Budget 2018 and 2019 Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Initiatives

2018 Budget: $9M Community Support for Black Canadian Youth

• Budget 2018 announced $19 million to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and Canadian Heritage (PCH) to address the significant and unique challenges faced by Black Canadians. PHAC received $10 million over five years to develop research in support of more culturally responsive mental health programs in the Black Canadian Community. PCH received $9 million over three years to enhance local and community support for Black Canadian youth.
• Within the $9 million for PCH was just over $7 million to create a new community fund called the Community Support for Black Canadian Youth Initiative (CSBCY). The $9 million also included $430,000 for a National Anti-Black Racism Education and Awareness Campaign (NABREAC). The remaining $1.57 million is to support outreach and engagement activities, research projects and for performance measurement activities.
• While it is a separate initiative, CSBCY is delivered under the Community Support, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Initiative program (CSMARI).
• A call for proposals for CSBCY was open from September 2018 to May 31, 2019. 152 applications were received. 56 proposals were funded for a combined value of $7.75 million over two years. The extra $0.75 million came from other Multiculturalism Program sources.
• In May 2019, a separate targeted call for proposals was held for NABREAC. Fifty organizations were invited to apply, resulting in six applications. Urban Rez Solutions Social Enterprise was selected to lead this project. Their project is called Say it Loud (https://sayitloudcanada.com/).
• Investments in improved data and research include the commissioning of three research reports on issues affecting Black Canadian youth: a needs assessment, jurisdictional scan and a report on best practices found in culturally-specific programs within all three levels of government. In addition, new performance indicators are being developed to assess overall performance of the Black Canadian Youth Approach.
• In 2018-19, the Michaëlle Jean Foundation in partnership with the Somali Centre for Family Services and 15 other community organizations led a series of 11 in-person consultations with Black Canadian youth and youth-serving organizations. Over 600 youth participated. Online engagement activities led by the Foundation were held simultaneously.

2018 Budget: $23M for Multiculturalism

• Budget 2018 announced $23 million in new funding to Canadian Heritage over two years to tackle racism and discrimination, with a focus on Indigenous Peoples and racialized women and girls. This funding included $21 million to support funding resources for anti-racism and community support, and $2 million to engage Canadians on a new anti-racism approach.
• The Community Support, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Initiatives program (CSMARI) delivered the community funding through three streams: Events, Projects and Community Capacity Building. The Events stream runs on a continuous intake, so organizations can apply anytime. In 2018-2019, 291 events were supported for $4.7 million. In 2019-2020, 372 events were supported for $8.7 million.
• A call for proposals was held for the two other CSMARI streams from September 2018 to May 2019. 96 Projects were supported over two years for $13.1 million. 77 Community Capacity Building initiatives were supported in 2019-2020 for $4.7 million. The funding for these projects came from three sources: the A-base for the Multiculturalism Program, Budget 2018 (Strengthening Multiculturalism), and Budget 2019 (Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy).
• From October 2018 to March 2019, engagement sessions were held across the country to gather input from Canadians, especially those with lived experiences of racism and discrimination, in order to help inform the development of a new federal anti-racism strategy. The engagement process consisted of 22 in-person forums that welcomed approximately 600 people and 443 organizations. Equally, all Canadians were invited to participate through an online poll and survey. In 2019, the What We Heard report was released containing the results of this public consultation.

2019 Budget: $45M for Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy

• Budget 2019 announced $45 million for Building a Foundation for Change: Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy 2019-2022, which will aim to counter racism in its various forms, with a strong focus on community-based projects. The Strategy has been designed to support the following three principles: Demonstrating Federal Leadership, Empowering Communities, and Building Awareness and Changing Attitudes.
• The Strategy recognized that the Government of Canada must take a leading role in addressing systemic racism and discrimination, and established a new Anti-Racism Secretariat for this purpose. The Secretariat leads a whole-of-government approach to working with federal organizations to identify systemic barriers and gaps, develop new initiatives, and consider the impacts of new and existing policies, services and programs on racialized, Indigenous and religious minority communities. This work is designed as a first step that lays a foundation for longer-term federal actions against racism and discrimination in Canada.
• Under Empowering Communities, $30 million will support racialized communities, religious minorities and Indigenous peoples on the ground who have expertise in addressing various forms of racism and discrimination. These funds are being distributed evenly over three years through two funding programs: the Community Support, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Initiatives program (CSMARI) and a new Anti-Racism Action Program (ARAP). In 2019-2020, $10 million was distributed through CSMARI. An inaugural call for proposals for ARAP was held between September 2019 and January 2020, with a total of 1110 applications being received. Funding decisions under ARAP are expected to be taken beginning in July 2020. The next call for CSMARI is planned for the fall of 2020.
• A key component of the Anti-Racism Strategy is the effort to address gaps in data and evidence. The lack of detailed, disaggregated data as well as shortcomings in the consistent collection, measurement, reporting and analysis of data has been cited as an underlying factor contributing to racism. Detailed disaggregated data will increase awareness and understanding of barriers faced by equity-seeking communities. As part of the effort to improve data collection and analysis, funding was allocated through the Strategy to Statistics Canada ($4.25 million) and the Department of Justice ($660,000). Funding was also allocated to PCH ($1.3 million) to establish the performance measurement methodology and tools to assess the effectiveness of interventions (measure program impacts), build evidence of what works in anti-racism programming, and support improved reporting and policy-making.
• Funding was also provided to Public Safety ($900,000) to support it in developing a national framework and evidence-based guidelines to better respond to hate crimes, hate incidents and hate speech. PCH has held monthly Data and Evidence meetings with MOU partners in order to monitor the progress of these activities.

Statistics Canada ($4.25M)

• The funding provided to Statistics Canada will allow it to:
  1. oversample the 2020 General Social Survey;
  2. supporting a new Expert Advisory committee on Ethno-cultural and Immigration Statistics;
  3. experiment with Universal Crime Reporting; and,
  4. conduct socio-economic analysis.
• The status of these initiatives is as follows;
  • Oversampling of the General Social Survey: While initially on hold due to COVID-19, work has now resumed on oversampling the 2020 General Social Survey. For the first time, disaggregated data will be collected on six population groups. This will allow for more targeted policy analysis, and represents a novel approach to gather data on how these groups experience discrimination. The oversample will provide information by key variables such as gender, income, and education.
  • Expert Advisory Committee on Ethno-cultural and Immigration Statistics: The Committee has been constituted and is considering alternatives to the term 'visible minority'. In addition, it will develop a conceptual framework to better analyse ethnocultural and immigration data. A 2-day webinar was held in June 2020, and the Anti-Racism Secretariat and Multiculturalism Policy provided updates on current anti-racism efforts, as well as those relevant to COVID-19 priorities.
  • Uniform Crime Reporting: Work has focused on supporting intersectional analysis and increased record linkage activities. A final report entitled 'Hate Crime Record Linkage Report: Court outcomes of police-reported hate crimes in Canada, 2013-2017' was recently submitted.
  • Socio-economic analysis: Analytic products based on new and existing social, economic, and justice data are in development to provide concrete evidence of the challenges experienced by racialized communities, Indigenous Peoples, and religious minorities. Three key areas for analysis have been identified:
    • A Social Participation Analysis focusing on social participation, discrimination, health, and well-being. Data sources may include various cycles of the GSS, the Canadian Community Health Survey, and other relevant data sources.
    • An Employment & Economic Participation Analysis, which will focus on employment, economic participation, and discrimination using data from the Labour Force Survey, Census of population, and the GSS.
    • A Justice Experiences Analysis, which will articulate experience wih the justice system and perceived discrimination using data from diverse databases such as the GSS Victimization Survey, National Legal Problems Survey, and relevant hate crime data.

Department of Justice ($660K)

• The funding provided to the Department of Justice was intended to support the National Legal Problems Survey in order to contribute to addressing data gaps regarding legal problems experienced outside the criminal justice system.
• The project examines housing, immigration, consumer/debt, family, employment, and health issues in order to articulate the impact of these problems and propose resolutions.
• The survey focuses on middle- and low-income Canadians and the need for assistance with these issues, particularly due to discrimination.
• The eventual outcomes of the Survey will provide information on how discrimination manifests within marginalized populations. These results could prove useful to strengthen anti-racism strategies developed by PCH.

Public Safety ($900K)

• Public Safety has undertaken work to augment Canada's hate crimes and hate speech research, as well as tools and best practices. The goal is to strengthen resources available to government, civil society, and the general public to respond to radicalization to violence, including hate-motivated crimes and incidents. Activities are ongoing.
• While funding from PCH allowed PS to focus on hate crimes and hate speech, the connections to anti-racism are congruent. PS is currently in the early stages of an international systematic review of scientific knowledge and approaches to defining and measuring hate, as used by scholars, government, and civil society.
• This will help in preventing, countering, and addressing hate speech, hate incidents, and/or hate crime in Canada and comparable regions.