Education and earnings of Canadian-born Black populations

2023/09/06 Leave a comment

Striking the differences between Canadian-born and African and to a lesser extent Caribbean born groups, along with the education differences. Helps explain part of the higher prevalence of Blacks in administrative positions compared to professional positions.

This study uses the 2021 Census to describe the educational attainment and earnings of the Canadian-born Black population, focusing on three groups: 1) those with at least one African-born parent (African-origin); 2) those with at least one Caribbean-born parent (Caribbean-origin) and 3) those whose parents were both born in Canada (Canadian-origin). Comparisons are drawn with the non-racialized, non-Indigenous population, both second generation and third generation or more. The study provides a descriptive analysis of the demographic and educational characteristics of the three Canadian-born Black populations, followed by a regression analysis examining factors affecting earnings, including educational attainment, job characteristics, and other factors.

  • The educational attainment of Canadian-born Black populations differs considerably between groups. For example, the share with a bachelor’s degree or higher is 46% among the African-origin Black population, 27% among the Caribbean-origin Black population, and 16% among the Canadian-origin Black population. 
  • After taking age into account, all groups of Black men earn less than non-racialized third-generation or more men, with the largest earnings gap among Canadian-origin Black men (-$16,300) and the smallest among African-origin Black men (-$8,500). Canadian-origin (-$9,500) and Caribbean-origin (-$1,300) Black women likewise earn less than non-racialized third-generation or more women, while African-origin Black women earn more (+$3,100). 
  • For both women and men, differences in educational attainment are associated with approximately $8,000 in earnings difference between the African-origin and Canadian-origin Black populations, after controlling for other factors.
  • Differences in educational attainment are associated with higher earnings among African-origin Black women (+$4,500) and men (+3,500), who have high educational attainment, and lower earnings among Canadian-origin Black women (-$3,800) and men (-$4,500), who have low educational attainment, relative to non-racialized third-generation or more populations of the same genders. Earnings differences related to educational attainment are smaller for Caribbean-origin Black women (+1,200) and men (-$400), whose educational attainment is more similar to that of the non-racialized third-generation or more population. 
  • Despite their diversity in terms of educational attainment and other characteristics, all Black groups experienced earnings gaps (ranging from $1,400 to $4,100) associated with working in lower-level occupations relative to their education and being less likely to have full time full year work, compared to the non-racialized third-generation or more population. Among African-origin men and Caribbean-origin women, the negative wage effect from these differences was larger than the positive effect from higher educational attainment.
  • All Black groups also had earnings gaps (ranging from $2,900 to $8,300) that were not explained by any factors associated in the regression. Differences in pay between Black and non-racialized workers in the same occupations may be one factor in these differences. The unexplained effects were larger for Black men than Black women, across all three Black groups.

Source: Education and earnings of Canadian-born Black populations

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Black Canadians gave views on racism in the justice system and experiences with police. Results were ‘stunning’

2023/06/17 Leave a comment

Of note:

The rift between Black Canadians and the country’s criminal justice system runs particularly deep and wide, according to the results of Canada’s first Black Canadian National Survey.

A report released this week by York University’s Institute for Social Researchreveals that 90 per cent of Black Canadians believe that racism in the criminal justice system is a serious problem. They are closely followed in that belief by the country’s Indigenous people, at 82 per cent.

The survey also outlines the extent of Black Canadians’ deep mistrust of the nation’s police services as well.

In the 12 months prior to the survey, more than one in five Black Canadians (22 per cent) reported being unfairly stopped by police — an experience less than half as common in any other racial or ethnic group. Only five per cent of white Canadians, for example, reported unfair stops.

The survey numbers suggested this seems to happen more in the country’s coastal provinces than anywhere else. In Atlantic Canada, 40 per cent of Black males reported being stopped unfairly by police in the previous 12 months. In B.C. that figure was 41 per cent. By comparison, the rates in Ontario and Quebec were 30 and 31 per cent respectively.

Lorne Foster, York University’s Research Chair in Black Canadian Studies and Human Rights and one of the co-authors of the survey report, calls those numbers “stunning.”

“It kind of makes me gasp, in a sense, to think that 22 per cent of randomly collected Black respondents across the country suggest that they’ve had unfair encounters with police,” he says.

He says although many people think of the racial profiling and racial discrimination of Blacks by police as a big-city problem, that the data from the Atlantic Provinces and B.C. — where the percentage of Blacks reporting unfair stops by police was almost 20 points higher than the national average — calls that idea into question.

“There is, in policing, the usual theory that all our police services are good. (And) if there’s something wrong, it’s only a few bad apples and there’s a few bad apples in every good barrel,” he says. “That argument has existed for a long time — that the police services are basically and fundamentally fair and unbiased.

“This data sort of belies that.”

The RCMP did not respond to requests for comment on the results of the survey.

Under former commissioner Brenda Lucki, the Mounties eventually acknowledged ongoing problems with systemic racism and discrimination. Lucki’s Vision 150 program was designed, over the course of five to seven years, to transform the RCMP, in part by addressing those discrimination problems — problems that have, since 2018 lead to the national police force paying out or potentially facing some $2.4 billion worth of damages in multiple class action lawsuits.

Part of that program was a three-hour, online course, United Against Racism launched in November 2021. It was stipulated by the RCMP as mandatory for all employees to complete by September 2022.

As of Jan. 1, 2023, only 51.6 per cent had completed the course. When that data is filtered to include only RCMP members — regular officers and special constables — the figure drops sightly to 51 per cent.

The data is the result of a hybrid survey (using three different ways of collecting responses) of almost 7,000 Canadians, the majority — 5,697 — chosen randomly from across the country.

Foster is quick to point out, though, that the data this survey does not actually allow researchers to make determinations of racial profiling.

“But it does suggest, because the numbers are so disparate for Black communities, that there could be issues there. And they should be looked into.”

He likens it to a patient getting an X-ray and doctors seeing a shadow in the lungs. There’s definitely something abnormal there, but it will take more tests to find out what exactly it is.

The survey results also reveal that Black Canadians see their workplaces as an epicentre of racial discrimination, says Foster.

Seventy-five per cent of Black Canadians said they have experienced workplace racism and think it’s a problem. Another 47 per cent believe they have been treated unfairly by an employer regarding hiring, pay or promotion in the 12 months prior to the survey.

Seventy per cent of other non-whites also see workplace racism as a serious problem. By contrast, 56 per cent of white Canadians don’t see racism in the workplace as a problem or believe it to be a minor issue.

The survey results — which also include Black Canadians’ opinions on racism in health care, child care and social services — go a long way to establishing the importance of collecting specific race-based data.

“Race data has not been collected in this country in any kind of consistent and proper way. Not by Stats Canada, not by anybody,” says Foster.

That’s just beginning to change, though, beginning with Ontario, with Nova Scotia closely following suit. Foster has been involved with both provincial governments in helping them learn to collect that data.

In Ontario, he says, all police services are required to collect race data on use of force incidents and some police departments — Toronto among them — are collecting race data on strip searches as well. In Nova Scotia both the Health and Justice ministries have committed to collecting race-based data.

Beyond the startling numbers in the survey, says Foster, it’s a model for the rest of the country’s police services and public sector services to examine and improve their operations through the lens of collected race-based data.

“The point of this kind of research is that it really maps out these kinds of structural vulnerabilities in these public sector institutions, and it kind of points to the quality of life gaps,” he says.

“We’re a mixed race society that’s never been studied along racial lines. And this is the first salvo into that. And I’d hope that it would be followed up with many, many more.”

Source: Black Canadians gave views on racism in the justice system and experiences with police. Results were ‘stunning’

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‘A beautiful community:’ Universities open lounges for Black students

2023/04/05 Leave a comment

Of note. Not sure that this trend improves social cohesion, inclusion and integration but appears inevitable:

Spaces designated for students from marginalized backgrounds are spreading across Canadian universities, as officials say they are a necessary and overdue response to decades of racism on campus.

Toronto Metropolitan University officially opened a space late last month for students who self-identify as Black.

Cheryl Thompson, an associate professor at the university, said the need for such lounges became increasingly clear following the death of George Floyd, whose 2020 killing by a white Minneapolis Police Department officer sparked protests worldwide.

“Something did shift in 2020 institutionally … when the world witnessed the inhumanity in that George Floyd video,” Thompson said about the Black man who was seen in a video using his last few breaths telling the officer kneeling on his neck, “I can’t breathe.”

“The demands Black students have been making for decades have finally been heard.”

Eboni Morgan, a spokesperson for TMU’s lounge, said the decision to create the room stemmed from a recommendation in a 2020 Anti-Black Racism Campus Climate Review Report that surveyed Black members of the school community. It found they continue to face systemic racism by institutions and their peers.

The lounge — equipped with a kitchen, other facilities and a mural painted by a Black student artist — can fit up to 25 students at a time.

“It’s a beautiful community to watch unfold,” Morgan said. “It’s been loud, exciting and students are constantly in the space.”

Thompson said that in the lounge, “you can let your guard down and have conversations about things you’re going through … like support groups for people who have suffered trauma.”

“One of the reasons why young people struggle with their mental health is because they think they’re the only ones to go through what they’re going through,” she said. “Having these spaces makes you more confident and say, ‘oh, I’m not alone.”

Across the city, York University — Canada’s second-largest — launched a lounge for Black students in January. The University of Winnipeg’s BIPOC lounge for students who are Black, Indigenous and people of colour opened in 2018.

The University of British Columbia launched a space for Black male students last year, said Ainsley Carry, a university spokesperson.

Carry said UBC’s Black Male Initiative, is “believed to be the first-of-its-kind program at a Canadian university,” and was designed to provide “a confidential space on campus for members to connect to other Black male students where they can share their lived experiences.”

She said the pilot program has been well received.

“We recognize there is underrepresentation of the Black population at UBC, and that Black community members may feel isolated or face challenges not experienced by their non-Black peers,” Carry said.

“That is why UBC is taking steps … to help foster a sense of belonging … for Black community members.”

Thompson said TMU has received emails blasting its lounge as “segregationist.”

She dismissed that charge as “foolishness,” arguing such accusations were written by people who had no knowledge of what a system of segregation is.

Thompson said the type of racism Black people experience is different than other marginalized groups

“Anti-Black racism is not dependent on even being Canadian. It has nothing to do with your citizenship.”

Providing students with safe spaces is crucial to fostering their development, she said.

One critic of the lounges is Adaeze Mbalaja, the president of the York Federation of Students. She has accused school administrators of using the spaces to mend reputations tarred by years of underfunding Black student groups.

“This is a trend of performative justice, performative activism by institutions across Canada,” she said.

Mbalaja said that based on her discussions with other Black student associations in the Toronto area, she believed universities were creating spaces for Black students but leaving Black students groups underfunded “to fend for themselves.”

“If you’re going to support Black students, do that in a way that is genuine and in a way that desires to actually uplift and amplify the community.”

Thompson said such criticism was “healthy.”

“Universities, instead of dismissing that, need to really ask themselves, ‘Oh, where are they coming from?’ ‘Maybe we do need to have more open lines of communication.'”

Source: ‘A beautiful community:’ Universities open lounges for Black students

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Ottawa’s contract for $200-million fund not transparent, Black business group says

2023/02/04 Leave a comment

Not a good look:

A prominent Black business group is accusing the federal government of running a rushed and opaque procurement process to administer a $200-million endowment program for Black-led charities and community organizations.

The Liberal government first announced the Black-led Philanthropic Endowment Fund in the 2021 budget, but only put out a request for proposals to run the fund last fall. Groups had until Nov. 25 to apply. The fund is meant to be self-sustaining for at least 10 years and the administrators have access to only $9.5-million of the fund for early operating and granting activities.

One group that applied is the Black Opportunity Fund (BOF), which was started by a coalition of Black executives in 2020 to tackle systemic anti-Black racism in corporate Canada and invest in Black-led organizations and businesses.

BOF is funded through programs with corporate partners, including Toronto-Dominion Bank and Walmart Stores Inc. It does not currently take government funding.

Executive director Craig Wellington said BOF had been one of many groups with whom the government had consulted in designing the philanthropic fund.

He said BOF wrote up a proposal of more than 500 pages to describe in detail how the fund could be used effectively, and had arranged a consortium of partners that included the Toronto Foundation and RockCreek, a global investment firm with $16-billion in assets under management.

He said after the group filed its application in November, it heard nothing until Jan. 27, when it was informed it was not selected for the fund in a short e-mail signed from “Service Canada.”

“We had received no phone calls, no communication, no e-mails, regarding the proposal. Not a question,” Mr. Wellington said.

He said the short timeline – compared with the length of time it usually takes the government to do its due diligence on large procurement processes – suggested to him that Ottawa already had a winner in mind.

“What we are starting to hear is that they’ve already selected the agent,” Mr. Wellington said. “Which would be shocking, because we’re talking about Nov. 25 to a week ago. You’re talking eight weeks total, including the holiday closure. For a $200-million procurement. That is not possible. The government cannot buy computers in six weeks.”

In a letter sent Monday to a group of Liberal ministers that includes Minister of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion Ahmed Hussen, BOF asked for the government to make a detailed account of how it is reviewing and selecting applications. BOF also asked the federal Auditor-General to review the procurement process.

“It was our expectation that the government would undergo a thorough, rigorous and transparent process to select the steward for the fund, particularly in light of recent controversies with respect to other procurement processes,” said the letter signed from BOF board chair Ray Williams, managing director and vice-chairman of National Bank Financial.

One of the most prominent federal initiatives for Black-owned businesses to date is the $160-million Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund, which was slow to roll out funds after it launched in the summer of 2021. A frequent criticism from members of the Black business community has been that the entrepreneurship fund was rushed out the door before it was ready, and not enough due diligence was done in selecting the administrators, which led to poor results.

Brittany-Anne Hendrych, a spokesperson for Mr. Hussen, defended the selection process and said it built on earlier consultations the government had held with Black organizations on the design of the program.

“Let us be clear, all applicants were assessed by officials at Employment and Social Development Canada based on their capacity to deliver on the goals of the endowment fund in a fair, transparent and objective manner,” Ms. Hendrych said in a statement.

She said a fund administrator had indeed been selected and more information would be announced soon.

The Michaëlle Jean Foundation, which was a partner on the BOF application, said it supported the call for more government transparency.

“It is a deep disappointment that the federal government has not had any questions for BOF or its partners with regards to their well-considered and action-oriented proposal for this fund,” executive director Tara Lapointe said in a statement.

Mr. Wellington said he thinks the government is putting optics ahead of its concern for proper spending.

“They’re getting prepared to make an announcement during Black History Month,” he said. “So Black History Month, and making a photo-op or whatever, is more of a priority than a rigorous, transparent process.”

Source: Ottawa’s contract for $200-million fund not transparent, Black business group says

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‘A specific form of anti-Black racism:’ Scholars want Canadian apology for slavery

2022/08/02 Leave a comment

Not unexpected given the growing number of apologies. But as Senator Bernard notes “apology is empty without action.”

The federal government has shifted resources and initiatives towards anti-black racism, both inside and outside government, as have some provinces and parts of the business sector (e.g., BlackNorth Initiative). Legitimate to press for more and faster, based upon an assessment of which approaches are likely to be more effective:

More than a year after Canada proclaimed Aug. 1 as Emancipation Day, Black leaders and scholars are renewing their calls for Ottawa to make a formal apology for the country’s history of slavery and its intergenerational harms.

Author Elise Harding-Davis said Sunday that the federal government’s vote last March to recognize Emancipation Day shows Canadian leaders know that the country’s history of slavery has caused generations of harm to Black people.

To ignore years of calls for a proper apology is “shameful,” she said.

“An apology would mean recognition of the fact that we were enslaved in this country,” Harding-Davis said in an interview. “It would also be an amelioration of the harsh treatment Black people have received and the validation that we have honestly contributed not only to this country, but to the making of this country.”

Emancipation Day recognizes the day in 1834 that the Slavery Abolition Act came into force, thus ending slavery in most British colonies including Canada, and freeing over 800,000 people. Thousands of slaves from Africa were brought against their will to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, as well as to Lower Canada and Upper Canada, which is now Ontario.

In the colony of New France — which became British territory in the 1760s — the majority of slaves were Indigenous, historians say.

The Slavery Abolition Act freed all enslaved people, including Indigenous people, Harding-Davis said, adding: “A determination to free Black people helped free all people, and that’s huge.”

She said she doesn’t feel most Canadians are even aware of the country’s history of slavery.

“It’s just been sidelined and brushed under the rug as much as possible,” she said. “This anti-racism movement that has happened … in the last10 years, but more focused since George Floyd’s death in the United States, has only highlighted that there’s a small awareness that there’s anything wrong with the treatment of Black people in Canada.”

Dalhousie University history professor Afua Cooper said Sunday that she first asked Ottawa in 2007 to apologize for slavery and its harms. The principal investigator for the Black People’s History of Canada project noted that in the meantime, other groups have received apologies for historical harms.

“There can’t be any other explanation except that this is a specific form of anti-Black racism,” Cooper said in an interview. “Black people are not seen as fully-fledged citizens and it’s the federal government’s way of saying, ‘Too bad.'”

Some will argue that an apology isn’t warranted, she said, since Canada was formed in 1867, more than three decades after slavery ended. But Cooper said that reasoning doesn’t hold up, adding that the country formed in 1867 was built from what it was in the years before.

“And OK, how about apologizing to the Black community for things that happened after 1967?” she asked, pointing to examples including segregation, and a 1911 proposal in government that sought to ban Black immigrants from entering the country.

The last segregated school in Canada — in Lincolnville, N.S. — didn’t close until 1983.

Harding-Davis also doesn’t buy that argument. Black people have been subject to marginalization because of laws and practices that allowed and came from slavery, she said.

“The mindset, the beliefs have been left in place,” she said. “We continue to face prejudice and discrimination and longtime disparities, and the government has really done little to nothing to change that.”

Nova Scotia Sen. Wanda Thomas Bernard said Sunday that it is “absolutely” time for a federal apology for the country’s practice of enslaving Black people and its lasting harms, but she said an apology is empty without action.

The question she is asking Canada after last year’s recognition of Emancipation Day is, “What’s next?”

“There’s such a significant need for education, there is such a significant need for us to create greater awareness, but there’s also a need for us to engage in actions,” she said in an interview.

“We really need more engagement from everyone to move forward to walk this path in a more positive way. We need allies to be more impactful, more committed as they go forward, and not just performing allyship.”

The federal Department of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion did not immediately provide a comment upon request.

Source: ‘A specific form of anti-Black racism:’ Scholars want Canadian apology for slavery

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Most Black nurses in Ontario deal with racism. This task force of nurses has a way forward

2022/02/10 Leave a comment

Of interest:

Nurse practitioner Corsita Garraway still thinks about a patient she had years ago who lost her foot.

She was an older, Black woman who had been in the hospital due to complications with diabetes and developed gangrene. But it went overlooked until the only solution was to amputate.

Gangrene often turns the skin black, but Garraway said others caring for this woman must not have been able to identify it on her dark skin. “People didn’t recognize that the blackness of her foot was a blackness of her foot that shouldn’t have been there,” Garraway told the Star.

She knew something was wrong the moment she walked into the patient’s room because of the smell — the off scent was a signal to her right away that something was amiss. And when she went over and touched her foot gently, the patient screamed.

She can only guess how these three issues — the smell of decaying flesh, the discoloration and the pain — had gone unnoticed for so long.

Garraway was a registered practical nurse at the time so there were certain tasks other degree-holding health-care providers were meant to conduct. She eventually got her master’s degree and is now doing a PhD because she wanted to be able to provide more care for her patients.

After more than 30 years working in nursing, she’s seen anti-Black racism affect both her patients, and nurses.

“I feel like people just don’t always take the time when they see us,” Garraway said.

Now as co-chair of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario’s (RNAO) Black Nurses Task Force, Garraway and a group of 17 Black nurses and students are hoping to bring change to the field in the province.

The task force will release a report of its work so far Tuesday morning, which includes 19 specific recommendations for change in the industry. They’re aimed at post-secondary education, workplace leadership, the province, policy-makers and allies working in the field, to name a few.

The report’s recommendations are backed by a survey of 205 Black nurses and nursing students in Ontario.

About 88 per cent of respondents said they’ve experienced racism or discrimination of some kind in the field.

Almost 63 per cent of Black nurses and nursing students said their mental health was moderately or strongly affected by dealing with systemic discrimination and racial microaggressions.

Among the changes the task force wants to see are mandatory anti-racism education and training for all nurses, more Black nurses on committees and boards, changes in hiring practices, and mentorship and financial support for Black nurses.

“The whiteness of our profession is blinding,” RNAO president Doris Grinspun told the Star, noting that the lack of diversity is especially pronounced the further you move from the bedside to leadership and policy-makers.

“We miss out on the talent, we miss out on the expertise. We all bring expertise that is a mix of what you study and what you live,” Grinspun said. “We miss out as a system, as a society.”

As a white woman, Grinspun has wanted to make sure RNAO is there to provide resources, but that Black nurses take the lead.

Past RNAO president Angela Cooper Brathwaite was brought on as co-chair along with Garraway.

Cooper Brathwaite has spent her long career in Newfoundland, Manitoba and Ontario working as a nurse, midwife, managing departments and teaching in colleges and universities.

But the area where she dealt with the most friction was in teaching.

In her second year of teaching in the ’80s, Cooper Brathwaite said all of her course content disappeared from her filing cabinet days before classes were to start.

When she raised the issue with administration, someone suggested maybe a student took her lesson plans. But Cooper Brathwaite said that wasn’t likely. Students had freely borrowed her notes and returned them and also didn’t have access to her office.

She remembers college administration didn’t spend much time investigating the incident, but she couldn’t shake the thought that one of her colleagues was behind it.

Cooper Brathwaite still teaches part time at Ontario universities, but the experience early on soured her from taking full-time positions when they were offered.

But having Black professors in the field is exactly what kept student Ola Abanta Thomas Obewu on the nursing path.

Thomas Obewu quickly realized bedside nursing wasn’t for her, but seeing no examples of Black women venturing into other areas of the field was discouraging. She thought she’d have a more realistic go of it in medical school.

But then she got a Black nursing instructor. And later, she joined RNAO’s task force and saw more paths she could take as a Black woman in the field.

“I saw researchers, PhD holders, people who were the chief nursing officer in their hospital,” Thomas Obewu said. “Just that connection alone made me realize I could be like those people.”

Source: Most Black nurses in Ontario deal with racism. This task force of nurses has a way forward

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New group of African Canadian senators created to amplify Black voices

2021/12/04 Leave a comment

Of note:

Seven senators have announced the launch of the African Canadian Senate Group, created to ensure Black voices are heard in the upper chamber.

The coalition is chaired by Sen. Rosemary Moodie, and includes senators Wanda Thomas Bernard, Bernadette Clement, Amina Gerba, Mobina Jaffer, Marie-Françoise Mégie and Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia.

It is a multi-group coalition, comprising members from both the Independent Senators Group and the Progressive Senate Group.

The group said in a statement Thursday it is devoted to fighting racism and discrimination, and engaging with Canadians while advocating for their priorities.

“For too long, our voices, contributions and priorities have been ignored by our democratic institutions,” Moodie said. “As senators of African descent, we are committed to reversing this trend by working together.”

Jaffer said it is important for African Canadian senators to have this space in an institution with a history of not always considering the unique needs and lived experiences of Black people in Canada.

The group’s priorities for Canada’s 44th Parliament will include seeking a “more inclusive committee process” in the Senate, and working together with community members for progress on issues of “justice, health and economic fairness.”

Asked why the group has been formed at this particular moment, Clement said, “Because we’re energized right now,” adding that the beginning of a new session is a good time to let people know the group wants to hear from them.

Bernard said while the group has formally announced its presence to Canadians, members have been working together for years.

“The fact that there are seven of us who are working together who are committed to moving forward with issues of significance to people of African descent in this country, that’s huge. And we’re doing it in non-partisan ways.”

Moodie said the group has an opportunity to raise the voices of African Canadians in the Senate’s work, such as calling on Black witnesses for relevant studies and bills. “We saw that there is a bit of an imbalance in terms of the representation of African Canadians within the committee process.”

A priority for the group will be pressing for detailed data on communities in examining bills, she said. “The fact is that we really can’t understand or measure the impact of the policies that we are putting in place and how they affect African Canadians without looking at this data.”

The group will also be supporting the work of other senators, said Bernard, as with Sen. Kim Pate’s private member’s bill to reform the pardon process by having most criminal records automatically expire when a person has no subsequent charges or convictions.

“We will be quite actively involved and engaged in that work because the issue of record expiry has significant impacts on Canadians of African descent who have been through the criminal justice system,” Bernard said.

Clement noted she is a relatively new senator, having just been sworn in last week, but can identify with the group’s goal on a personal level.

She was the first Black woman to be a mayor in Ontario, serving in the eastern Ontario community of Cornwall.

“I’ve spent a lot of my career feeling lonely in all kinds of spaces,”Clement said. Referring to her colleagues in the newly formed Senate group, she added, “It just feels less lonely for me.”

Source: New group of African Canadian senators created to amplify Black voices

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‘Enough is enough’: Black civil servants vow to press on with discrimination suit as Liberals promise change

2021/09/18 Leave a comment

Update on the proposed class-action lawsuit:

Carol Sip spent three decades inside the federal public service, but her retirement plaque is the last thing she wants to see on her wall.

Instead it sits stored away in the original packaging.

“Why would I hang it up? It will only bring back awful memories,” Sip said. “It should be something that you should be proud of, but I’m not proud of it because I know what I went through.”

Sip is one of a group Black federal employees involved in a proposed class-action lawsuit launched last December against the federal government alleging years of discrimination and seeking some $2.5 billion in damages.

Earlier this year, federal employee Monica Agard broke her silence about being Black in the public service after a senior colleague at the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Toronto office allegedly praised “the good old days when we had slaves.”

Since then, the proposed class-action lawsuit has become one step closer to reality after a motion was filed for it to be certified. It will fall to the newly elected government to decide whether to challenge that.

But as Canadians head to the polls, the Liberals appear to be changing course on the issue with a policy plank promising support for Black workers.

Liberals now promise support for Black workers

The federal government had maintained that its workers could find help through the employee assistance and health-care programs, which the plaintiffs have long said fail to address the specific trauma of anti-Black racism.

Now, if elected, the Liberal Party says in its platform it will “establish a mental health fund for Black public servants, and support career advancement, training, sponsorship, and educational opportunities for Black workers.”

Party spokesperson Alex Wellstead wouldn’t explicitly say if a Liberal government would support certifying the class action to go forward, but acknowledged “Black Canadians face unique challenges when it comes to mental health in the workplace.

“That is why we’ve committed through our platform to work with community partners on the design and establishment of this fund, which directly responds to calls from Black employees in the public service and will ensure that Black public servants are supported.”

As the employer of the federal public service, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat said the courts have not set a timetable for next steps on certifying the suit and that at this stage, it would be “premature” to comment.

Lawyer Hugh Scher, who’s assisting with the suit, hopes whichever party forms government will work with Black civil servants to address their needs.

“If they do, then they will have a willing partner,” he said. “If they don’t, they they will have a worthy adversary in court.”

‘A living nightmare’

Sip’s ordeal began in the early 1980s, shortly after she became an employee at the federal customs department under what is now the Canada Revenue Agency. Over a number of years spent working there, she says she experienced repeated incidents of harassment and discrimination by a supervisor who behaved with impunity.

And she says never in her 26 years was she promoted beyond her clerical position.

“It became a living nightmare,” she told CBC News. Sip filed multiple grievances and won two. But she felt blacklisted for complaining and says nothing was done.

“If they had a project with lifting boxes, only the Black ladies were chosen to lift the boxes,” she recalled.

In the late 90s, Sip was diagnosed with both breast and uterine cancer. She was off work on disability in 1999, when she was told her department was being restructured. Sip says her manager told her to resign. Believing she had no other option, she did.

In a statement, the CRA told CBC News it cannot discuss specific cases but that it is “firmly dedicated to diversity inclusion and anti-racism in the workplace.”

“The CRA has launched, and will launch further, targeted executive staffing processes for visible minorities and Indigenous peoples who are underrepresented at the leadership levels,” the statement said, noting that CRA encourages all employees to come forward if they experience or witness any discrimination or harassment.

As for why she joined the proposed class action, Sip said: “I look at the young children growing up and I don’t want them to go through what I personally went through, or the others have gone through.”

‘It kills you a little bit inside’

It’s been four months since Marcia Banfield Smith left her job at the Department of Justice.

But she says the scars from her time there run deep.

Over the years, she says she endured racist jokes at meetings and watched as non-Black colleagues rose up the ranks. Meanwhile, despite applying for higher-paying roles, she was stuck in a paralegal role at the same pay — for 19 years.

“It kills you a little bit inside,” she said.

Source: ‘Enough is enough’: Black civil servants vow to press on with discrimination suit as Liberals promise change

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Return of ‘protected ridings’ sees N.S. riding with full slate of Black candidates

2021/08/10 Leave a comment

While in general not in favour of “protected riding” or deliberate drawing of borders based upon ethnic ancestry or visible minority or other groups, in some cases like this one can be justified to improve representation.

At the federal level, this largely happens more or less organically for the larger groups given settlement patterns:

In the provincial riding of Preston, just east of Halifax, a historic political race is underway.

“One of the things that’s really important, and I think so many people are talking about, is the fact that all three of us are local in particular and African Nova Scotian,” Liberal candidate Angela Simmonds said of the candidates facing off to represent the riding.

Simmonds, along with NDP candidate Colter Simmonds and Progressive Conservative candidate Archy Beals, make up the slate for the largely African Nova Scotian riding in the Aug. 17 general election. It’s believed to be the first time in the province’s history an electoral district has all Black candidates.

It’s thanks in part to the reinstatement two years ago of Preston, along with three largely Acadian ridings — Argyle, Clare and Richmond. In 2019, the Liberal government introduced legislation to bring back the so-called protected ridings after the previous NDP government did away with them in 2012, saying there were too few voters in them.

With the reinstatement, the province once again has 55 ridings, up from 51 in the last election.

Other provinces have ridings of varying sizes, typically to ensure rural voters are well represented. But Nova Scotia’s protected ridings are unique for the fact that they shield so-called “historical minorities” from redistribution, said James Bickerton, a political science professor at St. Francis Xavier University.

The ridings were initially formed in the 1990s to ensure effective representation of Acadian and African Nova Scotian voters and to protect them from electoral redistribution, “which would dilute the populations considerably to the point where minorities would no longer be the majority within the constituency,” Bickerton said.

He was on the electoral boundaries commission that concluded in 2012 that the ridings should remain. But he said the commission was threatened by then-attorney general Ross Landry, who claimed the recommendation did not respect the commission’s terms of reference.

The movement to reinstate the special districts followed a court victory by the Acadian Federation of Nova Scotia. The province’s Appeal Court ruled that the redrawn map violated democratic rights guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Effective representation was at play … the argument being that Francophones and African Nova Scotians could only have effective representation if they had representatives in the legislature from their communities,” Bickerton said. “Protected ridings doesn’t guarantee it, but it certainly makes it much more likely.”

Andrew Griffith, a fellow at the Environics Institute, a public opinion and social research organization, said ridings with large minority populations tend to elect candidates with similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds. He gave the example of Indo-Canadians.

“If you look at a place that has a large Indo-Canadian population, whether immigrants or citizens, the candidates and the MPs tend to come from those communities,” Griffith said. “Having your electoral districts be aligned not only to the overall population balance, but to recognize that some communities may be relatively under-represented because they’re too dispersed across the province or across the country, I think it’s a valid rationale.”

Glenn Graham, a political science professor at St. Francis Xavier University, echoed the sentiment, adding that the goal of the ridings is effective representation, not necessarily absolute voter parity, which is the idea that each vote carries the same weight. Voter parity, however, could also limit the voices of minority voters, he said.

When the latest changes were made in 2019, the four protected ridings had voting populations ranging from 6,451 in Argyle to 10,781 in Preston, well below the provincial average of 14,356 electors per riding.

“With all the major political parties running an African Nova Scotian candidate, it’s a guarantee that there will be an African Nova Scotian representing the area,” Beals said in a recent interview. He added that the area comes with specific cultural issues, including education and business development, of which the candidates have an intimate understanding. “Who best to address them than someone in the community, from the community?” he said.

As for the Acadian ridings, Marie-Claude Rioux, the executive director of the Acadian Federation of Nova Scotia, said in an interview that the change “gives Acadians a better chance to elect someone that will know their needs,” such as French-language health services.

But while the community was glad to see the three Acadian ridings restored, Rioux said the federation plans on fighting for more representation, namely a riding for Cheticamp, an Acadian community in Cape Breton.

Moving toward effective representation, Graham said, is about “having someone that you feel may look like you in the legislature, or is a reflection of your lived experience in the legislature.”

And with the newly reinstated ridings, Angela Simmonds said she now has an opportunity to engage with the constituents of the riding at a more personal level.

“I think when you see someone who looks like you there is an appreciation for one’s lived experiences,” she said.

Source: Return of ‘protected ridings’ sees N.S. riding with full slate of Black candidates

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One year after Trudeau took a knee, is his government living up to its anti-racism promises?

2021/08/06 Leave a comment

Useful review, showing a reasonable yes. The effectiveness, of course, will require some time to assess:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a knee at a Black Lives Matter rally on Parliament Hill over a year ago, after the murder of George Floyd sparked worldwide protests. Some welcomed the action as a commitment to fight anti-Black racism, while others dismissed it as a hollow gesture.

Shortly after that rally, the MPs and senators who make up the Parliamentary Black Caucus issued a letter listing more than 40 calls to action to confront racism. They called on the Trudeau government to go beyond mere “words and symbolic gestures” to tackle the “crisis” Black Canadians face.

“We urge all governments to act immediately. This is not a time for further discussion,” said the letter.

Source: One year after Trudeau took a knee, is his government living up to its anti-racism promises?

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , , , , ,

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