Coronavirus Is Hitting Black and Hispanic Americans Harder. CDC Data Shows How Much.

2020/06/17 Leave a comment

Yet more evidence (and waiting for Canada to catch up with such data):

In a new, massive federal survey of novel coronavirus cases in the United States, a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers an in-depth breakdown by gender, race, ethnicity, and health factors.

Among 1,320,488 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases considered by the CDC between January 22 and May 30, 2020—of which only 45 percent had race or ethnicity data—33 percent were Hispanic or Latino of any race and 22 percent of infections were among Black Americans, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released Monday found. For context, those communities account for about 18 percent and 13 percent of the U.S. population, respectively.

The numbers amount to the best evidence yet that the deadly pandemic has had an outsized impact on communities of color.

“These findings suggest that persons in these groups … are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report said, calling them consistent with previously reported data “that found higher proportions of Black and Hispanic persons among hospitalized COVID-19 patients.”

Of the 287,320 cases with data on underlying health conditions, the most common were cardiovascular disease at 32 percent, diabetes at 30 percent, and chronic lung disease at 18 percent.

Even as officials nationwide have forged ahead with re-openings, more than a dozen states—including Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Florida, and Texas—hit new daily COVID-19 case tally records in recent weeks. As the CDC put it in Monday’s report: “The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing public health crisis in the United States that continues to affect all populations and result in severe outcomes, including death.”

And as ProPublica previously reported, environmental, economic, and political factors have for years put Black Americans at higher risk of chronic conditions that overlap with COVID-19 risks, including asthma, heart disease, and diabetes.

Communities of color in every state have had a unique experience of the contagion, and these numbers suggest the outbreak is reflecting glaring health-care inequalities that no vaccine or treatment can cure.

Source: Coronavirus Is Hitting Black and Hispanic Americans Harder. CDC Data Shows How Much.

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Visible minorities vastly underrepresented in the boardroom, new disclosures suggest

2020/06/17 Leave a comment

Early and incomplete data but dispiriting:

Canadian companies may be making progress on gender diversity, but a Financial Post analysis suggests that the boardrooms of some of the biggest businesses in the country have much further to go when it comes to including members of visible minorities, Indigenous peoples and people with disabilities.

That analysis is based on a relatively new source of data. Starting this year, publicly traded companies incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA) are required to report, among other things, the number of women, Indigenous people, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities on their boards and in their senior-management ranks. The disclosures must be made for their annual shareholder meetings.

The Post looked at companies on the S&P/TSX 60 stock-market index that were both incorporated under the CBCA and had filed management information so far in 2020 — a total of 23 companies — to gather a preliminary picture of the state of corporate diversity. Disclosure was not entirely consistent from company to company and the findings and assessments presented here are based on self-reported information about proposed or current slates of directors, at the time the filings were made.

Combined, however, the Post found that, out of the 23 boards and 255 director positions total, only 14 directors — or approximately 5.5 per cent — identified as belonging to a visible minority. The Post also found only three Indigenous directors (or about one per cent of all directors in the sample) and two directors with disabilities (less than one per cent) among the 23 boards.

Fourteen of the companies reported they did not have a member of a visible minority on the board, while 20 companies reported no Indigenous peoples and 21 reported no persons with disabilities as directors. Eleven companies had no representation from any of those three groups on their board.

By comparison, 22.3 per cent of Canada’s population identified as a visible minority and 4.9 per cent as an Aboriginal person during the 2016 census. And according to Statistics Canada, as of 2017, 22 per cent of Canadians aged 15 and older had one or more disabilities.

All 23 firms included in the Post’s analysis had at least one director who identified as a woman, and 31 per cent of all directors on the Post’s list of companies were women.

Representation of the federal government’s four diversity groups in senior management varied, but were not much better for the 23 companies as a whole.

Discount retailer Dollarama Inc. reported two of its six executive officers (33 per cent) and two of its nine directors were women (22 per cent), but that members of the federal government’s other three designated groups were in zero of those positions. It was similar for e-commerce company Shopify Inc., which reported two of its seven executive officers and two of its six directors were women, but that no other groups were represented.

“We recognize our areas for improvement and are actively working with our Diversity & Belonging team to ensure stronger representation across our senior leadership and Board by hiring and retaining diverse talent,” a Shopify spokesperson said in an email.

Big banks and insurers in the S&P/TSX 60 index were excluded from the Post’s analysis [banks covered under the Federally Regulated Sectors EE reporting]. While some report diversity information (Royal Bank of Canada had said, among other things, that 46 per cent of its executives in Canada were women and 19 per cent were visible minorities), they are incorporated under financial legislation and not subject to the recent CBCA changes. Companies that are incorporated provincially were likewise excluded.

Ratna Omidvar, an independent senator from Ontario, said she was not surprised by the Post’s findings. Omidvar, who was a well-known diversity expert before being appointed to the Senate in 2016, was previously among lawmakers backing an ultimately unsuccessful push to force public companies to set internal diversity targets.

“Certainly I recognize the government has to not over-regulate corporations, because we want them to survive and thrive and make money and lift all our boats, et cetera,” Omidvar said. “But the lifting of all boats is clearly not happening, so we need something else.”

The recent changes to the CBCA also put companies in a position to “comply or explain” in reporting on their diversity policies and targets, the latter of which most of the companies looked at by the Post did not have for members of visible minorities, Indigenous people or persons with disabilities.

For example, the Desmarais-family-controlled Power Corp. of Canada (which reported two of its 13 directors were women, but zero were from any of the other three groups) said in its 2020 management circular that it had not adopted a target regarding the representation of the four groups on the board “as the Board believes that such arbitrary targets are not in the best interests of the Corporation.”

Still, there is a “prevailing view” in the corporate world that diversity is a good thing, which helps create momentum for efforts such as the recent CBCA amendments, according to Rahul Bhardwaj, the president and CEO of the Institute of Corporate Directors.

“It’s a journey for organizations to enhance their diversity,” he added.

While it is the first year for the new federal disclosure requirements, securities regulators were already requiring companies to report figures and targets regarding the number of women on boards and in executive positions. A recent report on the approximately 230-company S&P/TSX Composite Index found the percentage of women on its boards had increased to 27.6 per cent in 2019 from 18.3 per cent in 2015.

Corporate Canada’s latest disclosure requirements, intended to further improve corporate transparency and diversity, are also now in place at a time when firms are pledging to do their part to fight racism following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed while in police custody in Minnesota. Four officers are now facing charges in connection with the killing.

Directors should be aware of the narrative of the day, what people living in the communities in which they operate are thinking, and what customers are feeling, because those directors are setting strategy, according to Omidvar.

“So I would say those are competencies that should be even more hotly searched for and located when corporate directors are appointed to boards,” she added.

Some companies are now redoubling their diversity efforts. On Wednesday, the formation of the new Canadian Council of Business Leaders Against Anti-Black Systemic Racism was announced, as well as the launch of the BlackNorth Initiative, which is aimed at increasing the representation of Black people in Canadian corporate boardrooms and executive offices.

Wes Hall, the founder and chair of the council, and the executive chairman and founder of shareholder services firm Kingsdale Advisors, noted companies were fine when they began actively trying to solve their gender-diversity issues.

“We believe that if you now add another segment of the population to your board, it’s probably going to make your business even better,” Hall said. “So why not do it?”

Source:  Visible minorities vastly underrepresented in the boardroom, new disclosures suggest

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Canada has a long, documented history of racism and racial discrimination. Don’t look away

2020/06/17 Leave a comment

Good reminder by Mark O’Neill, president and chief executive of the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum.

In the 1980s, as a young program officer in what was then called the Department of the Secretary of State of Canada, I worked in the race-relations unit of the department’s multiculturalism program. Several events, in particular, were formative in my understanding of the state of social cohesion and the institutional response to the diversity of Canadian society at that time. These included the fatal shootings of young Black men in Mississauga (Michael Wade Lawson, in 1988) and Montreal (Anthony Griffin, in 1987) by police officers, and the final report of the Marshall Inquiry, released in 1990, which concluded that Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi’kmaq man in Nova Scotia, had been wrongly prosecuted and convicted of murder in 1971.

A critical milestone during this period was the Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement of 1988, the first time a Canadian government had formally acknowledged and apologized for a historic injustice against a group of Canadians – in this case, the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.

Collectively, these experiences formed the beginning of what has essentially been my lifelong learning of Canada’s history of systemic and institutional racism and racial discrimination.

The entire concept of Canada as a racist society is antithetical to the mainstream notion of Canadian identity and values (as expressed, most fundamentally, in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms). In an interview with the Canadian Press, journalist and activist Desmond Cole talks about the need to overcome Canada’s self-mythology as a country that doesn’t have the same forms of racism as the United States.

Recently, and in previous decades, Canadian politicians have quipped that a point of distinction between our country and the United States is Canada’s lack of a history of slavery, which has exposed an unawareness of, or unwillingness to acknowledge, the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade that benefited pre-Confederation Canada.

The late Gord Downie was inspired to create his Secret Path multimedia project when, as an adult, he learned of Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who died of hunger and exposure in 1966 after fleeing a residential school in Ontario. Mr. Downie made it his purpose to bring the story to Canadians because, like him, there were so many people in Canada who didn’t know the dark history of the schools.

Academic and author Lubomyr Luciuk, instrumental in the long campaign for redress for Ukrainian-Canadians interned as enemy aliens during the First World War, was initially told by government officials, “That never happened.”

Canada’s racism, both past and present, is a well-documented and undeniable fact. But many Canadians, sadly, do not know their history, so it stands to reason that they don’t know the darker chapters of it. It is profoundly important that we learn our history – and be acutely aware of our individual and collective wrongs – if we are to move ahead as a society, let alone judge others.

The Canadian History Hall, unveiled at the Canadian Museum of History in 2017 and developed by content experts in collaboration with community representatives, aims to bring Canadian history to life in a comprehensive, artifact-rich visitor experience grounded in the historical record of the events and people that comprise our history. In many respects, it lays bare our history. Not surprisingly, not everyone approves.

Examples of Canada’s history of racism abound. Our first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, when presented in his complex entirety, is the architect of both Confederation and the Indian Act (the two historical realities are inextricably bound – and critical to understanding both him and our country).

McGill University, one of Canada’s most respected postsecondary institutions, has a history of anti-Semitic admissions policies that were not lifted until after the Second World War. The historically Black town of Africville, N.S., was expropriated in the 1960s; homes were torn down without warning or process, and the community was displaced. The Chinese head tax, first introduced in 1885 and increased several times thereafter, discouraged and penalized Chinese immigration to Canada. It was superseded by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923, which forbade Chinese immigration altogether.

The persistence of systemic racism and racial discrimination in Canada is a part of our contemporary history. As recently as 2017, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent released a report on its mission to Canada. The Working Group found that “Canada’s history of enslavement, racial segregation and marginalization of African Canadians has left a legacy of anti-Black racism and had a deleterious impact on people of African descent, which must be addressed in partnership with the affected communities. Across Canada, many people of African descent continue to live in poverty and poor health, have low educational attainment and are overrepresented at all levels of the criminal justice system.”

Both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls have painstakingly documented Canada’s long and devastating legacy of racist policies and practices against Indigenous people.

In April, an article by poet and columnist El Jones in the Halifax Examinerexplored the serious impact COVID-19 will have on Black communities, noting that “racism and structural inequality shape who is affected by this illness and its economic fallout. Systematically ignoring that reality makes Black people even more vulnerable.” The article goes on to describe the disappearance of “Blackness” from the reporting of the pandemic, despite the fact that many Black people are on the front lines and that, like the U.S., Canada is not keeping race-based data on testing or infection rates.

It has been a long time for me, personally, since the shootings of Mr. Lawson and Mr. Griffin, the Marshall Inquiry’s report and the Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement. But along the arc of the moral universe, they are recent events in Canadian history.

The Department of Justice reports that although Indigenous adults represent just 4 per cent of the adult population in Canada, they account for 26 per centof admissions to correctional services.

Political leaders at all levels have acknowledged the existence of anti-Black racism in Canada. In 2016, Abdirahman Abdi died during his arrest in Ottawa, and Dafonte Miller lost an eye after an alleged assault by an off-duty police officer in Toronto. Andrew Loku was killed by Toronto police in 2015 in what was deemed a homicide.

Canadians have much to be proud of in their quest for social justice, including the creation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; the introduction of the Employment Equity Act to guarantee every Canadian equal access to work; the Government of Canada’s apology for the Chinese head tax; and many other stories of leadership on human rights and international aid and development. In 2019, the federal government unveiled its anti-racism strategy, a key pillar of which is the establishment of an Anti-Racism Secretariat that will lead a “whole-of-government” approach in addressing racism and racial discrimination. This is a welcome approach, but there is still much work to be done.

The final panel in the Canadian History Hall at the Canadian Museum of History reminds visitors that “Canadians have inherited a contested past. Like their forebears, they face conflict, struggle and loss alongside success, accomplishment and hope. They steward an acclaimed but imperfect democracy, a beautiful but threatened environment, a revered but relative civility. Their vision and generosity, wisdom and compromise will be their own legacy – for Canada, and the world.”

Source: Canada has a long, documented history of racism and racial discrimination. Don’t look away

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

Douglas Todd: Number of Chinese students in Canada plunges 44 per cent

2020/06/16 Leave a comment

Latest from Douglas Todd on the decline in international students as a result of COVID-19 travel and related restrictions.

The three charts below highlight the extent of the decline starting in late 2019, along with the impact of the largest 10 source countries (2018 basis) contrasting the April 2020 change with the the first quarter of 2020.

The extent to which COVID-19 will impact the third quarter, when most students arrive, is of course the big question facing universities and colleges and the related economic impact:

The number of people from China obtaining Canadian study permits nosedived 44 per cent in the first four months of this year as COVID-19 restrictions and diplomatic battles took their toll.

Australia is experiencing an even more precipitous slump in what has been its largest foreign-student contingent — as China’s leaders this week warned against studying in Australia, which it said discriminates against Asians.

In addition, Canada has in the past two months come up with several incentives designed to limit the drop in study visas and woo high-fee-paying international students, who numbered 642,000 in Canada at the end of 2019, making up one in five of all those in higher education.

More than 150,000 Mainland Chinese citizens studied and worked in Canada in 2019, the second largest foreign-student group after India. Greater Toronto last year was the temporary home to 53,000 students from China, while Metro Vancouver had 34,000 and Victoria hosted 4,000.

This year, however, a Chinese study visa downturn appears to be coming in response to COVID-19 lockdowns, diplomatic tensions, border restrictions, a switch to online teaching and massive job losses in labour sectors that often get filled by foreign students.

The latest Immigration Department figures show just 12,065 citizens of the People’s Republic of China obtained study visas in Canada in the first four months of 2020. That’s down 44 per cent from the same period last year.

It’s more severe than the 31 per cent overall decline in study visas from all foreign students. Of the four other largest source countries sending students to Canada, the number of Indians has dropped by 29 per cent this year, South Koreans are down 35 per cent, French have declined 29 per cent and Vietnamese dipped 15 per cent.

When it comes to China’s 640,000 foreign students, almost all have chosen to study in five English-language countries, including the U.S., Britain and New Zealand. But Australia and Canada have welcomed by far the highest number per capita.

While specialists say the international-student market will struggle over the next few years because of coronavirus restrictions, students from China, who have arguably flocked the most to foreign institutions, appear now to be among those most reluctant to head abroad.

When the pandemic hit and Australian politicians urged all foreign nationals who couldn’t financially support themselves to go home, the country’s leaders in effect began saying goodbye to many of the nation’s 720,000 international students, including 212,000 from China.

Australia’s plunge is coming at the same time China has singled out the country, telling citizens “by no means travel to Australia,” and citing “racist incidents targeting Asians.” It also brought up health risks from COVID-19, even though Australia has a much lower rate of coronavirus deaths than the U.S. and Canada. Some reports say only a tiny trickle of Chinese students have obtained study visas in Australia this year.

For his part, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday told China, which has also cut its Australia beef imports, that he wouldn’t be bullied by offshore “coercion.”

The reaction from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been almost the opposite, even while China has unfairly placed two Canadians in solitary confinement and drastically cut Canadian canola imports.

In addition to speaking softly about China, Canada’s Liberal government has recently offered unprecedented incentives to international students, which it says bring $21 billion annually into higher education and the economy.

In an effort to head off more drastic drops, Ottawa recently removed the cap on how many hours most foreign students can work while studying.

In addition, the Liberals changed policy so that up to a million foreign students, refugees and guest workers already in Canada could apply for the government’s Canada Emergency Response Benefit of $2,000 a month without providing proof of a work permit.

In late May, the Liberals also announced that foreign students will be permitted to complete 50 per cent of their studies outside Canada. Perhaps most importantly, Ottawa also said such students will still be able to get a postgraduate work permit for up to three years.

How far should Ottawa continue to go to lure international-student dollars and workers, including from China? Clearly, a lot of transnational money is at stake.

Last year, students from China made up 40 per cent of the 153,000 foreign students in B.C. The University of B.C. recently enrolled 6,281 students with Chinese citizenship, taking in $184 million a year from their fees. Almost half of Simon Fraser University’s foreign students have been from China, paying $126 million in fees in the 2018-19 school year. They also typically fill low-wage jobs and pay rent.

There is no doubt Canada has built a significant reliance on China and its students. Now, dealing with COVID-19 and country-to-country tensions, that dependence is being put to the test.

Source: Douglas Todd: Number of Chinese students in Canada plunges 44 per cent

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

‘It’s a lot of lip service’: Black federal public servants hope ‘Floyd effect’ will finally drive change as anti-racism movement grips Canada

2020/06/16 Leave a comment

Didn’t know that the Public Service Employee Survey allowed this desegregation (not on public site so assume was special request).

Useful:

Black public servants, already more likely to report being victims of racial discrimination than the rest of the federal bureaucracy, are hoping the “Floyd effect” will help drive the changes for which they’ve spent years trying to gain traction.

“In some ways, this has had a positive effect in the amount of interest that it has generated and, you know, white people being woke for a moment in time about the realities of being Black in Canada and the rest of North America,” said Richard Sharpe, founder of the Federal Black Employee Caucus (FBEC).

Mr. Sharpe and FBEC have been inundated in the last couple of weeks with calls to speak to and help departments generate ideas to address anti-Black racism in their various organizations.

The documented killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., by a police officer has affected white people and moved them to action to a scale Mr. Sharpe said he’s never seen in his lifetime. “We really feel a shift and we’re hoping to take advantage of that to make some progress on this work, maybe faster progress now that there’s some doors that have been opened for us,” he said.

Established in late 2017, FBEC’s primary objectives since its inception have been to get disaggregated employment equity data collected so that employees, employers, and policy-makers can all understand the landscape for Black federal bureaucrats, and to provide an element of support and unity for Black employees who are facing harassment and discrimination in the workplace.

It’s an issue Black public servants have long been raising, but now they’re starting to get some data to back it up. Last year, the annual Public Service Employee Survey for the first time allowed respondents to self-identify as a specific visible minority group, instead of all being lumped in to one category.

In a February interview with The Hill Times, Mr. Sharpe said FBEC had a role to play in making that happen. In the lead-up to the 2019 survey, the group met with 25 to 30 deputy ministers across the public service, he said, as well as the Public Service Management Advisory Committee.

Fifteen per cent of Black employees indicated they had been a victim of discrimination on the job in the past 12 months, compared to 11 per cent of non-Black visible minorities, and only eight per cent of the public service, overall.

Of those who said they had experienced discrimination, 75 per cent of Black employees said it was racial, compared to 52 per cent for non-Black visible minorities, and 26 per cent for the public service overall. A little more than half of the Black respondents who said they faced discrimination (54 per cent) said it was due to colour (30 per cent for non-Black visible minorities, 16 per cent overall). Black public servants who said they experienced discrimination were less likely than non-Black visible minorities to indicate it was discrimination based on national or ethnic origin—34 per cent of Black employees compared to 43 per cent for non-Black visible minorities.

For FBEC, the results were not surprising. Mr. Sharpe pointed to the fact that there are more than 13,000 people who Statistics Canada had said identified as Black who were working with or for the public service (including contractors). A little more than 6,200 of the 182,306 PSES respondents in 86 departments self-identified as Black in the survey, which was conducted between July 22 and Sept. 6, 2019.

Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos (Québec, Que.) said the statistics are “proof that more information is not only needed, but is useful.” Speaking to The Hill Times after addressing FBEC’s Feb. 24 annual general meeting, Mr. Duclos said it’s “good news” that employees are now able to self-identify in the survey. “We can therefore work better and more effectively to address the challenges that are revealed by the study.”

Mr. Duclos said the numbers themselves, however, are “absolutely unacceptable,” and that the underlying conditions will be better understood with the data.

“And not only will we understand those conditions better, but we will also have the obvious responsibility to address those challenges, to make sure that things are changing,” he said. “Things have improved over the last years, but there is a lot more work to do and we’re totally committed to do it.”

In his remarks, Mr. Duclos—who hired the Trudeau government’s first Black chief of staff, Marjorie Michel—spoke of the federal government’s “broad policy and legislative framework” to support diversity and inclusion in the public service. Asked if, based on the baseline numbers of discrimination in the public service, there needs to be not a broad policy, but a very specific one for Black employees, Mr. Duclos said that in his current and previous portfolio (he was the families, children, and social development minister in the 42nd  Parliament) he frequently observed that diversity was not only a matter of justice and equity, but also one of efficiency, and led to better decision-making and better implementation those decisions.

“And the fact that Black employees tell us they are unable to be at their full potential is something of great concern to us,” he said. “I will certainly address those concerns and make sure that every federal employee, including Black employees, has the ability to make the fullest impact on our society.”

Black public servants ‘disappointed’ in lack of message from PCO

In the wake of Mr. Floyd’s death and the protests against anti-Black racism and police brutality that have exploded around the world, Mr. Sharpe said there was some disappointment that there hadn’t been any outreach or direct message of support for Black public servants from the top voices—including Privy Council Office Clerk Ian Shugart—despite an ask from FBEC.

FBEC held a general call with about 200 Black employees across the country on June 5. “A large majority of people—because we just let people talk about how they were feeling—felt quite hurt and disappointed that there was no message coming out on the part of the public service in support of them,” Mr. Sharpe said.

Mr. Sharpe said some departments and deputy ministers have taken the initiative and sent out messages, including Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, whose associate deputy minister, Caroline Xavier, became the first Black woman to work at that level of the public service in February.

Mr. Duclos’ office did not respond directly to a question about whether the minister has reached out to Black public servants specifically in the weeks since Mr. Floyd’s death.

Another key member of the deputy minister community, Public Services and Procurement Canada’s Bill Matthews, also communicated his support to Black bureaucrats, Mr. Sharpe said.

Earlier this year, Mr. Matthews was named the Deputy Minister Ally for the UN Decade for People of African Descent within the public service. FBEC approached him for the role, which Mr. Sharpe said is necessary for the work they’re doing to be sustained at the executive level.

“I’ve been in government long enough to know that when the moment is done, and you don’t have presence around senior management tables on a regular basis, then you’re easily forgotten, and there’s another priority or another crisis that comes in and takes your place,” said Mr. Sharpe.

Though Mr. Matthews is “a white dude that doesn’t really have an equity background,” he has been supporting FBEC in a “full-throated way,” said Mr. Sharpe, and as a former comptroller general, he brings a high level of pragmatism to his engagements with the group and its quest for data.

“We’re a government that prides itself on informed decision making, but we have no data on a people that are sort of crying out for supports and addressing issues,” Mr. Sharpe said. “So, he found that to be something that needed to be addressed.”

And despite Mr. Matthews’ full plate as the coronavirus pandemic hit and the scramble to procure millions of pieces of personal protective equipment began, Mr. Sharpe said he has still been “remarkably available” for the short conversations with the group.

The need for better data prompted FBEC to also seek out its own. It launched a survey in May to dig into Black employees’ experiences with discrimination, harassment, and career progression. The 41-question study closes June 30, and is being completed in collaboration with independent researcher Gerard Etienne. Mr. Sharpe said more than 1,000 responses have already been collected, surpassing their expectations.

In a June 11 follow-up response to questions, Mr. Duclos’ office reiterated his commitment to better data collection and analysis. The Treasury Board Secretariat and Mr. Duclos “work with partners such as the Association of Professional Executives to lead shifts in mindsets and behaviours as the public service embraces diversity and inclusion,” his office said.

…

Earlier this year, FBEC was among a community working with the Canadian Human Rights Commission about its high dismissal rate for race-based complaints. “We’ve since been following up with Canadian Human Rights Commission, directly with the chief commissioner and her people, around ways in which we can use disaggregated race-based data and other processes to address the fact that the system’s not working for Black and racialized people,” Mr. Sharpe said.

FBEC has also been working with the Canada School of Public Service, following up after Mr. Sharpe publicly made comments in February noting that the school has a mandate to educate, but produces white managers and staff who perpetuate anti-Black racism.

They are now developing programming that includes the Black experience, the same way that programming already includes lived experience of other equity-seeking groups—as well as having discussions with executive trainers about including education about anti-Black racism.

“That’s the institutional stuff we’re talking about that departments can do and put in place that would help, we think, over the long term that would make us … more visible and put us in a position where we’re actually a legitimate part of the public service,” Mr. Sharpe said.

Source: ‘It’s a lot of lip service’: Black federal public servants hope ‘Floyd effect’ will finally drive change as anti-racism movement grips Canada

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Time to act on newsroom inequality

2020/06/16 Leave a comment

From the Star’s Public Editor:

“For years, we at The Star have talked about, sometimes in terms of despair, the need to reflect the changing nature of this city… Our coverage has not been inclusive enough. One obvious solution would be to hire more reporters and editors of all colors and cultures. New perspectives and new contacts would clearly improve the breadth and scope of our coverage.”

1995: Toronto & the Star: Report of the Diversity Committee

How can it be that a generation – a quarter century — has passed and still the Toronto Star and newsrooms throughout North America have not come to terms with the reality and repercussions of predominantly white newsrooms that look nothing like the communities they seek to serve?

Certainly, journalists at all levels of news organizations have seemingly long understood that a more diverse newsroom can provide more representative, more accurate and more complete news coverage that is necessary in a just and equitable society. Yet, after all these years, the truth of this matter is found in statements released earlier this year by the Canadian Association of Black Journalists and Canadian Journalists of Colour.

“Canadian newsrooms and media coverage are not truly representative of our country’s racial diversity. We acknowledge that journalism outlets have made efforts to address this worrying gap, but glaring racial inequity persists.”

I am not the first person to note that the brutal police killing of George Floyd and the subsequent global protests against systemic equality and for racial justice have presented journalism with something of a “#MeToo” moment – a seemingly rapid and revolutionary recognition of the need for change and broad refusal to accept the status quo of a long simmering situation.

Indeed, as Canadians confront the broader realities and repercussions of systematic anti-Black and Indigenous racism in our own country, it is well past time for a “reckoning” within journalism, a time to listen, to learn and to examine journalism’s role in the damaging prevalence of systemic racism.

As many have also made clear, this is most of all, a time for action. To its credit, the Star and its parent company, Torstar, committed this week, in a statement sent to all staff, to “taking concrete measures to address inequality, exclusion and discrimination.”

That was followed by a memo to the newsroom from Star editor Irene Gentle, who endorsed well-justified calls to action by the CABJ and CJoC that hold newsrooms to account for racial equality in Canadian media.

“Calls on behalf of Black, Indigenous and journalists of colour are founded in principles of anti-racism, justice and accountability this newsroom has long stood for in its reporting but did not live up to in its internal make-up, organization and, at times, judgment,” Gentle said. “Words don’t matter without actions and these actions can only make us a better, more fair newsroom to work in, inspire more relevant, vital journalism and help make our ideals a reality.”

In an earlier note to staff, Gentle acknowledged that the Star’s newsroom is not representative of the communities it reports on, even as its own outstanding anti-racism reporting continues to expose systemic racism within other institutions and organizations such as education and police.

“Internally, we obviously cannot ignore our own deficits,” she said. “There are historical and financial reasons for this, but that, while a fact, is not an excuse.”

Among the actions the Star and Torstar news organizations have committed to are: voluntary surveys of newsroom demographics to measure employment diversity statistics, hiring and promoting of Black and Indigenous employees and other people of colour and diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, training and mentoring of young and aspiring journalists of colour, including possible collaborations with journalism schools. Gentle also committed to establishing ongoing consultations with racialized and other communities through advisory groups.

“Some of these are underway or beginning. Others will require some time to set up and entrench,” Gentle said. “But we are committed to doing it because we, like all of you, know it is the right thing to do.”

The Star’s newsroom commitments are supported fully by the Torstar organization overall. In the memo to all staff, Torstar CEO John Boynton made clear the company “cannot just talk about appointing more committees, more task forces more study groups to look at these actions.”

“As a media company with a long history of championing equality for all, Torstar is uniquely positioned to learn from our past, to give voice to the present through our news coverage and providing opportunities in our pages and on our websites for frank, honest and open conversations about race and diversity and to help provide guidance and examples for future generations,” he said.

While I have been discouraged at knowing how long Canadian newsrooms have been talking about this issue, with so little real and necessary change happening. I am heartened by these statements of actions and our CEO’s words seeking accountability: “We will be – and we should be – held accountable for ensuring that we act. If we fail, please let us know.”

Indeed, equality and diversity are not simply “nice to have,” an exhaustive 2019 report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism on “the struggle for talent and diversity in modern newsrooms” tells us.

“More diversity and a better representation of the underlying population is not only a question of justness and fairness, it’s also a question of power, as the media still largely decide who gets to be heard in society and thus who gets to shape political and social issues,” that report states.

Within the Star, I believe there is strong understanding that this week’s commitment to action is just the beginning as we all listen to learn and understand our own roles in the perpetuation of newsroom inequity. I see need for ongoing discussion and debate among journalists, their employers and unions, people of colour from the wider community, journalism scholars and industry associations about newsrooms structures, and journalism’s practices, standards and values. Most important, as is happening throughout North America now, this time demands a rethinking about how journalism and its mission in a democracy that stands for universal human rights is defined — and more important, who defines it.

Whether we regard this moment as a reckoning or a revolution, the time for that is now.

Source: OpinionTime to act on newsroom inequality‘It is well past time for a “reckoning” within journalism, a time to listen, to learn and to examine journalism’s role in the damaging prevalence of systemic racism.’

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

We don’t need China to tell us Australian racism exists – just ask international students

2020/06/16 Leave a comment

From a student’s perspective:

Choosing to study abroad is as much a leap of faith as it is a financial commitment. The decision to uproot one’s life from the comforts of home is always made with the belief that the new place we have chosen to stake a formative portion of our lives will ultimately value our presence.

For many Chinese international students enduring the pandemic on Australian shores, that belief has been shaken. In the latest round of political sparring between China and Australia, the Chinese government has advised its citizens and students to reassess travel plans to Australia, citing a rise in racial discrimination and incidents of abuse towards people of Asian descent. Australia was quick to categorically reject the assertions as “disinformation”and “demonstrably untrue”. But political posturing rarely provides clarity on issues, and more often exposes the insecurities of the players rather than the intended show of strength.

Whether China’s caveat stems from a genuine concern for the wellbeing of its citizens or is part of a broader punitive strategy to condemn Australia’s push for an independent review into Covid-19’s origins will be dissected ad nauseam in the coming weeks. But instead of the preoccupation with how foreign powers choose to define Australian society, perhaps the more deserving and pressing matter for the government is to listen to the voices of those who live under its care.

Indictments don’t have weight without context, and whether or not it’s convenient for those in power to acknowledge, the pandemic has unearthed the reality of strained race relations that permeate Australian society. The Australian Human Rights Commission and Anti-Discrimination NSW have documented a surge in anti-Asian racism, while the Asian Australian Alliance has reported almost 400 racist incidents since April. Behind the dispassionate statistics is a traumatic inventory of lived experiences by the Asian Australian community: a bus driver verbally assaulted, two sisters spat at while crossing the street, a family’s home vandalised with hateful graffiti, an international student punched for wearing a face mask.

These racist sentiments were not spawned by Covid-19 – the virus merely amplified their potency and provided an unabashed avenue for their release. And yet, when China’s travel warnings were issued, Chinese international students quickly came to Australia’s defence, rebuking the notion that studying here was dangerous and expressing dismay that they were being used as bargaining chips in the escalating economic tug-of-war between China and Australia.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

Bellegarde: Let’s just admit it: Canada has a racism problem

2020/06/16 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

As a Cree man, the outrage that has followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis resonates with my experience and my people’s demands for justice. Canadians cannot ignore the dangerous parallels that exist in how Canadian police officers interact with people of different ethnicities and how a distressingly high percentage of First Nations men and women end up either injured or dead at the hands of the people we expect to help and protect us.

Last week, a young mother, Chantel Moore, was killed by a local Edmunston, N.B. policeman who was supposed to be making a wellness check on her. She was reported to be holding a knife and in some emotional distress, but how a knock on the door turned into a confrontation in which the officer felt the need to discharge his weapon five times is hard to imagine. A day later came news that Chief Allan Adam was badly beaten and his wife roughed up during a routine traffic stop by RCMP officers in Fort McMurray in March. The pictures of Chief Adam’s battered face were disturbing, but it is the officers’ voices captured on tape and the speed with which the police escalated the confrontation that should alarm everyone. And Friday night, another First Nations man was shot dead by the Mounties, this time near Miramichi, N.B. The circumstances are always unique, but the resulting escalation and violent confrontation is not.

Until Friday, when Commissioner Brenda Lucki finally admitted her police force has a problem, the RCMP had insisted that its officers respond to situations in the same ways, regardless of whether the civilian on the other side is white, Black or First Nation. But the statistics simply don’t support this claim. Worse, the sentiment among police and First Nations youth is now rife with contempt and distrust.

Let’s spare ourselves another futile debate over whether systemic racism exists in Canada. There have been countless reports over the past 50 years, and the conclusion is always the same: First Nations face systemic racism in every aspect of life and from every institution of Canadian society. This is a fact. It should be clear to everyone by now that Canada’s unwillingness to address systemic racism is killing people. It’s killing Black people and it’s killing First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. We have to move past this unnecessary debate about whether or not systemic racism exists and we have to do it now.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made considerable efforts toward reconciliation and creating economic opportunities for First Nations, his government remains notably silent on dealing with systemic racism within the justice and corrections systems. Restorative justice delayed is restorative justice denied. It is clear this is not a problem that will heal itself.

Canadians spend so much money on policing despite knowing that it can’t solve the pressing social problems facing marginalized communities. In recent days, there have been mounting calls all over the world to “defund the police.” My question is this: When our young First Nations, in distress, call for help, are the police the right people to answer?

As a country, our focus must be on peace and justice more than law and order. Some would try to argue that the difference between those two philosophies is minimal, but I believe it is the difference between life and death. Instead of putting more guns and armoured cars in the hands of police forces, let’s try funding better schools and after-school sports programs that are proven to successfully reduce drug use and gang violence. Instead of more police officers, let’s focus on ones that are better trained, with higher compensation available to retain those with the best records for de-escalating conflict and not harming those they’re supposed to be helping.

The memory of Martin Luther King has been evoked many times over the past few weeks. One thing he said has always stood out to me: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” It is hard to imagine more challenging times than these, yet it is precisely now that we need Mr. Trudeau and his team to finish the job that they started.

Source: Let’s just admit it: Canada has a racism problem Perry Bellegarde

Filed under Aboriginal, Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with ,

RCMP failing to diversify its workforce, new statistics show

2020/06/15 Leave a comment


Nothing new here as the RCMP (along with the Canadian Forces) has long struggled to improve representation of visible minorities and women (need to update above chart but doubt that overall picture has changed much):

A drive to make the RCMP’s workforce more diverse stalled last year as the Mounties struggled to become fully representative of the communities they police, newly available statistics show.

The national police force’s report on employment equity for 2018-19 says the diversity of the RCMP’s overall workforce had “not changed by any significant measure” from the previous year.

The proportion of women, visible minorities and people with disabilities also remained lower than the rates found in the general Canadian workforce, while the proportion of Indigenous employees was a notable exception.

“Diversity has traditionally been a challenge for police forces in Canada, and the RCMP is no exception,” says the report, recently tabled in Parliament.

The killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by police in Minnesota has set off a global wave of calls for law-enforcement agencies to fundamentally address entrenched racism and the oppression of minorities.

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki has acknowledged her police force can improve. But she initially stopped short of endorsing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s assessment that the force, like all Canadian institutions, exhibits systemic racism.

On Friday, Lucki expressed regret for not doing so.

“During some recent interviews, I shared that I struggled with the definition of systemic racism, while trying to highlight the great work done by the overwhelming majority of our employees,” she said in a statement.

“I did acknowledge that we, like others, have racism in our organization, but I did not say definitively that systemic racism exists in the RCMP. I should have.

“As many have said, I do know that systemic racism is part of every institution, the RCMP included. Throughout our history and today, we have not always treated racialized and Indigenous people fairly.”

Trudeau said Friday that Lucki had already made strides within the RCMP but added that more needs to be done quickly across the country to ensure police officers, including Mounties, can better serve Canadians.

“There are some deep changes we need to make in our institutions, and we need to work with people who want to make those changes, who want to be part of the solution — and I know Commissioner Lucki is one of those,” Trudeau said.

The report says that on April 1, 2019, representation rates among regular RCMP members, as opposed to civilian employees, were 21.8 per cent for women, 11.5 per cent for visible minorities, 7.5 per cent for Indigenous people and 1.6 per cent for people with disabilities.

The numbers are fairly consistent with 2018 data for all police forces in Canada, the report notes.

“These results are not reflective of modern trends being observed in the Canadian population, and signal that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to attracting, selecting, developing and retaining diverse employees is not the most effective way of achieving diversity in the workforce,” the report says.

“The RCMP must continue to strive to increase the diversity of its workforce by removing barriers which inhibit attracting new employees who will bring a greater diversity of identities, backgrounds, experiences and expertise.”

Asked for comment on the report, the RCMP said that while year-over-year changes in diversity statistics will vary, the proportion of visible minorities among police officers has been increasing steadily for decades.

The RCMP’s modernization plan, spearheaded by Lucki, has identified a more representative employee base as critical to the force’s future.

“Delivering culturally relevant community policing solutions requires an in-depth understanding of the challenges people experience while accessing justice,” the equity report says.

“Making progress in this area requires meaningful dialogue with community leaders, enabled by a diverse workforce able to overcome differences and capable of building lasting relationships.”

The RCMP has tried to address employment-equity shortcomings through initiatives including an internal advisory council, fostering a better understanding of Indigenous traditions, and making the force’s uniform and grooming requirements more sensitive to the needs of different faith groups.

The force says it is also trying to attract candidates from different backgrounds through career fairs and a review of its application process to remove possible barriers. It has also developed a strategy to increase diversity at the executive levels in response to a recent audit.

Understanding common barriers such as privilege, bias, harassment and the glass ceiling is not difficult, the report says.

“Oftentimes, the real challenge is acknowledging that equity and inclusion-related issues must be addressed. This may mean accepting different approaches to conducting operations, which can lead to short- and long-term success.”

The report recommends a focus on identifying the “success factors” that contribute to a Mountie’s advancement to the highest officer ranks.

Reaching the executive level requires access to the right opportunities, networks and training, endorsement from other senior leaders, language skills and a balance between personal obligations and the increased demands of executive leadership, it says.

However, members of the underrepresented groups “are likely to face additional challenges” in this respect.

These factors point to a need to identify leadership potential early, so the organization is well-positioned to help promising members advance, the report says.

Source:  RCMP failing to diversify its workforce, new statistics show

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Canadians have farmed out tragedy to the migrant workers who provide our food

2020/06/15 Leave a comment

Valid if somewhat imbalanced commentary on the vulnerability of temporary agriculture workers by Edward Dunsworth but yes, more and better regulation required. Permanent residency for seasonal work is more problematic:

On May 30, Bonifacio Eugenio Romero, a 31-year-old Mexican migrant farm worker in Windsor-Essex County, became the first known temporary foreign farm labourer to die from COVID-19 in Canada. One week later, a second Mexican migrant in Windsor-Essex, 24-year-old Rogelio Munoz Santos, met the same fate.

Elsewhere in Ontario, hundreds of farm workers have tested positive for the virus and dozens have been hospitalized, with the biggest outbreak occurring at the Scotlynn Group farm in Norfolk County, where about three-quarters of the migrant work force has contracted the novel coronavirus.

Lamentably, for these men and women, risking their lives in the course of their work is nothing new. Instead, in the half-century in which they have laboured in Canada, seasonal farm workers from the Global South have found themselves in a permanent state of risk – of illness, injury and death – while governments and employers have demurred on enacting meaningful reforms. These latest tragic deaths and the swell of infections during the pandemic are part of a rotten, decades-old regime of racial and economic apartheid and amount to nothing less than the systemic sacrifice of human lives at the altar of profit.

Mr. Eugenio Romero, Mr. Munoz Santos and the Scotlynn farm workers all came to Canada through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). Founded in 1966, the SAWP brings upward of 40,000 workers to Canada each year from Mexico, Jamaica and other Caribbean countries to work seasonal jobs in agriculture and food processing. Another 20,000 or so temporary farm workers enter Canada each year through other programs.

Participants in the SAWP are bound to their assigned employer, unable to freely change jobs. In most provinces, they are barred from joining or forming a union. They are often housed in cramped, if not downright appalling, conditions – perfectly suited for the spread of infectious disease. With their employment and immigration status effectively controlled by employers, migrants dependent on their minimum-wage Canadian incomes have a strong disincentive to speak out against abuses. And though many toil for decades in Canada, there is no pathway for SAWP workers to become permanent residents in the country that so desperately needs their labour. (A small permanent residency pilot program announced last year is open only to workers on year-round contracts, thus excluding the large majority.)

On top of it all, migrant farm workers’ jobs and living situations are highly dangerous and – as we are seeing now – sometimes even deadly.

This has been evident since the very founding of the SAWP. While none of the 264 Jamaicans who travelled to Canada in the program’s first year died on the job, 13 of them were chased out of their bunkhouse one night by a drunken, shotgun-toting friend of their boss, and forced to flee seven kilometres down a dark rural road. The program’s first fatalities came in 1967, its second year, when two of the 1,077 participants died in Canada from unknown causes.

In the decades since, dozens of workers have had their names added to this unenviable list, with countless more injured and taken ill. A Jamaican worker, who is unnamed in government reports, was killed by lightning strike in Beamsville, Ont., in 1973. Ned Peart, another Jamaican, was killed in 2002 on a tobacco farm in Brantford, Ont. In 2012, in Hampstead, Ont., a passenger van carrying 13 Peruvian and Nicaraguan poultry labourers returning home after a long day’s work collided with a truck driven by Christopher Fulton; David Armando Blancas Hernandez, Elvio Suncion Bravo, Enrique Arturo Arenaza Leon, Juan Castillo, Fernando Martin Valdiviezo Correa, Jose Mercedes Valdiviezo Taboa, Cesar Augusto Sanchez Palacios, Corsino Jaramillo, Lizardo Mario Abril and Oscar Walter Campomanes Corzo were killed, as was Mr. Fulton. Ivan Guerrero of Mexico drowned in 2014 while trying to fix a leak near his bunkhouse in Ormstown, Que., a year after recording a video in which he described being treated like a dog by his employer. Sheldon McKenzie, a Jamaican worker who suffered a severe head injury working at a tomato farm in Leamington, Ont., passed away months later in September, 2015. Zenaida, a Mexican woman whose last name was not made public, was killed in a hit-and-run in Niagara last summer. And now, Mr. Eugenio Romero and Mr. Munoz Santos.

Just as the Black Lives Matter movement has so poignantly implored us to do for victims of police violence, we should know – and say – their names.

Then and now, employers that have built a multibillion dollar industry on the backs of migrant labourers have demonstrated more concern for the financial costs of death and illness than with providing safer conditions for workers.

The primary response from growers to the two SAWP workers’ deaths in 1967 was to lobby the government on cost-sharing arrangements. “The employers … felt that they should not be held responsible for the costs of burial in case of the death of a worker,” a government memo tersely noted.

Amid the current pandemic, as a scathing June 8 report by the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change reveals, employers have illegally clawed back wages from quarantining workers, imposed draconian restrictions on their freedoms and required employees to live and work in wildly unsafe conditions.

Publicly, farmers have voiced opposition to quarantine rules, and stridently so in Norfolk County, the site of the Scotlynn outbreak. In recent weeks, Schuyler Farms – with the vocal support of many other area growers – launched a legal challenge against local health unit regulations that prohibit more than three workers sharing accommodations during their two-week quarantine upon arrival in Canada. Even with the Scotlynn outbreak in full effect, Schuyler has pushed forward with the challenge, decrying the threat to crops and calling the requirement “arbitrary.”

Meanwhile, Scotlynn chief executive Scott Biddle saw it fit to give a newspaper interview last week lamenting the loss of 450 acres of asparagus, even as seven of his employees lay in hospital beds – two in intensive care – with COVID-19.

For their part, governments in both Canada and migrant-sending countries have remained steadfastly disinterested in taking measures to better safeguard the health and safety of migrant workers, preferring to treat worker deaths and accidents as isolated incidents rather than as manifestations of systemic oppression.

To date, there has never been a single coroner’s inquest into the death of a migrant farm worker, despite significant pressure from victims’ families and advocacy groups such as Justicia for Migrant Workers over the years. Meanwhile, workers who have been incapacitated on the job in Canada are frequently sent back home and cut off from compensation payments, regardless of their employment prospects. And now, as Toronto Star uncovered, Jamaican workers leaving for Canada are required to sign waivers that release the Jamaican government from liability for any coronavirus-related “costs, damages and loss.”

Urgent changes are needed to protect migrant farm workers from COVID-19. But the coronavirus is merely the latest symptom of a decades-old illness for Canada’s migrant agricultural work force. To treat it properly will require a complete overhaul of the temporary foreign worker regime, a key component of which will be the granting of permanent residency status to all participants, as has been done for front-line migrant workers in many other countries during the pandemic.

Only then can Canada begin to correct the rank hypocrisy of treating essential workers as expendable and turn a page on this shameful part of our history.

Source: Canadians have farmed out tragedy to the migrant workers who provide our food

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →