Consultation is overlooking English speakers

Intersection of race, language can result in double barrier, Fo Niemi says.

The public consultation on systemic racism and discrimination launched three weeks ago marginalizes English-speaking Montrealers.

This process — driven by the Office de consultation publique de Montréal and relying on information produced by the City of Montreal — is the result of a petition campaign last year.

The public consultation on what remains a taboo topic in Quebec aims to assess the state of intercultural relations and the fight against discrimination in areas under the city’s jurisdiction and recommend followup and remedial measures. It will examine such issues as employment, culture, policing and municipal governance.

Although the focus is on systemic racism (discriminatory policies and practices that unintentionally exclude people on the basis of race, colour, religion or ethnic or national origin), such intersecting factors as gender, disability, religion and language are included.

Judging from several working documents produced by the city, and after four public information meetings held by the Office in the last three weeks, there are reasons for concern that English-speaking Montrealers of diverse ethnic and national origins (including British) are being overlooked, even if documentation is available in English.

First, English-speaking citizens have been largely absent from these meetings. They are largely invisible in most data on the city’s population make-up and in city measures devoted to “diversity,” notably in terms of workforce representation, access to municipal services and governance. They are also invisible among senior city managers who attended the meetings to explain city policies and programs.

English-speaking Montrealers represent a significant portion of the city’s residents, taxpayers and voters. Those English-speakers of Asian, South Asian, black, Middle Eastern, Indigenous and other minority backgrounds, who can easily number half a million, encounter double or triple obstacles in employment in the public and private sectors in Montreal, despite being functionally bilingual.

In some documents, English-speaking Montrealers are theoretically considered as part of the city’s “diversity” although in detailed descriptions of programs and services, they are not accounted for; in others, they are distinct from “groupes issus de la diversité” — whatever that means.

In the main consultation document produced by the city, for instance, there is no mention of English-speaking people in the city’s engagement to address minority underrepresentation among the city’s 26,000 employees. Granted, as a public-sector employer, the city is bound by the provincial mandatory employment equity law that requires, since 2001, fair representation of women, visible minorities, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and Indigenous people in various job categories. However, if the city is to truly seek to be inclusive and achieve fair representation of all Montrealers, it should include anglophones as a distinct group or as a subgroup among the above five designated groups. After all, in the consultation document, the city categorically affirms its stand against “all forms of racism and discrimination” and that as employer, it “wants to reflect the population it serves in all its diversity.”

Worse, the recent report on equal employment opportunities produced by Mayor Valérie Plante’s Committee on Diversity, Inclusion and the Fight Against Discrimination perpetuates the same marginalization of the English-speaking community. That report outlines the traditional means to achieve employment equity for the five traditionally designated groups, and boldly envisages adding a new designated group to current municipal employment equity measures: LGBTQ+ persons.

Yet it remains shamefully oblivious to the existence of English-speaking Montrealers and the barriers they face in accessing city jobs. Rendering English-speaking Montrealers invisible when it comes to policies, protections and actions to promote diversity is contrary to the essence of diversity itself.

English-speaking Montrealers of racial minority and Indigenous backgrounds in particular, as well as those of European origins, should not be excluded or left behind in the present consultation process. They are as entitled to recognition, equal access and opportunity as those who are French-speaking. It is not too late to change course.

Fo Niemi is executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR).