Madam Speaker, I previously raised this question with the Solicitor General but I did not receive a response. Well, I received a response, but his reply was that he rejected the premise of the question which was based on an access to information request. Therefore, he was in essence rejecting the RCMP's own numbers.
I will first repeat the question that I posed to the Solicitor General:
Despite public demands that equality of opportunity and merit replace race based hiring, Saskatoon Police Services is imposing a racist recruiting system. This mimics the RCMP.
Access to information reveals that in order to meet racial quotas, the RCMP pass mark for target group recruits is 21 points lower than the non-target groups.
How does the Solicitor General justify a racist hiring scheme to non-target group recruits, who are denied an RCMP career simply because they are the wrong skin colour?
That is a pretty simple, straightforward question to which I did not receive an adequate response from the Solicitor General, and is why I am now before the House again re-asking the question.
I realize the parliamentary secretary will be answering on behalf of the Solicitor General. I would like to point out for the parliamentary secretary that polls show that 86% of Canadians oppose race based quota hiring systems. They favour instead hiring people based on merit and a system that would respect their qualifications. The reason there is such high support for equal opportunity for everyone and racial discrimination against no one in the hiring process is because of a simple, fundamental, undeniable, and irrefutable fact. It is not possible to discriminate in favour of individuals because of their race without unfairly discriminating against somebody else because of their race or skin colour. To do so is racist.
The question could be posed in a slightly different way, so I will offer this to the parliamentary secretary for her consideration and response as well.
I would like to ask her what she proposes be said to the people whose careers, dreams and aspirations of being an RCMP officer are denied because they are the wrong skin colour, because they have been discriminated against by an artificial, arbitrary hiring policy that discriminates for and against people on the basis of skin colour.
What would she say to the people who are denied their dreams and aspirations of a career in the RCMP simply because they are the wrong skin colour? Conversely, I would also like to know what she proposes be said to the people who are discriminated in favour of and who have been granted an ability to have a career with the RCMP because of their skin colour, because it would seem to me that is very insulting and demeaning to the people who have been discriminated in favour of as well.
I realize she has probably been provided with a canned speech from the Solicitor General, but those are serious questions and they deserve a direct answer. I would like to remind the parliamentary secretary that her response to this will be permanently recorded in Hansard .
I have repeatedly called for an end to racial inventories, racial quotas, racial profiling and race based hiring. I wonder if she would be prepared to take that same stand on the permanent record or if she wants to be permanently recorded as having supported racist hiring programs.