I have to say that in my riding of Willowdale, thanks to the extraordinary diversity--it's fantastic--because of the colour of my skin, I am actually now in a visible minority. I look forward to the time when in this country we don't actually have to have this conversation. But when somebody is filling out an application, and you ask the question, “Are you a member of a visible minority?”, and by recognizing too that there is a connection among those groups and newer Canadians who may actually not have as much facility with either of the official languages, for example, is it assumed that people just understand what that means and why the question is being asked? There are two pieces to that question, in the sense of coming from the private sector and knowing full well that in many cases people will actually not specify that or their background in an application for fear of discrimination the other way.
On March 31st, 2009. See this statement in context.