Homepage / Racism and Discrimination / Racism Institutional Interplay and Advocacy Groups
<aside> ℹ️ This page explores the issues that minority groups face when interacting within various settings in everyday life, including: Canadian politics, health services, restaurants, courts, and classrooms. The second section outlines groups that advocate for the action against these inequalities.
</aside>
How do racialized peoples interact and engage with Canadian institutions?
According to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, racism leads racialized peoples to report a lack of trust in institutions. Racialized peoples indicate feeling less access to elected positions in politics as a consequence. The lack of incentive to hold representational positions in government results in low numbers of racialized candidates and elected officials. This translates to a body of government that is irreflective and inconsistent with minority group demographics and priorities. For example, Black Canadians make up 2% of the Members of Parliament, which does not fully reflect the 3.5% of Black Canadians in the population. Racialized groups, consequently, are less heard in the making of racially-centred policies. Thus, fear of lack of representation and of an unequal voice is heightened and community divisions are exacerbated.
Current elected representatives in Canada show a lack of consensus on the level of systemic racial issues in Canada and the extent to which they are a policy issue. While the federal government has provided policies that outline the existence of racism as well as policies to address inequalities (see our ‣ page for more) leaders such as the Quebec Premier, François Legault, and the Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, have called into question the existence of racism in Canada. More on this topic can be found here.
Racialized Canadians are shown to experience greater inequalities in a variety of settings, from health services to restaurants, to courts, to classrooms. While the inequities in Canada's structures are experienced in more than a few cases, there are collections of instances that create a trend. The graph to the right highlights common areas where racialized groups feel they are treated less fairly. The situations where minorities report experiencing discrimination the most are when dealing with the police (41%), followed by in stores and restaurants (26%), and in the workplace (26%).
More information is needed to uncover whether these experiences are reported to felt as a result of embedded racist laws within institutions themselves, or whether discrimination is experienced more often as a result of individual actions within certain areas.
Source: Canada Race Relations Survey 2019 Report
Some individuals within racialized groups feel especially targeted for unequal treatment in situations with the police. Problems with authoritative institutions such as police strike a balance between collective values in safety and community protection and the statistical probability of individuals' compliance to a heuristic when judging individual treatment.
The overall lack of trust in institutions also leads minority groups to remove themselves from engaging with institutions such as the labour force. One black man reported wanting to become a police officer and his father telling him, "find a profession that is more respectable in our community." As a result, their voices are less heard and organizations that rely on community engagement are rendered less effective at providing good to society and instead become a reification of marginalization. More on the reports of minority groups reported interactions with institutions can be found here.