Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2017

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

It's easier to figure out who's who.

[Serah Gazali]

Yes.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We go to Julie Dzerowicz. I keep calling you different things all the time, Julie.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

It's okay. Every time someone says my last name, I just say, “That's perfect.” As long as people attempt it, I'm fine.

Anyway, thank you so much for your wonderful presentations, Thanks for your patience with all of our questions.

I think I actually misunderstood Ms. Samimi's example. For some reason I thought you were already working, and then they had come up to you and said that because you were wearing a hijab they didn't think you should be working there. My understanding is that you were already hired, and then they mentioned that to you. Was my understanding correct, or were you looking for a job?

[Narges Samimi]

Yes, I was working.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

They had hired you, and—

[Narges Samimi]

Then they realized it wasn't what they wanted—

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Okay.

[Narges Samimi]

It wasn't right to have a Muslim woman in their workplace.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Did they say that, or did they say that they just didn't want someone wearing a hijab? What was the—

[Narges Samimi]

They clearly came up to me and said, “You should give up on your job. We are okay with your personality, with the way you work for us, but we are not okay with your hijab.”

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

It's very difficult in those circumstances, by the way, to actually think of what to say, how to respond, and who to even talk to after that. It's very difficult. It would be difficult for me as much as it seemed for you.

I guess my question is this. What would have made you feel comfortable to go to the next step, to maybe seek someone out and say that this was something that you don't agree with? Is it more knowledge? Is it that there was maybe an independent person you could have gone to? What are some elements that might have enabled you to go to someone and say that something had just happened to you that you didn't think was necessarily fair, and you didn't feel your charter rights were protected?

You might not have an answer now, but it's a just a question that came to mind.

[Narges Samimi]

It really would be a great thing to know there is someone you can approach who can help you, knowing that you have the right to report that hate speech and hate crime.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you for that.

I know that you're from east Vancouver. I'm from Toronto, downtown Toronto. We're very diverse, and there are a lot of different nationalities and cultures. What advice might you have, because I know you had a round table and there were a number of people and cultures around the table? We're looking at an education program that might be beneficial or positive in terms of talking to a number of different cultures at the same time who might be talking about systemic racism and discrimination. Do you have any advice around that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

That will have to be very quick advice, Ms. Samimi, because you're over time. Can you give that advice in one quick sentence?

[Narges Samimi]

I would like to have that education training not only for Muslim women, but for every Canadian.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We now go to Jenny Kwan for three minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

With the situation in British Columbia, in 2002, B.C. eliminated our human rights commission. B.C. is the only province in this country without a human rights commission. That's just to provide a context for how difficult it is for people who run into these situations to have redress or to know where to go, especially for young workers out in the workforce, often for the very first time.

That said, our new government is trying to bring back a human rights commission, but that work is under way at the moment with respect to consultations. I just want to put that in context.

Very quickly, I asked that last question about financial impact. We heard at the event a woman who spoke about the lifelong implications of facing racism and how it impacts an individual with respect to self-esteem, and how that would have implications in terms of a financial outcome into the future, and so on.

I wonder if you can quickly elaborate on that, and suggest what government can do and should do with respect to addressing those kinds of implications.

[Serah Gazali]

I'm going to reiterate the examples. I think it was testimony from a Ph.D. who was wearing a hijab, and she is very eloquent. She is very well versed on the topic of race and the kind of issues she'd face, because that's her scholarship. She was saying that after she gets her Ph.D. she's not sure she's going to have a job, because of her experience and because of her husband's experience. He has to look for a job abroad, because nobody will give him a position—I think he also has a Ph.D.—that is not an entry position.

A good proportion of the people I know are well educated. They have either graduate or above graduate education, but our pay grade is low, because we still have to struggle and find entry-level jobs.

The issue is about knowledge. It's an issue of which body carries that knowledge, and I think the knowledge of racialized minorities is always questioned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have 30 seconds.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

I think your story is on page 15 of the report. Let me put this on the record. She said:

I don’t care who likes me, who doesn’t like me but there is a need to change the system that allows me to be here as a Muslim immigrant but doesn’t allow me to achieve the social and economic integration I am here for. When we talk about racism, we often talk about these experiences as ‘feelings’ – personal attitudes, but racism doesn’t only have impacts on our feelings. It has impacts on our lives and life opportunities, it impacts the unemployment rates, domestic violence, mental illness, radicalization, youth delinquency. Muslims have 14.4% rate of unemployment – the highest after Indigenous people. Canadian Muslims are well educated. Census figures indicate that among those fifteen years of age and older, 56 percent of Muslims had a form of post-secondary education, compared to 44 percent of the total Canadian population.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry; we're going to have to wrap that up, please. You can check it in the report itself.

Just before we end this session, I think Mr. Anderson has a point of clarification.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I want to give a couple of people an opportunity to clarify something here. I was confused by the answer to one of my questions. In the report, twice it says: “...this dialogue was initiated by the office of Jenny Kwan, Member of Parliament for Vancouver East, in response to Motion 103....”

Then it says: “...it was a natural fit when Jenny Kwan's office approached Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House to take a leadership role in surveying...in response to the...tensions identified in M-103.”

I would like to be a little clearer about who initiated this. I think it makes a difference to the committee's treatment of the content of the report if it was initiated from Ms. Kwan's office through a neighbourhood. That's different from people in a neighbourhood coming to us and saying, “We'd like you to participate.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I don't understand, Mr. Anderson, why who initiated this data and information could make a difference.