In June 2019, the Government unveiled Building a Foundation for Change: Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy (2019-2022). With $45 million over three years, the Strategy was designed as a first step, laying a foundation for longer-term federal action against racism and discrimination in Canada, with a strong focus on community-based projects.
B. Background and Current Status
Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy is designed to complement existing government efforts and programs aimed at eliminating inequities, and focuses on three guiding principles: Demonstrating Federal Leadership, Empowering Communities, and Building Awareness & Changing Attitudes.
Demonstrating Federal Leadership
The Strategy created a new Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat that serves as a hub, convener and catalyst for government and communities. The Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat leads a whole-of-government approach by helping departments and federal institutions identify gaps and systemic barriers in policies, programs, legislation and international agreements, and identify opportunities for new responsive initiatives that affect the lives of racialized communities, Indigenous Peoples and religious minorities.
To respond to systemic racism and racial discrimination exacerbated by the pandemic, the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat established the Equity-Seeking Communities COVID-19 Taskforce with Women and Gender Equality Canada in March 2020. This work has included convening virtual town halls representing various communities. These conversations have focused on pandemic exacerbated impacts, gaps in federal response, policy solutions, and collaborative actions to address systemic barriers, discrimination and racism in all social spheres.
To honour the spirit of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent, the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat works in tandem with Employment and Social Development Canada to co-chair a working group on the Decade. It focuses on ensuring that government actions apply a Black-centric lens to the policymaking process and advance the objectives of the International Decade as laid out in the UN Programme of Activities. It is assisting in advancing Black communities' needs and exploring further government action beyond 2024.
The Federal Secretariat also established the Learning Advisory Committee on Systemic Racism and Discrimination alongside the Canada School of Public Service. This working group aims at developing a comprehensive suite of anti-racism courses that will be available for all public servants to address outwardly focusing policy issues.
The Federal Secretariat has also been developing an Anti-Racism Framework, which will offer public servants across the federal government the tools to assist them as they build new and review existing policy, programs, services and legislation. This Anti-Racism Framework is to be a wraparound analytical framework and institutional process designed to empower public servants to advance systems change, from an intersectional anti-racism and equity perspective; and to strengthen institutional capacity to remove systemic barriers, identify gaps and design effective policies, programs, services and legislation that benefit all people in Canada. It will support the implementation of a strengthened GBA+ framework.
The Secretariat also provides federal leadership through the Heads of Anti-Racism Units network, which gathers newly formed Anti-Racism Units/Secretariats from different Departments. The network aims to highlight key initiatives and provide peer support to each other to advance anti-racism and inclusivity within their organization.
In addition, as part of their efforts to foster continuing dialogue with provinces and territories, the Federal Secretariat and the Multiculturalism Policy directorate have re-established the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Network of Officials Responsible for Multiculturalism, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (FPTORMIA). FPTORMIA is an information-sharing forum to help facilitate closer collaboration on the overarching objective of enhancing diversity and equity in Canada. The first meeting was in February 2021, and subsequent meetings will be held on a quarterly basis.
The Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat believes that systemic racism is multifaceted and layered. As such it has established a coordinated, multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary whole-of-society approach to tackle systemic racism. To that end, it regularly shares information about federal programs and services directly to over 10,000 stakeholders across the country. In addition, it gathers information about existing and new challenges, gaps in federal initiatives and policy recommendations, through a series of town halls it holds with hundreds of representatives of Indigenous Peoples, racialized communities and religious minorities.
Concurrently, it hosts a series of sectoral town halls with hundreds of representatives of the business, labour, health, legal, philanthropic, housing, settlement and academic sectors. Through these virtual events, participants explore the state of systemic racism in different sectors, opportunities to enhance intra-sector collaboration against discrimination, and ways to foster greater coordination between sectors. This comprehensive engagement process is designed to lay the groundwork for May 2021 engagements the Federal Secretariat will lead to build Canada’s next anti-racism action plan, post March 31, 2022.
Empowering Communities
A key focus of the Strategy is to support communities on the ground who have expertise in addressing various forms of racism and discrimination.
$15 million was allocated to create the Anti-Racism Action Program (ARAP) to provide funding for community-based projects aligning with specific themes within employment, justice and social participation. 85 projects were funded through ARAP, including 21 projects with a focus on countering online disinformation, racism and hate.
The Department’s existing Community Support, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Initiatives (CSMARI) Program also received an additional $15 million as part of the Strategy to support initiatives that address racism and discrimination and promote diversity and inclusion.
Building Awareness & Changing Attitudes
Planning activities for the National Public Education and Awareness Campaign are underway. The Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat will lead efforts on a marketing and advertising campaign supporting the Public Education and Awareness Anti-Racism Campaign targeted to non-racialized Canadians, middle-aged adults and non-racialized Canadian adults. The overall objectives are to see an increase in awareness within the identified target audiences and a change in attitudes regarding racism and discrimination in Canada.
The Strategy also recognizes that data and evidence are indispensable tools for identifying and addressing inequities, and enabling corrective action toward the elimination of racism and discrimination. As such, Canadian Heritage signed formal agreements with Statistics Canada, the Department of Justice, and Public Safety Canada that will see those departments conduct original research on topics that further our collective understanding of racism and discrimination in Canadian society. Furthermore, the Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Branch is strengthening performance measurement tools to measure the effectiveness of community programs and government initiatives.
Fall Economic Statement
Most recently, among other supports for anti-racism and diversity initiatives, the Fall Economic Statement announced $50 million over two years to expand CSMARI and ARAP and to enhance our capacity to deliver on our anti-racism objectives, including by expanding the Federal Secretariat. This funding is critically important – the ARAP call for proposals, with its $15 million budget, received requests totaling over $387 million, and the Federal Secretariat is increasingly seeing its expertise drawn upon as departments undertake policies and programs that address those aspects of systemic racism within their areas of responsibility.
C. Strategic Considerations
The Department will begin consultations and planning for the next phase of the Strategy this spring 2021. Depending on timing of the next election and Writ period, this could impede policy development and implementation of the Strategy beyond 2022.
