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That is what the one-sided conversation around racism in Canada feels like, one that is falling on deaf ears. It is exhausting to repeatedly explain that racism exists in Canada. Yet here we are. In , Rex Murphy and others are still continually given the megaphone to wax poetic on a Canada that is free of sin. It is a dangerous thing, because their privilege is blinding.
For Canadians who have likely never experienced systemic racism, it is easy to deny its existence. They fail to recognize the parallels β including the police brutality that is happening here at home.
Why do Black people in Toronto account for 25 per cent of police-involved shootings when they make up only slightly more than 8. Between and the s, 3, people of African ancestry who were enslaved in the United States were brought to Canada and forced to live here in slavery. From to , 17, Chinese labourers came to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Many died during the construction. In , Canada turned away the MS St. Louis , an ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees.
Forced back to Europe, of the passengers later died in the Holocaust. During the Second World War, the Canadian government forced 20, Japanese people β 75 per cent of them Canadian citizens β into internment camps. After the war, Canada continued with a range of policies that made it difficult, if not impossible, for people of colour to immigrate from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Even so, the last segregated school in Canada, in Guysborough County, N.
