Getting serious about addressing racism in Canada
Credit to Author: Margaret Jetelina| Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2019 14:09:42 +0000
Yesterday was the UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Urban Alliance on Race Relations called on all levels of government to get serious about addressing racism in Canada.
“We have had enough of the talking. We need meaningful, focused and concerted action to address racism, particularly systemic racism, in Canada, and we need it now,” said Nigel Barriffe, president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations (UARR).
Statistics show that hate crimes and incidents of racism are on the rise in Canada, but “we hear far less about the persistence of systemic and institutionalized racism here. The racism embedded in Canada’s political and social systems and institutions leads directly to fewer opportunities for members of racialized communities – less access to education, jobs, health and health care, housing and justice.”
National Anti-Racism Strategy announced in Federal Budget
UARR believes the National Anti-Racism Strategy announced in the Federal Budget is a significant step in the right direction. The strategy comes as a much-needed acknowledgement that racism is a real issue right here in Canada.
However, the details of the strategy have yet to be released. The Urban Alliance on Race Relations urges the federal government to commit to meaningful policy change that transforms the various systems of oppression into systems that uphold justice.
“We need to ensure that the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat will have a mandate to shape policies and direction across all the different ministries. We expect the secretariat to be well-resourced and to be committed to real targets, benchmarks, disaggregated data collection, and meaningful measurements,” said Neethan Shan, executive director of UARR.
UARR is also launching a campaign today calling on the Government of Ontario to make the Anti-Racism Directorate fully functional, and provide it with ample resources to fulfill its mandate to address the racism in this province.
On the municipal level, UARR strongly recommends that all cities commit seriously to vigorous, broad-reaching initiatives to end racism. At the moment, many initiatives are very limited in scope and do little to address systemic issues of racial prejudice and discrimination, thereby failing to effect sustainable change.