February 4, 2009
Black History Month: the fight against discrimination continues
February is Black History Month, also known as African Heritage Month. It is a time for PSAC members to highlight and acknowledge the immense benefits that the labour movement and Canada in general have achieved through the contributions of Black people and people of African heritage.
These achievements did not come without overcoming great obstacles. As a deep recession unfolds, we can expect racism and discrimination to intensify. The mad scramble for fewer jobs and resources is the perfect condition for corporate elites to divide the working class, and an effective weapon in their arsenal is racism. Although all workers suffer from weakened class solidarity, workers of colour, including those of African heritage, are the more disadvantaged. This can be gleaned from Canadian history, in fact, even from current demographics.
In the late 19th century, as international demand for Canadian agricultural products grew, the federal government began a campaign to attract immigrant farmers by offering free farm land. This was a very attractive offer to many Blacks in the United States, many of whom were recently freed slaves but who were denied access to dwindling agricultural lands in that country. However, they found they were also not welcome in Canada.
Although no law had been enacted to specifically exclude Black immigration into Canada, immigration officials devised back-door schemes to exclude Blacks and reject applications for settlement from African-Americans.
The few African-Canadians already settled in the country were relegated to menial, low-paying jobs that most Canadians did not want, such as domestic helpers and railway porters. From the 1950s to 1970s, most of the Black immigrants to Canada were Caribbean women recruited as live-in nannies and domestic helpers. As these women's struggles for equal rights as workers intensified, Canada's immigration policies for domestic helpers became more restrictive.
Due to their leading role in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, African-Canadians won rights that their ancestors at the beginning of the century could only dream about. By 1975, every Canadian province had Human Rights Commissions, and in 1977, a federal commission was established to oversee the Canadian Human Rights Act. The Charter of Rights was enacted to enshrine fundamental equality rights of all people in Canada.
Racial discrimination, however, continues to exist in Canada. Although it is less overt, it is more systemic and, therefore, more difficult to target and eliminate.
The 2006 census reports that 16.2% of Canadians identified themselves as a “visible minority,” an increase of 27% from the 2001 census. Those who identified themselves as Black rose 18.4% to 783,800, the third largest visible minority group. The higher number of visible minorities is due to an increase in immigration from non-European countries. And yet, unemployment rates and incidence of low income are higher among visible minority immigrants than among those who are Canadian-born, despite having attained, on average, higher education than the latter.
Racialized persons in the federal public service also remain under-represented. The Canadian Human Rights Commission recently reported that “there was very little improvement” in visible minority hiring in recent years. It further states that 2007 “was the lowest proportion of hires in the past six years” and as a result of low levels of hiring, “visible minorities will likely remain under-represented in the public service in the coming years.”
Date Modified : 2010/01/29
