Why do Liberals talk about "systemic racism" in Canada?

The rhetoric is destructive and conflicts with reality

Canada has a diverse population, with a growing percentage of visible minorities. It seems virtually certain that white Canadians will become the “visible minority” within two or three decades since the growth rate in the percentage of Canadians who are of people of color is 4.4% compounded for the last 35 years.

Notwithstanding the acceptance by most Canadians of our cosmopolitan society and our pride in its diversity, Liberals keep harping on “systemic racism” of often using data on the percentage of people of a particular background being out of proportion to their percentage in Canada’s population as evidence of racial bias. The data don’t support the rhetoric.

It takes a few years before a new Canadian assimilates into society to a degree where they can be expected to be elected to a legislature, Parliament or a town council. The electorate rarely elects people they don’t know who came to Canada only recently, and cannot elect those have not become permanent residents and have not applied for and been awarded Canadian citizenship. To apply for citizenship, a person must have lived in Canada as a permanent resident for three of the past five years. To get a Permanent Residency card one must have lived in Canada for 730 days in the past five years.

When comparing the percentage participation of people of color in elected offices in Canada to their share of Canada’s population, it is meaningless to include in that denominator people who are not eligible for those offices. Canada’s Election Act requires candidates to be Canadian citizens.

In a democracy, I believe the best measure of assimilation of an immigrant population or any “visible minority” is the degree to which the members of that group are elected to legislative bodies or Parliament. Why? Because to become elected you need to persuade a majority (or at least a plurality) of the voters in your riding to vote for you, and people are unlikely to vote for candidates against whom they hold some racist bias.

So lets review the facts. The visible minority population of Canada ten years ago was about 20%. Ten years later, about one quarter of this cohort would be ineligible for government office owing to age (less than eighteen years) or lack of citizenship, since the citizenship process can take as little as 10 years but typically takes longer. As of last July, there was a backlog of 2.4 million applications for citizenship, comprising over 6 percent of Canada’s population.

It is reasonable to conclude that the population of persons of color eligible to seek elected office in Canada comprises about 15% of Canada’s adult population. If the percentage of people of color holding elected office in Canada was materially below that percentage, that might arguably comprise evidence of “racism”. But it is not.

In 2021, people of color comprised 53 of 338 seats in Parliament, about 15%. The Canadian Race Relations Foundation reports that the percentage of people of color in provincial and territorial legislatures is about 15%. See any signs of “racism” in those data? Of course not. Canada is not a “racist” country and Justin Trudeau’s claims that it is are divisive, unfounded, and intended to divide us for political gain. Given the random variations in interests, opportunities, career choices, educational and vocational interests, it would not be evidence of racism even if that percentage were a couple of percentage points lower or higher than actually reported.

Canada’s professions are another area where the data just don’t support the rhetoric. In the case of lawyers, B.C.’s Law Society has published data that show that over 16% of attorney’s in that Province are visible minorities, almost 19% if you include indigenous Canadians.

In the case of physicians, the percentage disproportionately favors visible minorities with over 30% of Canadian physicians and 39% of Ontario physicians from “racialized” groups.

Vivek Ramaswamy, in his best-seller “A Nation of Victims” chronicles the left-wing desire to paint everyone as a victim in United States, Trudeau’s rhetoric regarding race tries to do the same thing in Canada. It is easy to rally support for your political party from a group you both claim is a “victim” and that your party will “right those wrongs”. No wrongs need to exist to promote the rhetoric and there is a growing tendency for people to think government is the solution to all the problems in their lives, when in reality government is the source of most problems - inflation, the energy shortage, housing unaffordability, decaying infrastructure, carbon taxes, lack of clean drinking water on First Nations reserves, and excess debt at both household and government levels all result from government failures and none of which can be traced to “racism”.

Canadians are proud of their diversity, proud of themselves, and don’t want or need government intervention in every aspect of their lives. For good reason, Canada is often ranked as the least racist country on Earth. It is, and Canadians should be proud that it is the case.

If you want to hear less outcries of racism in Canada, dump the Trudeau Liberals and stop watching CBC or CTV, and in particular stop donating money to The Agenda on TVO. These media promote left wing rhetoric incessantly and foment discontent on purpose, either oblivious to or ignorant of the facts.