Racism hearings put Quebec on edge

MONTREAL

• Before a single witness has been heard at Quebec’s hearings on systemic racism, before a single study has been tabled, a clear portrait of the victims is emerging.

François Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec, this week called on Premier Philippe Couillard to “end all unfair accusations against Quebecers” and cancel the commission.

“Quebec doesn’t need an additional crisis on the identity issue, and especially not a crisis created by the Liberal government,” he said.

Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée said an examination of systemic racism is unnecessary and would “simply put vinegar in the wounds.” He said Couillard should “stop being so arrogant towards the will of the people” and scrap the hearings.

In a column in the Journal de Montréal last July, sociologist Mathieu BockCôté helped set the tone of the debate around the racism hearings — or “public self-flagellation” as he called them — scheduled to begin this month.

“We will witness an immense trial of Quebec society and, more specifically, of Quebec nationalists, who will be accused of all evils,” he wrote.

The premier’s resolve seemed to be weakening Wednesday when he acknowledged members of his caucus were blaming Monday’s byelection loss of a previously safe Liberal riding in Quebec City on the racism consultations. He said he would steer the process, overseen by the Quebec Human Rights Commission, “in the right direction” and assured nobody would be put on trial.

The manner in which the debate has derailed has left representatives of minority communities, armed with stacks of examples of discrimination scratching their heads. How did a debate over protecting racial minorities from discrimination get twisted into a campaign to stop labelling Quebecers as racist?

Emilie Nicolas, a board member of an umbrella group fighting systemic racism, said part of the problem is the concept of systemic racism is poorly understood in Quebec.

“It doesn’t mean that people are systematically racist,” she said.

While neighbouring Ontario has been wrestling with the issue for decades, in Quebec, even the word “racism” is seen as taboo, she said.

“Any kind of gap in actual equality based on race that is a result of institutional practices is systemic racism,” Nicolas said. “It’s not about individual intentions, and it’s not about people being good or bad people.”

Thursday on Montreal’s 98.5FM, Haroun Bouazzi, copresident of the Association of Muslims and Arabs for a Secular Québec, provided examples of “institutions that play a role in racism.” In Montreal, just four of 103 elected officials are visible minorities.

A 2016 Radio-Canada investigation found HydroQuébec employed 312 minorities in a workforce of more than 20,000; the provincial liquor commission staff of more than 6,000 included just 38 minorities.

Research by the Quebec Human Rights Commission in 2012 showed immigrants and racial minorities have a harder time finding work. Statistics showed the unemployment gap between immigrants and non-immigrants was greater in Quebec (11.1 per cent for immigrants and 6.6 per cent for nativeborn Quebecers) than in other provinces.

The commission did a study sending out identical curricula vitae for job openings with only the applicant’s name changed. “A Tremblay or a Bélanger has at least a 60-per-cent better chance of being invited for a job interview than a Sanchez, a Ben Said or a Traoré,” the author wrote.

Nicolas said Quebec’s white francophone majority is particularly sensitive on the issue because accusations of racism are often levelled unfairly from outside the province.

“This practice of saying Quebec’s distinctiveness as a culture is to be more racist is actually putting (up) a roadblock,” she said. “The people who are suffering the most from that are racialized people within Quebec. It’s an endless hockey game between Toronto and Montreal, and racialized Quebecers are the puck.”