Roundup: An admission of systemic racism in Canada

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was held away from Rideau Cottage yesterday, at a local business that benefitted from the wage subsidy, and it was remarked that it looked to be suspiciously like a campaign stop. Trudeau did his best to try and deflect blame for losing at political chicken – err, Wednesday’s inability to get the government’s latest emergency omnibus bill passed, outlining all of the places where items in the bill matched the demands of opposition parties, while dismissing some of the criticisms – primarily that of the Conservatives in their insistence on having full parliamentary sittings restored. The more memorable moment, however, was when he was asked about RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki’s comments that seem to dismiss systemic racism in the RCMP (though she did cop to unconscious bias), where Trudeau said that of course there is systemic racism in the RCMP, just like there is in all of our institutions, and that systems are not broken, but were in fact built that way. He went on to say that part of why it’s difficult to address is because it’s in the building blocks of these institutions, which should serve as a reminder to everyone that there are no quick fixes to any of this. He also went on to say that Canadian exceptionalism isn’t just that we do well, but that we know we need to do better and are willing to address it. This is probably the first time that a head of government has made this kind of an admission, and an acknowledgment of concepts that many Canadians are still coming to terms with – but he also did say that he had faith in Lucki to do the job of reforming the RCMP, so there’s that.

On the subject of the RCMP, Indigenous services minister Marc Miller is not having any of Commissioner Lucki’s excuses about not understanding systemic racism, and is critical that not enough has been done to combat it over the past two years. AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde says that the federal government’s complacency allows police violence against Black and Indigenous people, and he’s right. And lo and behold, the dashcam footage of Chief Allan Adam’s arrest has been made public, and it is hard to see how senior RCMP officials could have concluded that the actions were “appropriate,” which is a big flashing indicator of a problem in the ranks.

Meanwhile, as the debate on bringing back Parliament properly progresses with Trudeau’s disingenuous excuses, Conservative House leader Candice Bergen has put forward a number of suggestions for how MPs could safely vote in-person in a returned Parliament – some of which I’m not in favour of, but at least it’s a better solution than the Pandora’s Box of remote or electronic votes, which the government favours – and make no mistake, they are an evil that will be unleashed and there will be no going back. (I have more on this in my weekend column, out later today).

Good reads:

  • Mary Ng still doesn’t have a timeline for changes to CEBA that would allow those who use personal accounts to access the programme.
  • David Lametti is asking the Quebec courts for five more months before they apply the Truchon decision on assisted dying, as federal legislation has been delayed.
  • Citizenship and Immigration is preparing an overhaul of how it processes applications in anticipation of the borders re-opening.
  • The deputy minister of National Defence says she is not expecting any budget cuts in the face of the deficit created by the current pandemic relief efforts.
  • StatsCan is going to (finally) start collecting race-based data on job figures, while the Ontario police oversight body will also start collecting race-based data.
  • Cybersecurity experts told the Procedure and House Affairs committee that video voting is probably the best option for parliamentary remote voting.
  • The doctor blamed for a spike in infections in New Brunswick disputes that he was the cause, and he’s contemplating legal action for being outed.
  • Senator Tannas of the Canadian Senators Group takes a few shots at the ISG’s preaching non-partisanship while behaving partisan, as he extols his own group.
  • Here is the transcript of Paul Wells’ interview with Patty Hajdu on what it’s been like to be the health minister in the midst of a global pandemic.
  • Heather Scoffield looks to the potential second wave of the pandemic, and how the economic response may differ when that happens.

Odds and ends:

Maclean’s has an excellent longread on the mental toll that the pandemic is taking on people, particularly children and youth.

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: An admission of systemic racism in Canada”

  1. I think it’s unfair to just write that just because you personally disagree with the PM’s position, the PM must be ‘disingenuous.’

  2. I will be very sad if Canada does not win the UNSC bid. I wish Min Champagne the best of luck on pulling off a miracle and think the whole team, including PMJT, have done a great job on their campaign in spite of what the naysayers wag their fingers about. I was heartened to see Prince Charles and even Antonio Guterres himself giving a hearty endorsement to the Great Reset initiatives for the post-Covid world. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen. I certainly hope it is, if only to shut the peanut gallery up.

    I nevertheless think the U.N. is in dire need of drastic reform. Not abolition altogether, but significant reforms. Let’s just say the UNSC is not a good fit for Canada for whatever reason (pure cynical straw-pulling and back-scratching would be my guess). Why, then, is Saudi Arabia a good fit for the women’s rights commission instead of Canada, with a specific Feminist Foreign Policy? Why should the UNSC have permanent members at all, or at least the permanent Big Five it does, and then this farce of a musical chairs contest pitting allies against one another every few years? Does anybody really think the U.S. and Russia have any interest in building a better world? Kick out the Yanks and Putin from decision-making capacity and veto power and put the Canadians there instead.

    Whatever happens on Wednesday, I yearn to someday see PMJT spit in the face of all the bullies he’s faced over these past years, whether it’s the bad-faith Cons or the perfectionist hair-shirt left, and become the Secretary-General himself. The world really does need more Canada. Not Harper’s or MacKay’s or O’Toole’s or even Singh’s with his disconnect from reality, but Trudeau’s Canada, again.

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