Racism probe to go ahead, human rights body says
Quebec’s Human Rights Commission announced Friday it will go ahead with its examination of systemic racism in the province, despite the provincial government’s decision to backpedal on the controversial process.
Quebec’s newly appointed immigration and diversity minister, David Heurtel, announced Wednesday that the province was taking the process over from the commission, and that the whole exercise would now have a different mandate and focus. To reflect this, the process was renamed “the Forum on Valuing Diversity and Fighting Discrimination.”
A day earlier, the Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée had announced she was assigning an external auditor to investigate leadership issues at the commission. But Heurtel insisted this was not the reason for taking the mandate for holding hearings on systemic racism away from it.
Heurtel said the government wanted to quash the notion the hearings are putting Quebecers on trial for racism. The goal of the exercise now is to find ways to make immigrants and minorities feel welcome at the same time as responding to Quebec’s chronic labour shortage, he said.
The government’s move was dismissed by critics as cowardly; a failure to take a hard look at systemic problems immigrants and members of minorities face in the workforce, the housing market and other domains, across the province.
In its statement, the commission said “systemic discrimination and racism, particularly in the areas of housing, health and social services, justice, public security, education, culture and media, remain present in Quebec society and call for a thorough search for concrete solutions. That being the case, the commission considers it essential to continue its analysis of the impacts of these diverse problems, especially their impacts on racialized people, including those born in Quebec.”
The commission has a mandate to investigate such issues and will continue this work, which started, the statement points out, “long
The commission considers it essential to continue its analysis of the impacts of these diverse problems.
before last summer when the government announced the consultation that it has now chosen to cancel.”
The commission will issue reports and recommendations to the government with a view to reducing systemic discrimination and racism, the statement noted.