I'm going to take the opportunity to ask a couple of questions.
In the 1990s, Canada took intersectionality to the world stage. We talked about the various discriminations that occur because of the various components that make you a minority. I am surprised that there is no study, working with the RCMP, etc., when you have a case, to look at whether intersectionality is a big part of that. That would give us a lot of data. I'm hoping that you would start working on this. We have been using the term intersectionality in the last two years; we need to put some teeth into it and get some data. Maybe Ms. Banerjee, and Statistics Canada, and even Treasury Board, can start looking at this, because it would be able to tunnel down into the nature of systemic discrimination.
Ms. Aitken, you said that you didn't have an action plan. Ms. Kwan asked you that. I know that when I was minister for multiculturalism, we had a very active action plan. You are governed by the Canadian Multiculturalism Act per se. You're supposed to make sure that the Canadian Multiculturalism Act is carried out. Programs and projects are fine, but what are you doing in your department within Heritage Canada, under the act, to ensure that minorities, regardless of their ethnicity, race, religion, etc. are able to participate fully? The mandate of the act is to participate fully in the economic, social, political, and cultural life of the country. Is anything proactively being done to ensure that happens?
When I was the minister for multiculturalism, we worked very closely with Statistics Canada, not just to find out what they are finding out, but to actually put questions to Statistics Canada, so that they could again tunnel down to intersectionality to get at the root of it. Systemic, institutionalized racism and religious discrimination is quite often propagated by institutions, unwittingly or otherwise. When we hear people say that the RCMP, especially in certain parts of this country, pick a fight with aboriginal people, and will racialize them, as they do with certain black communities, we need to be able to find out if that is actually true and if so, how are we getting information on that.
I wonder if multiculturalism programs should be more proactive in terms of getting information and working closely with others.
By the way, I want to say, Ms. Banerjee, I love what you're doing in your sector. I think it's important.