Canada’s Black politicians learning from U.S. peers

Delegation of eight MPs and senators meets with Congressional Black Caucus in Washington

When Toronto MP Michael Coteau became the co-chair of the federal Parliamentary Black Caucus one year ago, one of his top goals was to establish, for the first time, ties between Black Canadian politicians and their counterparts around the globe.

This week, Coteau was part of a delegation of eight MPs and senators that marked one of those firsts: a “historic” meeting in Washington between Canada’s Parliamentary Black Caucus and the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus.

“In the Americas, there’s 200 million Black people and we don’t know each other politically. The fact that it’s taken this long for Black politicians from Canada and the United States to connect for the first time is pretty astonishing,” the Liberal MP told the Star.

The group’s other co-chair, Independent Sen. Rosemary Moodie, said the long-anticipated trip finally offered a chance to “deepen the social and economic ties between our two countries.”

“It really has been about an opportunity for us to build relationships with the Congressional Black Caucus, which is a very well-developed, older institution that has sorted out how best to operate and how to organize themselves around issues,” the Ontario senator said.

“We’re a younger organization. We could benefit from some of that knowledge.”

The group of U.S. lawmakers boasts 58 members — the most in its 52-year history. While the group is meant to be non-partisan, its membership is currently made up solely of Democrats. Canada’s group is also presently home to its highest number of members, but at 14 MPs and senators, the eightyear-old caucus is much smaller and wields far less influence.

The decision to embark on the trip was years in the making, Coteau said, and ultimately came from the Canadian side. Over the past three days, Canada’s delegation met with the U.S. caucus to discuss shared issues facing Black communities, including the rise of far-right ideology, the collection of racebased data, disparities in health care, education and economic development.

On Thursday, they also met with the leaders of five legacy Black civil rights organizations on the grounds of Washington’s Howard University, a historically Black research institution. It was there that Canadian parliamentarians discussed the role Black politicians could play in strengthening civic engagement between the two nations — and took a moment to honour the third anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.

That event left an indelible mark on the American consciousness, said Independent Sen. Bernadette Clement, but it also had strong reverberations on Canadian soil.

“That was a time for us as well to consciously decide to take up more space in the places that we occupy, and that’s what’s been happening here: a deliberate organizing around making sure that Black people are running for office, that they’re accessing networks, that they’re speaking to people that will support and encourage them,” Clement said.

Moodie said that because of the Congressional Black Caucus’s storied history, the group has had more success than Black politicians in Canada in making headway on issues of systemic racism experienced in both countries. But she isolated police brutality as one issue the U.S. has failed to eradicate.

“We want to understand that more, because we are also trying to address that in Canada,” she said.

There was one area of progress the Canadians were able to share with their U.S. counterparts during the visit: the depiction of Black civil rights activist Viola Desmond on Canada’s $10 banknote. The U.S. has sought to put abolitionist Harriet Tubman on its $20 bill, but that process could take years to complete. Moodie recalled how Quebec MP Greg Fergus pulled out one of Canada’s bills during a session with American lawmakers.

“It became for them a focus, because they wanted to take pictures so they could take it to their government about getting that done. They wanted close-up pictures — and they kept the bill,” she said.

But NDP MP Matthew Green said there is much for the Canadian government to learn from the Congressional Black Caucus, particularly about improving the resources allocated to the Canadian group.

The Parliamentary Black Caucus is not a formal parliamentary association, meaning it does not receive similar levels of funding or support.

“We’re on our own. Our staff have been stretched,” Green said of the trip. “I’ll share with you that it is a problem for me that we’re here without full interpretation services for our francophone senators. That’s not acceptable.”

Green said that despite the structural differences between the two groups, members of both confront the same examples of anger and vitriol. Green was stepping off an elevator Wednesday to meet U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar for a discussion on threats to democratic institutions when he encountered a man who initially appeared friendly.

“As soon as he realized I was headed to her office, he called me an idiot in the hallway of a congressional building and started muttering all this stuff under his breath,” Green recalled.

“I recognize the kind of hostility that she faces, and it’s the same types of hostilities that we face online and in other places as well.”

This week’s trip was primarily an exploratory exercise, caucus members said, to see how both groups could come together and formalize their relationship around future visits, which are now in the works.

“Some of the conversations were difficult. It’s not great to say that we have similarities around racism or … the loneliness that we feel sometimes around decision-making tables,” Clement said. “But there’s also good stuff, too.”

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In the Americas, there’s 200 million Black people and we don’t know each other politically. The fact that it’s taken this long for Black politicians from Canada and the United States to connect for the first time is pretty astonishing.

MICHAEL COTEAU CO-CHAIR OF

THE FEDERAL PARLIAMENTARY BLACK CAUCUS