Canadian Heritage Committee on Sept. 25th, 2017

[Shawn Richard]

We had a session for the public about knowing your rights. We give them all of the law, and then at the end of the day—because we're dealing with a bunch of teenagers—we say to them, “Look, if a police officer asks you certain questions, you gotta be very careful. There's a difference between your legal rights and practically what's going to get you out of a situation where you don't really want to end up on the bad side of circumstances.”

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Right. Okay.

Because we only have about 30 seconds left, I'll just ask this: if all cops were equipped with body cams and all interactions were collected and saved somewhere, would that to some degree mediate the kinds of problems that are created in these interactions that occur when carding takes place?

[Shawn Richard]

I don't believe so, for two reasons. One, there are all sorts of police officers with body cameras. In fact, when we see incidents that we're all very concerned about, often it's because a body camera captures it. Two, it's important to understand the depth of systemic racism.

Again, I don't want to say that all police officers are bad. A lot of the decisions that get made are.... It's just part of the system. We don't even understand or acknowledge the biases that we have. You could put a body camera on someone, but if you haven't actually addressed the systemic cause, all you're going to do is record the interaction. That may be good afterwards for someone like me who has to deal with it, but it's not actually very practical for the person who has to go through the experience.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you.

We will move to Arif Virani, for three minutes, and then Rachel.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I want to thank both of the witnesses. Your testimony has been very honest and compelling, and thank you for sharing it with us. It's also a bit of a personal note of pride to have Shalini here from SALCO. It's a clinic that I helped get on its feet, and I was a board member. It's great to see the work you're doing. I didn't know there were seven offices around the province now.

Shalini, at one point you talked about how, when you first started out, it was important to understand the needs of the community by getting out into the community. Can you talk about something Ms. Go mentioned in the last round, which is that there was a time when there was funding available for actually doing those types of needs assessments or community empowerment? Is that something you think—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Capacity building.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Capacity building. Is that something you think would be fruitful?

[Shalini Konanur]

It would be fundamentally fruitful. Currently the funding structure at Canadian Heritage allows for programs where communities reach out to other communities, if I'm getting it right. The reality is we're not there at the point where communities are okay within themselves to start reaching out and building bridges with other communities. There are so many communities that still require capacity building, and that type of multicultural funding—as Ms. Go said, the type of funding that the Colour of Poverty campaign received—led to some really critical work on those issues. The loss of that funding has had real impact on the ability of those communities to have some of the difficult conversations we've talked about here.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I'd like to ask both of you in my remaining time, you've talked a bit about that Ontario example, specifically with the anti-racism directorate, and I think you identified four groups. It's the same four areas of study that we're looking at—anti-Semitism, anti-black racism, indigenous discrimination, and Islamophobia—but then you also said there's a program component. What are the programs? You mentioned in passing justice, or corrections, and housing. Have those been teased out? Also, could you explain a bit about that expert committee that's advising Minister Coteau in Ontario? What role does that committee play?

[Shalini Konanur]

The pillars have been teased out. I would direct you to look directly at the strategies so you can see what the targeted measures and priorities are within each pillar. The advisory committees have been critical, one, in that there's one overarching advisory, but more importantly because for each pillar the recommendation from those committees was that you not speak to us; you should actually be creating community-based advisories for each pillar, and this larger group shouldn't be the one advising you. The province has accepted that and really gone into seeking, for each of those pillars, specific community engagement. That engagement should go beyond advisory committees, to be frank. They should be engaging the community in as many ways as they can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Konanur.

We're moving on now to the last person, Rachel Blaney, for three minutes, or less, if you choose.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

I just want to get one clarification around carding. If somebody is stopped repeatedly and documentation is taken and it is going somewhere, how does that impact them in future endeavours?

[Shawn Richard]

That's a good question.

Right now, the Ontario government has brought about some regulations about what to do with that information, how long it can be held, what happens to it eventually. But police officers have used carding to legitimately, for example, eliminate alibis. People say I wasn't here at this particular time, but you have a card, a date—great. So it has been used. There's no question about that.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Does it impact their criminal record checks if they're applying for a job?

[Shawn Richard]

I don't know the answer to that question.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Okay, thank you.

The last thing that I want to talk about quickly is the narrative to counter the current rise in normalization of hateful rhetoric, and this is going to have a long-term impact. From this perspective, in this committee, what does the federal government need to do to deal with that? I think about Barcelona. When they were getting a lot of immigrants, they did an anti-rumour program where they actually dispelled a lot of the thoughts that were happening in their region.

What could the federal government do around this issue?

[Shalini Konanur]

Around the issue of the narrative of xenophobia?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Yes, and Islamophobia and all of these issues that are growing.

[Shalini Konanur]

I think education does play a role in that, and a large portion of the old action plan around racism focused on education, so there's a piece there. Naming and taking a stand is critical. For us, naming things such as Islamophobia and anti-black racism and issues in the indigenous community, which we have been doing more of, is a critical piece, as well as not shying away from naming what people perceive as being somewhat difficult things to talk about, because the reality is that those things are happening to people. That plays a role in it. Education plays a role in it. But really, the teeth of it comes from the fact that this committee will consider that we have to start addressing systemic racism.

A lot of what we often talk about is individual racism—reporting hate crimes, individual...you know, somebody saying something to me in a coffee shop. The reality is that the bigger impact is from the systemic piece, the systemic racism that's happening that we don't name and we don't talk about.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much to the witnesses. I want to thank you for defining clearly the idea that it isn't about hate crimes. Hate crimes are clearly identified in the Criminal Code. It is about the daily ability for somebody to participate fully in the economic, social, political, and cultural life of the country. Those are the words of the multiculturalism act, and that is very clearly what multiculturalism is supposed to do, make sure that people are able to participate in the economic, social, political, and cultural. It's all of those little things that tend to keep people out and not get jobs, etc., that are at the heart of systemic racism.

Thank you so much.

I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Mr. Vandal, you are taking over from Peter Van Loan. Thank you.