Canada: In The Entanglement Of Hate, Racism - PRIMORG Foundation

Since 2019, the Canadian authorities have realized that hate, extremism and racial violence were at the doors.

So much time had been wasted, either politicking or pretending that it cannot get close.

The ravaging effects of the long-drawn hatred manifesting in all manners of ways in the nearby United States of America should have drawn earlier attention to the coming troubles in Canada.

The setting up of the anti-racism secretariat by the government in 2019 was apparently a response to the visible signs of the budding challenges then.

Since then, the secretariat and the ministry for diversity have taken different but very quick steps to respond to the challenge and to attempt to cover lost grounds.

Unfortunately, the steps by the government to stem the tide were quickly swamped up by multiple incidents linked to racism, hate and discrimination across Canada.

The figures coming out from the government clearly indicates an emergency on matters of racism, hate and discrimination. It seems the racism epidemic is in the making.

In 2016, a quarter or “25% of the discrimination complaints received by the Canadian Human Rights Commission relate to race, colour, national or ethnic origin/or religion.”

Similarly, the report says “43% of hate crimes in 2017 were motivated by hatred of a race or ethnicity.”

While the black population had 16% of the targeted hate crimes in 2017, the Muslim population had 17% of all hate crimes the same year, says the report.

In the same year 2017, according to the report, hate crimes targeting the Jewish population in Canada accounted for 18% of all crimes in Canada.

The systemic discrimination hatched on race, colour and religion continues to undermine the tenets of co-existence needed to harness the multi-racial and multi-cultural potentials of the Canadian society.

The Federal anti-racism secretariat published figures from the Canadian Human Rights Commission as follows:

• Racialized Canadians earn an average of 81 Cents to the dollar compared to other Canadians
• Black males living in Toronto are three times more likely to be stopped and asked for identification by the police
• Employers are about 40% more likely to interview a job applicant with an English sounding name despite identical education, skill and experience.
• 27% of the federal prison population in 2017 were indigenous people, who only comprised 4.1% of the Canadian population (Statistics Canada, 2018)
• Employers are about 60% more likely to interview a job applicant with a Francophone-sounding name in Quebec, despite similar education, experience and skills.

In 2020, Vancouver police reported a total of 98 hate crimes, an increase of 717 %

As of late June 2021, there were 1,092 reported incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes across Canada according to data from Fight COVID Racism.

The black community is said to be more at the receiving end of systemic racism, and physical attacks against blacks have been rising in recent years and months.

In Manitoba, September 2020, two women faced several charges, including public incitement of hatred, the first time such that such a charge was raised in southwestern Manitoba city, according to police.

“The racial part of it is horrible. It is absolutely horrible,” Staff Sgt. Bill Brown, a spokesperson for the Brandon Police Service, said

The criminal charges were as a result of a near-fatal attack on a black man, Kevin Taylor, 44 years old by five persons. He was stabbed five times.

Brandon police described the incident as “absolutely reprehensible”

The victim was taken to the hospital by a witness before police arrived.

The attack happened at the Kristopher Campbell Memorial Skate Plaza at Ninth Street and Princess Avenue in Brandon, after an altercation following yelling of racial slurs at him.

Brandon police said a video of the attack shows Taylor being punched and kicked. At one point, he tries to defend himself and holds one of the attackers down. A woman then pulls out the knife and stabs him repeatedly in the side of his abdomen, police said.

Perhaps the most horrifying hate and racist incidents in 2021 were in London, Ontario and in Saskatchewan where Asians were targeted in deliberate attacks. These crimes raised more concerns and drew the attention of the world population to Canada.

In Saskatoon Muhammad Kashif was attacked early in the morning of June 25, 2021, near his parked car when another car drove up behind him.

“They attacked … on my back with a knife or something,” Kashif said, adding they were also verbally abusing him, saying,  ‘Why you are here? We don’t like you are Muslim, why are you wearing this dress?’

“And then one guy held my hands and the other guy cut my beard.”

Kashif was taken to the hospital where he received 14 stitches to close a wound on his arm.

In London, Ontario the gruesome murder of four family members by a racially inspired driver held Canada spellbound.

These incidents resonated with previous incidents such as the 2017 shooting at a Quebec City mosque that killed six people.

Community advocates and human rights experts in a report in March 2021 said there were 1,150 cases of racist attacks from across Canada reported on web platforms with 835 cases reported on covidracism.ca, and 315 cases reported to elimin8hate.org. Data analysis was conducted using data up to December 31st, 2020.

The various reports and the attendant negative impact are driving negative imaging for Canada and if not collectively tackled with community involvement, fears, recriminations and self-defence from the receiving ends of these crimes could be unavoidable.

Efforts from the Federal and provincial authorities are however encouraging.

In August 2021, the British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner set out to examine the rise of hate during the pandemic as the topic of its first public inquiry, according to Commissioner Kasari Govender.

“Our intent is to examine hate in all its forms,” Govender told the media.

“Not only racism and racial hate, but hate directed at a wide range of people and groups in our society who are protected under B.C.’s Human Rights Code and under international human rights law. For example, hate that is perpetrated against a person or a group on the basis of their religion, their gender identity, their Indigeneity, their sexual orientation or whether they live in poverty or without a home.”

There is an urgent need for fresh and more concerted efforts by local authorities and Civil Society Organizations to build coalitions, offer education, hold dialogues and sensitizations across the board to key everyone into the long-drawn battle against racism, hate and discrimination in Canada.

Agbonsuremi Augustine Okhiria leads the anti-racism group, PRIMORG Foundation in Canada.

agbonsuremi@primorgfoundation.org