The Role Of Racism In Canada

The history of Canada is the era of where colonization all began towards aboriginal peoples. Over the past decades, aboriginal peoples have been mistreated and misused by the white-Europeans. They have been oppressed by Canadian society that we are known still by today and continue to live under racism resulting in gender and class oppression. The history of colonialism has been playing a big part in the way of how aboriginal people have been constructed and impacted on how aboriginal people are treated and viewed in Canadian Society. They have been dealing with the struggles, inequality, and discrimination that we have been putting them through for over three centuries, we’ve been also failing them with Canada’s racist policies

Ever since the first contact settlers had with indigenous or Aboriginal people, there has always been discrimination against these groups since they are seen at the bottom of the social class scale. This was the first time in Canadian history where a certain social group were marginalized; the white people who first settled in Canada looked at indigenous people and didn’t believe that they belonged to there society. However, in todays society we have laws that prevent decriminalization, but that does not resolve the problem since many indigenous people are constantly being murdered, assaulted, raped and treated as second class citizens. The underlying problem that help’s illustrate why there so many missing and murdered indigenous woman is due to the lack of support from the government. Many first nations people live in poverty, also Canadians are not properly informed about the deaths and missing rates of indigenous woman in Canada.

Aboriginal persons in Canada have been facing oppression ever since colonization began. Even when Canada gained independence from the British Empire, the oppression continued and still goes on today. One major contributing factor to the oppression of Aboriginal people in Canada is the actions taken by the Government. The Government of Canada has in fact mistreated and found to be partaking in wrongdoing when dealing with the Aboriginal population in this country. With this ugly truth being revealed, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had to be tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past. (cite)

In the eyes of many Canadians our country is viewed as a historically racially-inclusive society. This idea is false, and there is very limited evidence to support the contrary. Many events in Canada’s history have shows that it is guilty of promoting racial hierarchies and cultural insensitivities. Throughout Canada’s development there has always remained an emphasis on promoting the supremacy of the white race, and Anglo-Canadian culture.

In March of 2012, a white power rally in Edmonton drew out a dozen or two members of the Blood and Honour racist group. They were met and peaceably challenged by hundreds of participants in an anti-racism rally, which was "coincidental" (Dykstra). Therefore Canada still does have lurking racism, but in its overt forms it is socially unacceptable. This paper will address the overt forms of racism evident in Canada, which include hate groups like Blood and Honour. However, it is the covert forms of racism and bias that threaten to undermine the social fabric of Canada.

This leads to uneducated people living in close confinement in poverty. The answer for a lot of the young people is crime. The statistics for over representation by first nations people in Manitoba are as follows “12% of Manitoba’s population is Aboriginal, yet over half of the 1600 people incarcerated in Manitoba are of Aboriginal descent.” (Government of Manitoba). The question then becomes, why are there so many offenders from one ethnic group? “The commission explains that Aboriginal people seem to commit more crimes as well as they are discriminated against within the justice system” (Government of Manitoba). This seems to me, to be an extension of the Residential school policies, in which the First Nations people are discriminated against, in this case treated as drunks and criminals, which is not much better than the “savages” they use to be.

This quotation is taken from a Hollywood film, but has a tendency to ring true in legal disputes in Canada involving minority groups. Racism as a component in the Canadian societal context has prevented the realization of truth and justice throughout history. For instance, Donald Marshall Jr. endured a wrongful conviction as a result of racism in the criminal justice system. While this dilemma has proved to be most difficult for minority groups to overcome, critical race theory, as implemented by defence lawyers in R.D.S. v. The Queen, has allowed for the realization of racism as truth in Canadian society and provides a

What does being Canadian mean to you? Safety? Freedom? Maple syrup perhaps? Canada as a nation is perceived as a powerhouse of a country with a great humanitarian force. With the recent influx of refugees, a GDP of $51,958.38 per capita, and a humanitarian Prime Minster, one could definitely say and that Canada appears to be treating its citizens right, on the surface. But, underneath the surface of public perception is the dark truth that 's remained hidden for decades but never been acknowledged . That being, the staggering 1017 Aboriginal women and girls who were murdered or have gone missing between the years of 1980 and 2012, a rate that is 4.5 times higher than any other racial group of women in Canada that continues to grow daily

It is the assumption of many that Canada is a nation free of racism. Canadians pride themselves on being culturally diverse and accepting, and on having relatively progressive social policies such as that of universal healthcare. However, there are many ways in which the current and historical policies have expressed explicit racism that have left an already marginalized population with the crumbs of society. A prime example of this can be demonstrated in the mass overrepresentation of Aboriginal youth in care. By the year 2010, there were around twenty-seven thousand Indigenous children in the Canadian child welfare system who were living in some sort of out-of-home care (Chappell, 2014). Although they represented only seven percent of the children in Canada, they made up 48 percent of all children in foster care. (Yukselir & Annett, 2016). This phenomenon is not a recent trend, as it has been occurring since the very creation of modern child welfare in Canada as it is known, and it has its roots deep in Canadian history. This paper will demonstrate a timeline of the events which have lead to this phenomenon in Canada, specifically focusing on the province of Ontario. Important facts which may have contributed to the overrepresentation of this population will be discussed, such as historical methods of colonization in regards to child welfare including the implementation of the residential school system and the Sixties Scoop. Policies that have also had a profound impact,

Statistic shows that “ 18 percent of racialized men report experiencing discrimination or unfair treatment when dealing with the police or courts; compared to 5.8 percent of non-racialized men in Canada”(Statistic Canada, 2009). Racism is a specific belief that human race unlikeness put them into different groups and also affect their status in society (J.S. Frideres, February 2006). History of racial discrimination foundation in Canada is long, has many different aspects and begins in 18th century. On that time, European began to colonize territory of today’s Canada and build friendly relationships with native population. They help each other to build new, intelligence society; however, even if colonizers collaborated with aboriginal people, First Nation was, for them, no more than “noble savages”. Then, when time of their partnership had gone, Europeans betrayed indigenous people and put them in a special area with ban to go somewhere else. From that time, racism began to progress

I decided to pursue the Governmentality, Democracy and Citizenship approach to address the issue I chose to work on, how racism in Toronto affects its education and economy. It is of no surprise to anyone that a person’s life and achievements may depend strictly on his/her skin color. In the following paragraphs, I discuss how racial discrimination has changed over the past fifty-four years, and how the different coloured populations have reacted to these changes.

Canadians should feel terrible in the fact that Canadian citizens treat First Nations people terribly, Canadians turn the environment into a vast wasteland and Canada has a horrible economic performance. Firstly, Canadians have treated the First Nations people unfairly. This is evident in the fact that Canadian citizens would take children in First Nations tribes and put them in residential schools where they would be assimilated even though that’s recently cancelled now Canadian still don’t give the First Nations peoples a lot of rights and stick the First Nations people in reserves with horrible living conditions. This is important because Canadians don’t even see First Nations Peoples as equals which is evident in the way that we treat them.

The equality rights of Canadians are all protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Individuals have the right to not be discriminated based on enumerated (race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age and mental or physical disability) and analogous (sexual orientation, marital status, citizenship and Aboriginality-residence) grounds. Fortunately, Hagi-Yusuf filed a complaint, on enumerated grounds, to the government discussing how he wants to send a message to the company. Hagi-Yusuf wishes for an apology, adjusted hiring practices, and monetary compensations from the Kitchener financial services company. I chose this article because it highlights, racism still occurs in Canada whether it is discrimination against Aboriginals or other ethnic groups. People often relate racism to the United States of America because of the violence occurring with black people, though it’s important to know it occurs globally. Racism and discrimination against different ethnic groups and Aboriginals should be enforced because of the refugees entering Canada from the Middle East and Africa. As shown, people who came to Canada to escape a civil war, 20 years ago, are still seen as foreigners when Hagi-Yusuf was rejected for the job. The refugees entering Canada should not have to face discrimination based on their ethnic group and because of section 15: Equality Rights. The Canadian government should strive to enforce the right and make Canada a country where everyone is treated as

Ending racism and discrimination is more than just not joining in when someone shows a critical or disrespectful attitude. It means to take action to end racism and discrimination. All human beings have equal rights and must be treated equally. It is an important concept of human rights and is based on the equality of individuals in the inherent human dignity of every individual. But this natural right to equality has never been fully available to all human beings, neither in the past nor in the present. Here is my solution to combat racism, prejudice, and discrimination in Canada.

This is not the first time Canada has hosted activists fighting for racial equality. The American Civil War, World War II, the Civil Rights movement – we’ve seen it over and over again. Each crisis, obviously, is unique. But they all have to do with structural racism – when the system discriminates against people of colour. Why can’t we solve this issue yet?