Ford launches an anti-racism panel to help vulnerable youth
With the U.S. roiled by protests and tensions high in Toronto, Premier Doug Ford has launched a new “equality of opportunity” task force and earmarked $1.5 million to help Black community groups.
Headed by lawyer Jamil Jivani, Ford’s adviser on community opportunities, the new antiracism panel is designed to help young people “overcome social and economic barriers and achieve success.”
It comes as dozens of American cities have seen violent protests over the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, and demonstrations in Toronto after Regis Korchinski-Paquet plunged to her death from a 24th-floor balcony of a High Park apartment during a police call. The death of KorchinskiPaquet, a 29-year-old Afro-Indigenous woman, is now the subject of a Special Investigations Unit probe.
“There is systemic racism here in Ontario ... our history is different than the United States, but we have our own history of racism here in Ontario,” said Ford, who represents Etobicoke North, home to the largest percentage of Black residents of any of Ontario’s 124 ridings, with about 24 per cent.
“That’s been going on for decades. I know people right now are ... feeling pain out there. I see it. I just have to go in my own community up in Rexdale,” he said Thursday.
But Ford and Jivani insisted the announcement was not just in response to recent events.
Jivani, the Yale Law Schooleducated author of “Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity,” stressed he wanted to “acknowledge the pain that I’ve seen over the past week.”
But Liberal MPPs Michael Coteau (Don Valley East) and Mitzie Hunter (ScarboroughGuildwood) said Thursday’s announcement does not undo the previous cuts that Ford has made to anti-racism initiatives since taking office in 2018.
“Today, the premier announced the creation of a new premier’s youth council to replace the one he cut. This is two years of lost progress,” the MPPs said in a joint statement.
“We would invite him to reverse further cuts he made to programs to fight systemic racism and support Black youth. He should restore the funding he cut from the Anti-Racism Directorate and restore its focus. He should restore the funding he cut from the Black Youth Action Plan.”