Toronto – Racism in Ontario, which many believe is declining, is hanging in tenaciously and even finding new targets, and Ontario’s Liberal government is not doing all it can to counter it.
No new statistics have been collected over the past year to show whether racism is on the rise, but there are plenty of examples indicating it is alive and kicking.
The most recent victims include Canadians of Chinese origin, who are noted for being hardworking and economically successful and envied by some for it.
A dozen incidents have been reported of Chinese sports fishermen threatened, punched, dumped in lakes and rivers and in two cases severely injured, and their cars and fishing gear damaged.
The racism has included acts by public, including provincial, employees. Black and Aboriginal guards at a Toronto jail have complained for more than a decade of racial taunts by white guards and unidentified letter writers, and early this year staged a brief strike, but the problem still is unresolved.
The Ontario Provincial Police has claimed it has cleaned up racism in its force revealed by a public inquiry into the shooting death of a native protester at Ipperwash Provincial Park, when its officers described a demonstrator as a `great, big, fat f…ing Indian’ and suggested giving the Indians a few cases of beer would quieten them.
But an inspector in the Barrie force has now been relieved of some duties, after he sent an email police conceded was racist.
A judge in Toronto also dismissed charges, including one of assaulting police, after finding two officers went after and detained the accused merely because he is black.
A human rights tribunal found a police officer in Peel Region threatened to charge a woman with shoplifting and called her a `f...ing foreigner’ simply because she is black and ordered that force to pay her compensation and train officers to avoid racist acts.
Legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, lauded in many countries when he died, had described earlier how young men repeatedly drove past his home in Mississauga shouting racial insults and how he endured racism in the southern United States decades ago, but never expected it here.
A radio reporter interviewing outside a city-owned arena in Toronto was told to move her car and called a `f…ing nigger’ by a parking attendant and its management apologized, but grudgingly enough to suggest it might have ignored her complaint, if she had not been in the news media.
A white school trustee wrote to a newspaper complaining many immigrants do not understand Canadian values, bring violence, collect money to fund violence in their former countries and take jobs from Canadians.
Racism has come close inadvertently to Progressive Conservative leader John Tory and Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. Tory apologized after a student official in his party’s club at Ryerson University sent an unauthorized email attacking a black student and headed `KKK –White Power.’
An Ontario government official sent an email describing a black applicant for a job as a `ghetto dude’ and the applicant found out and McGuinty phoned him and apologized.
To mark International Day For The Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Citizenship Minister Michael Chan said the province fosters accepting diversity and anyone who sees discrimination should speak out, which is not exactly sounding the alarm and no media reported.
A speech by a premier explaining what is going on will not eradicate racism, but it would let people know they have a problem.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery.
