was quickly cemented into the national consciousness by Pauline Hanson who seized the moment and took the name for her political party ‘One Nation’.

Despite One Nation tainting the concept of ‘one nation,’ both meanings have persisted in Australia without much national discourse or reflection on which one we should have, but it’s been pretty clear from a Liberal Party standpoint since the days of John Howard that they aren’t huge fans of the multiculturalism actually meaning multiple cultures. They are generally more on the side of white/western supremacy, which many liberals have hinted at, and which Tony Abbott flat out stated on multiple occasions when he was PM.

Their views on Indigenous assimilation are much the same.

This can be seen by their political insistence that reconciliation can only be achieved by ‘closing the gap’ rather than by recognising Indigenous Rights as defined by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Having an ambiguous working definition of multiculturalism began as a contest between the two, which the nation should have chosen between by now. Instead, both definitions have been left unchallenged to ensure that politicians can conveniently dog whistle to both sides whenever they talk about us being the ‘most successful multicultural country on Earth’.

This change plays right into that blurring of the lines between the two definitions.

We are one. And we are free. And from all the lands on earth we come.

You’d have thought they would have just straight up changed the anthem to ‘I am Australian’ by the Seekers, but I guess it has too much brand association with QANTAS these days, and because you don’t want to be seen as caving in to the politically correct demands of the slightly left of centrists who were presumably campaigning for this change.

Yesterday, on the last day of 2020, IndigenousX published a powerful piece from Gregory Phillips called ‘Can We Breathe?’ talking staunchly about truth telling, and about Indigenous empowerment.

Today, on the first day of 2021, we are talking about the anthem, or at least we are meant to be.

Instead of continuing to explain why the new anthem is just as shit as the old one though, I’m going to remind people of what some of our Indigenous Rights are:

Article 3: Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Article 4: Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.

Article 5: Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.

Article 8.1: Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.

That’s only four of them, there are 46. Read them. There will be a test.

This is the test, and Australia is failing at it.

These are what needs to be informing our discussions around change.

Australia has worked hard for decades now to poison the well of Indigenous Rights discourse by reframing any such discussion as ‘Indigenous people want special treatment and free handouts’.

We need to move beyond the fear of being shown in this light and embrace the reality that being the Indigenous peoples of these lands and waters is special, and it brings with it special rights and responsibilities.

This is not us wanting something for nothing. This is us demanding our rights, and we have already paid far more than we should ever have had to for them.

Source: We are One Nation?

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Order of Canada Appointments: 2013-20

2021/01/05 Leave a comment

With the second batch of 2020 appointments announced, I have updated my analysis of the appointments looking at diversity from the angle of women, visible minorities, Indigenous peoples, province, and area of activity.

While the percentage of women appointed in 2019 was lower than average, this rose to a more typical one-third of appointments in 2020. Representation of visible minorities was higher than previous years, representation of Indigenous peoples also rose from 2019 but remained lower than 2017 and 2018, but still higher than previous years.

There is a certain subjectivity with respect to area of activity. For example, activist, academic, public service or business and philanthropy. I have tried to be as consistent as possible.

The presentation below provides the details.

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Groundbreaking investigation shows ‘pervasive racism’ against Indigenous people in B.C. health-care system

2020/12/02 Leave a comment

Of note:

Racism against Indigenous people is pervasive in British Columbia’s health-care system, concludes an investigation that is being touted as the first complete review of racism in a Canadian medical system.

It’s racism that is hurting the health of Indigenous people and leaving them more harshly affected by health crises in the province, including the opioid crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, finds the newly released report.

“What it looks like are abusive interactions at the point of care; verbal and physical abuse; denial of service,” Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, a well-known Indigenous lawyer and former B.C. advocate for children and youth, who led the investigation at the request of the provincial government, said Monday.

“We have a major problem with Indigenous-specific racism and prejudice in B.C. health care.”

Turpel-Lafond said her team’s recommendations could provide a blueprint for the rest of the country for rooting out racism and discrimination.

The B.C. probe was initiated in June, after B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said he found out about allegations that health-care workers in an emergency room had played a game in which they guessed the blood-alcohol level of largely Indigenous patients before they received treatment.

Métis Nation British Columbia told CBC that health-care staff called the game “The Price Is Right.”

Turpel-Lafond said the investigation did not find evidence of an organized “Price is Right” game, but that it unearthed an even more insidious picture of a system rife with racism and prejudice, that is making the B.C. health-care system an unsafe place for Indigenous people to seek care.

The report, called In Plain Sight, is based on input from 9,000 people, including Indigenous people and health-care workers.

Turpel-Lafond said a second report, a data-analysis of Indigenous-specific health outcomes, will be released in the next month.

The report’s 24 recommendations deal with implementing systems and cultural expectations to root our implicit and explicit racism in B.C.’s health-care system, including the creation of a B.C. Indigenous officer of health and an associate deputy minister of Indigenous health at the provincial government.

Dix on Monday offered an “unequivocal” apology for the findings of racism in the report, and vowed to implement recommendations immediately, including by introducing new Indigenous health liaisons in each of the province’s health authorities.

Indigenous leaders were quick to express their support for the recommendations, saying they were especially urgent in view of the ongoing pandemic.

“There is no time to wait; the current COVID-19 pandemic necessitates constant engagement by First Nations with the health care system, and we categorically demand a safe health care system for our people at this time and going forward,” reads a portion of a statement by the First Nations Leadership Council.

The treatment of a Quebec woman in hospital earlier this year also served to highlight the barriers Indigenous people face to getting care.

Joyce Echaquan, an Atikamekw mother of seven, died soon after she filmed herself from her hospital bed in late September while she was in clear distress and pleading for help. Toward the end of the video, which was streamed live, two female hospital staff enter her room and are heard making degrading comments, including calling her stupid and saying she’d be better off dead.

The video has created widespread indignation, several inquiries and a lawsuit from Echaquan’s family against the hospital where she died in Joliette, Que.

Source: Groundbreaking investigation shows ‘pervasive racism’ against Indigenous people in B.C. health-care system

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Ousted from Labrador Inuit government, ex-politician questions ‘blood quantum’ method

2020/11/30 Leave a comment

“Blood quantum” was a central part of US slavery and discrimination and Lawrence Hill, in Blood, captures some of the inhumanity (and is critical of the Indigenous focus on blood):

A former member of Labrador’s Inuit government is questioning the methods used to quantify whether he is sufficiently Indigenous after he was removed from his government roles last week.

Edward Blake Rudkowski said he was informed Nov. 20 that he was no longer a beneficiary of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement after a review of his status determined he had just 17 per cent Inuit blood. According to the land claims agreement, beneficiaries must have at least 25 per cent “blood quantum,” as it’s called, to be registered as Labrador Inuit, Blake Rudkowski said.

“This development is entirely related to a group of people throwing darts at a genealogy board,” he said in an interview Friday. “You can sit there with your membership for over three decades — over three decades — and then someone says, ‘Hey man, you’re not in anymore?’”

Blood quantum is a controversial practice of determining the percentage of one’s Indigenous ancestry. Blake Rudkowski calls it “junk science” and says his predicament is an example of how it’s an inadequate and inaccurate measure of who belongs and who doesn’t.

He said he’s been a beneficiary under the claims agreement for 34 years, and in all that time, nobody questioned his status as a Labrador Inuk. His family has a long, respected history in Goose Bay, in central Labrador, and his grandfather was one of two Inuit families in Sheshatshiu, an Innu community about 40 kilometres north of Goose Bay, he said.

“The footprints of my grandparents are all over Labrador, and my great-grandparents, and my great-great-grandparents,” he said.

He now lives in Toronto. In a 2017 byelection, he won a seat as an ordinary member in the Nunatsiavut Assembly representing Labrador Inuit who live outside the land claim area in Nunatsiavut, and outside the Upper Lake Melville area in central Labrador where many beneficiaries live. He won the seat again in 2018 in the regular election. In 2017, he was also appointed Speaker of the assembly.

On Friday, after he was told he was no longer a beneficiary, he says he got a call from Nunatsiavut president Johannes Lampe, who said he could no longer hold his seat in the Nunatsiavut Assembly nor his role as the assembly’s Speaker — only Labrador Inuit can be members of the assembly.

“I feel raw, I feel disappointed, I feel distraught, I feel upset,” he said. “Obviously there’s a whole myriad of negative emotions that get associated with a life event like this.”

In a statement Monday announcing Blake Rudkowski’s removal, the Nunatsiavut government said it “plays no role whatsoever in determining the membership of any individual,” and the beneficiary enrolment process is independent from the Nunatsiavut government.

Nobody from the Nunatsiavut government was available Friday to speak about its decision to remove Blake Rudkowski from government, or about the blood quantum determination process.

Blake Rudkowski said the documents he received indicating his status was under review showed the review was triggered by a political opponent.

“I had to apply as anyone who never had any experience with Nunatsiavut would have to apply,” he said. “It’s as if that previous 34 years didn’t exist.” As required, he included extensive details of his family history in his application.

“Their determination was that my blood quantum was 17.4, or it might be 17.3 . . . . So you would think with a number that precise would imply there was an empirical calculation . . . to arrive at that output. And for love nor money, I couldn’t tell you what the process was,” he said.

Blake Rudkowski said he hasn’t been offered any means to appeal the decision. He wonders what kind of precedent the decision sets. “If it could happen to me, then who’s next?” he said.

As for his own next steps, Blake Rudkowski said he hasn’t yet figured those out but he’s not defeated.

“I feel a calling to public service, and my days in the political arena aren’t over,” he said. “I’m really upset that my path with Nunatsiavut came to a halt the way it did, especially when it came to questions of my heritage, which are not questionable in my mind.”

Source: Ousted from Labrador Inuit government, ex-politician questions ‘blood quantum’ method

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Saskatchewan election: MLA diversity

2020/11/25 Leave a comment

Saskatchewan 2020 Election MLA Diversity

With the election results and new Cabinet appointments, the above chart shows the representation of women, visible minorities, and Indigenous peoples in relation to the overall population and the two parties.

Most striking to me is the significant under-representation of Indigenous peoples overall, with only the NDP having its elected MLAs largely reflecting the overall population (but not with respect to visible minorities.

Will update British Columbia once Cabinet appointed.

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Australia: If that is not who we are, then who are we?

2020/11/24 Leave a comment

Bitingly sharp critique of the phrase “This is not who we are,” written mainly but not exclusively from an Indigenous perspective. While over the top, more than a kernel of truth in terms of the various divisions and fault lines that apply more broadly than Australia and Indigenous issues:

After news of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan made headlines, it was only a matter of time before a politician uttered the words “This is not who we are”

Australia has been trying very hard for a very long time to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to the idea of ‘we’.

It has tried to create the impossible, or at least the grossly contradictory and hypocritical, by aggressively separating and dividing people across every imaginable line while simultaneously appealing to an idealised sense of ‘we’ whenever it is convenient or expedient.

We are separated across state lines, a fact which has never been clearer than when watching our Prime Minister first attack Victorians and then try to steal their achievement as his own.

We are separated across racial lines with racist dog whistling from media and politics, and more overt racism from everyday white supremacists.

We have simultaneously rejected Indigenous rights, rejected multiculturalism, and embraced assimilation in a way that allows racism to be framed as only a problem when someone complains about it and not when someone enacts it. The divisive act, separating we into usand them, is the acknowledgement of mistreatment rather than the mistreatment itself – “Why do they always have it to make it about race?” they ask, to an elusive ‘them’ who they like to imagine make everything about race.

We are separated across political lines with a renewed animosity and disdain aimed not just between our political parties, but from our politicians to the people they are meant to represent.

We work hard to separate ourselves with all sorts of real and imagined differences; AFL or NRL, Ford or Holden, devon or fritz, potato scollops or potato cakes, and while many of these are a bit of a laugh, some have still led to more than a few playground/pub punch ons over the years.

We also separate ourselves in ways that actively dehumanise those of us who are not we so that we are less concerned about about their human rights being denied (which is of course the point of dehumanising someone in the first instance); homeless, unemployed, incarcerated, lower income, asylum seekers, Indigenous peoples – if only they’d worked a little harder, not jumped the cue, not made it about ‘us and them’, not been mean to me once in primary school, then they’d be one of us, then they’d deserve dignity, respect and basic human rights.

And amongst all of that division there is a singular unified theory of ‘We’ that transcends time and space and all of reality.

The mythical ‘We’ who arrived on the First Fleet, even though it was not us who committed the massacres. That is not who we are!

And the we who were already here for thousands of years before we are not us but they, but only because they always make it about race by playing the race card, and they didn’t even invent the wheel so they should be thankful it was us who invaded and not some other them, not that it was even an invasion to begin with… and on it goes.

It is the We who wins gold medals at the Olympics, or beats India at the cricket, or New Zealand in the rugby, but it is not us if they refuse to sing the anthem, or if they take a knee, or dare to wear an Aboriginal flag, or throw an imaginary spear. That is divisive! That is not who we are!

It is the We who fought bravely in every war (except the frontier wars which never happened) so that we can celebrate our veterans, our beloved ANZACs, with alcoholism, gambling and sacred biscuits once a year. We forget they even exist outside our imagined dreams of past national glory even as we all mindlessly chant ‘Lest we forget’. And when they return different from when they left and in need of our support, we pass the buck yet again because it is not us who fail our returned service men and women just as it is not us who committed the war crimes – that is not who we are.

We is an impossible dream but still one that many feel is worth pursuing, personally I could take it or leave it, especially since that dream has been turned into a nightmare by those who exploit us by using we as a convenient scapegoat allowing them to pick and choose not just who is we, but when we are we. We push them away for not being we enough, we thin the ranks of we by declaring that all of us who do wrong in our name were never really we to begin with – they are unWe. They are not the real We. They are not who we are.

But either it is who we are, because we share a sense of collective identity, and accept collective responsibility for both the good and the bad, or if it is not then we, the collective embodiment of Australia, does not exist as anything other than a system of ever changing rules that benefit a select few, that denies Indigenous people justice, and that locks up brown people for trying to exercise our legal right to seek asylum.

We are the greatest nation on earth, because we only accept collective responsibility for all the good stuff while denying any responsibility for the bad stuff, though we will still happily keep the land and resources that were gained through doing the bad things that we didn’t do.

But here is the long and short of it for all of us.

If we want to have “Australia won a gold medal at the Olympics” then we also have to take “Australia committed war crimes”.

Of course we did not all individually do all the bad things anymore than we all collectively did the good things, for that is what being a collective is all about – collective responsibility.

And we do not need to stand for an anthem or salute a flag or be suitably proficient in English to do that, we just need to acknowledge problems where they exist and strive to make them better and never turn a blind eye or shirk our collective responsibilities to ourselves, to each other, or to our fellow human beings regardless of where we come from.

There is strength in the collective ‘we’, but there is a danger when we let them decide who weare and who we are not.

The modern incarnation of jingoistic, patriotic, racist as fuck, white ethnostate loving nationalism has its roots in the Howard/Hanson era, but of course is merely an adaption of the same white ethnostate ideal that Australia was built on. Once the idea of a Whites Only nation was put to bed, Australia was either going to embrace true multiculturalism or it was going begrudgingly accept that not everyone can be white while demanding that they damn sure do their best to act it anyway. This is where the origin of ‘One Nation’ comes from, for before it was a racist political party it was part of a strategy aimed at getting people to accept multiculturalism.

As Andrew Jakubowicz explains:

Multiculturalism may well be supported by 80% of Australians, but this level drops when anxiety about border security rises. So, multiculturalism’s opponents have much to gain from heightened public concern about “Muslim immigration”.

Hanson’s election has helped clarify the sides of the debate around how Australians have “imagined community” for more than 30 years, since Geoffrey Blainey first shaped the opposition arguments. There is one nation with many cultures, which was Bob Hawke’s 1989 definition of multiculturalism. And then there should be only one culture albeit followed by many races, which is Hanson’s conceptualisation – though wrongly labelled as “One Nation”.

The first sees Australia as a civic nation in which reciprocity and difference, supported by core commitments to democracy and equality, provide the architecture for creativity and cohesion.

The second sees Australia as an (Anglo-Christian) ethnic (multicoloured) monocultural nation in which assimilation into an imagined singular worldview drives calls for cohesion and claims of social strength.

We have never really reconciled which of the above ‘we’ we mean when we talk about ‘we’, and until we do we will be incapable of working out where we are heading because not only do we not know where we are, we apparently don’t even know who we are, even if some of us want to pretend to know who we aren’t.

Source: If that is not who we are, then who are we?

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