Is Canada a country with systemic racism?

Thoughts and an excerpt from chapter 4 of The Victim Cult

After the eruptions in American cities over the brutality from a now-ex police officer in Minnesota, who choked a black man to his death, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put Canada in the spotlight on race issues. The prime minister claims that Canada is beset by systemic racism. His colleague, Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna, tilts to the same proposition when she argues that “racism and discrimination are a part of our reality here in Canada.” Last fall, Green Party leader Elizabeth May claimed that Canada was “awash in systemic racism.”

This charge of systemic racism recycyles often because some conflate personal bigotry with the institutional variety. I address this in The Victim Cult in my chapter on Canada’s reflexive (and often inaccurate) blame culture. While no one should claim that all bigotry has been banished from every human heart—there are racists out there—the difference is that the dragon is no longer fed by the state in either the United States or Canada.

A snapshot: Since the 1950s, successive governments instead slashed at the dragon’s tendons and arteries by enacting policies that forswore race as a basis for government or public discrimination. For example, in 1951 in Ontario, discrimination in the workplace or in the buying or selling of property based on religion or race was outlawed under the Fair Employment Practices Act. That was followed up by the Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act that ensured equal pay for equal work for women was protected; the 1954 Fair Accommodation Practices Act also prevented discrimination in lodging and other services based on race or religion.

For more on this, see chapter 4 in The Victim Cult: How the culture of blame hurts everyone and wrecks civilizations. Image credit: Pixabay.

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Mark Milke’s newest book is The Victim Cult: How the culture of blame hurts everyone and wrecks civilizations.