The sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia are not just terms we used to describe what is right from what is wrong. These terms have far-reaching implications for millions of people around the world. Canada is just doing what any other nation would do; protect its reputation at all costs even when our backyard is burning. Discrimination in Canada is more subtle and the majority of Canadians are in denial.

The history of Canada with respect to human rights has shown that we are no better than the Americans (the USA). The only difference between Canada and the USA is that we are really good at public relations (PR). We have seen the increased awareness of racism in the USA with a large number of innocent African-Americans being killed or racially abused. But Canada enjoys a reputation for being nice at the international stage. The smokescreens of “being nice” can get you so far in this interconnected world.

If it is sexism, why not use a female employee to deliver the message to media that your organization is not sexist? Look we are not sexist. Our head of PR is a woman!

Indian truck driver, Canadian Hockey kids

There are many motor vehicle accidents in Canada. In 2018, the number of motor vehicle fatalities was 1,922; up 3.6% from 2017 (1,856). The number of serious injuries decreased to 9,494 in 2018; down 6.1% from 2017 (10,107). The number of fatalities per 100,000 population increased slightly to 5.2 in 2018 (from 5.0 in 2017), yet is still the second-lowest on record (ref).

The crash has been over-sensationalized by Canadians just because the truck driver has a darker skin colour and he is not a Christian.

The Humboldt Broncos bus-truck crash occurred on April 6, 2018 at the Intersection of Saskatchewan Highway 35 and Saskatchewan Highway 335 near Armley, Saskatchewan, Canada, however, is very special. It is special not because 16 people died and 13 people were injured, but because the semi driver happens to be a person of Indian origin named, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu. A lot of Canadians took to the Internet and social media to show support. At the same time, a large population of Canadians tried their best to blow the issue out of proportion because of the truck drivers’ race. In fact, it is obvious at one point, most of the social media and traditional media attention were drawn to the case just because of the race of the semi-truck driver.

Considering the statistics on motor vehicle fatalities in Canada, the Humboldt Broncos bus-truck crash is important but not for the racial backgrounds of the people involved. The crash has been over-sensationalized by Canadians just because the truck driver has a darker skin colour and he is not a Christian.

Media do not provide the full story

Canadians automatically thought the shooter was a Muslim.

Some racists Canadians lost their marbles during the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks (ref). When the news broke, the shooter’s name and the race were not known. The social media and comments platforms were overrun with racists Canadians who are trying to tie the issue to Muslims and immigrants. But when the gunman, Gabriel Wortman, information is released, the far-right Conservative comments stopped. Then a new trend emerged. Blaming immigrants and liberals and trying to find excuses for why he murdered 22 innocent people. I stand by my statement if this gunman happens to be Muslim or a non-White immigrant, the Canadians will be screaming at minority communities for an apology. I was relieved that he was White and I am not going to hide my relief considering the amount of racism I face in Canada.

Canadian Judicial System

What if it was about a new immigrant Jew with a Hebrew accent? What would be the response from the Alberta Government in that situation?

I can name several federal and provincial judges with a long history of racially bias verdicts. Racism and sexism among Canadian judges often go unnoticed. This is due to the fact that they know the law inside out so they do their best to be racist and sexist without being kicked out of the bench.

For example, well documented Alberta Justice Terry Clackson was never brought to justice for being “prejudiced, racist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant” during the court proceedings of David and Collet Stephan accused of killing their own child. In his decision, Clackson said the medical examiner called by the Crown, Dr. Bamidele Adeagbo, was hard to understand and spoke with an accent. The couple in trial walks free due to racist Justice Terry Clackson. Nothing happens to him after the media hype died down. (ref) Do you think the outcome is the same if the judge Justice Terry Clackson criticize a French-Canadian with a heavy English accent? How about a new immigrant Jew with a Hebrew accent? What would be the response from the Alberta Government in those situations?

There are many other cases like these from Nova Scotia judges determining sentences based on race and religion such as White rapist, Chris Davidson, receiving shorter sentence with no requirement to register in sex offenders registry (ref). “McDougall told Davidson that it was clear from the evidence that he is an intelligent, respectful, church-going young man from a good family. The judge also cited a pre-sentence report that said he had no previous record and had taken responsibility for his actions.” So, what happens if the defendant is a South Asian Muslim Canadian? Will the judge have the same character reference on him?

Judges sometimes character assassinate minority defendants and plaintiffs while highlighting the good qualities of defendants of European descent. It is substile until you look into multiple cases across Canada.

Out in the open

Almost every democratic country has people who are critical of their government and government policies. You have the right to disagree with your local, provincial, and federal (or other) governments. However, you should not have the right to use race or religion to attack individuals who work for the government.

When COVID-19 hit Canada in late 2019, the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada was/is Dr. Theresa Tam. Lots of Canadians took to social media and comments sections of news websites to point out that Dr. Theresa Tam is Chinese. (Read the comments section here) The argument these comments may be bots is invalid because some idiots actually used their real names and profiles to comment, which anyone can track them to their LinkedIn and other profiles. The Conservative right-wing will try to blame these on bots whenever they get caught red-handed. This has been an effective blame-shifting mechanism for years, but with increased access to technology it is becoming harder and harder to distort reality.

Victim’s responsibility to prove there is a crime

The discrimination inside the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) (ref), Correctional Service of Canada (ref) and other organizations have shown clearly when allegations are brought up, it is always the victim’s responsibility to prove a crime has been committed.

For example, if there is sexism in your organization, in Canada, as a woman you have to gather all the evidence and present them to authorities. Authorities always do absolutely minimum or they will throw some legal or regulatory loophole at you. Let’s say you know that there is an email in the organization’s server with sexist remarks. You have to fight against a massive colossal management and union leaders to get that email released. In fact, the said email may never get released or even deleted completely from servers. It is like asking a murder victim to find their own evidence (which one cannot do since you are dead). The police and authorities almost never investigate instead find excuses to not to uphold the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the UN Geneva Convention.

Violators are not always the majority

There are many minorities that push for anti-feminist and sexist agendas in Canada.

I have seen South Asian people who hate blacks. I have seen African-Canadian parents asking their daughters to not to associate with South Asian men. I have seen Chinese-Canadians refusing to hire non-Chinese employees. I spoke to a newly immigrated family in Canada who hates European culture. There are many minorities that push for anti-feminist and sexist agendas in Canada. I spoke to a Filipino Canadian family where parents overwhelmingly support neo-Conservative far-right views on homophobia even if that means it will also bring in anti-immigration policies. It is the I don’t care attitude as long as I can hurt the LGBTQ community. The investigative report on missing and murdered indigenous women show it was largely native indigenous men who committed violence against their own women. (ref) Government and everyone simply downplayed that specific detail. Let’s not forget some Eastern European new immigrants in Canada who have a distoreted view on blacks and South Asian Canadians.

The Western powers have used these issues to energize ethnic cleansing and racist behaviors between minorities communities. The gullible people in our South Asian community is more than happy to facilitate it.

There are other issues among minorities. The Western powers have used these issues to energize ethnic cleansing and racist behaviors between minorities communities. Because divided minority communities are easier to control. The best examples of these are the rifts between Sikh Canadians and Hindu Canadians and the rift between Tamil Canadians and Sinhalese Canadians. These are the tools that are used by the majority Western powers to control the minorities. The gullible people in our South Asian community is more than happy to facilitate it.

The point is racism and discrimination are not limited to majority European-Canadians. It is everywhere and everyone is responsible.

Prevent whistleblowers and downplay accusations

An organization can also systematically use the discrimination itself to target individuals who speak against discrimination.

In Canada, we have several mechanisms to prevent whistleblowers from speaking up. In the Alberta Oil and Gas industry for example, if you speak up, you will never get hired by any other Oil and Gas company in the industry. Female engineers and geologists have faced sexism in the Alberta Oil and Gas industry for years. I have spoken to several veteran Geologists who told me, in the 1960s and in the 1970s Canadian oil companies often ask female staff to leave important meetings because the meetings are only reserved for men. This is what I call an old boys club. The women who spoke against that behavior will swiftly be relieved of their duties and all other companies will be informed of their actions. The irony is that the only reason why Alberta oil companies changed the course of action is because of the influx of immigrant minority women. The immigration of engineers and geologists from darker skin-colored countries actually helped Canadian women gain access to equality at their workplace. Put this into perspective, the world’s first democratically elected female Prime Minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected in Sri Lanka on July 21, 1960 and she lead that country for over 4 years as the head of the government (ref).

The other mechanism that is in place is internal regulations or laws. For example, if you work for company X and that company has a union, you must speak to the union first. Then if the union decides there is discrimination, you now can speak to the management. If the management decides if there is discrimination, they will help you take action. But, oftentimes the union or the management disagree that there is discrimination and stop the process even in the face of mounting evidence. In that situation, if you speak up, such as going to the media, your employment will be terminated. There are no checks and balances in the due process. You can say there is no due process at all.

An organization can also systematically use the discrimination itself to target individuals who speak against discrimination. If you speak against racism or sexism at work, your co-workers and managerial personals can remove you from important projects, reduce your work hours, change your work schedule, etc. In order to cover their end from a legal point of view, they will always have well-crafted excuses such as, “operational requirement”, “hours have been reduced for everyone”, “the project needed a fresh set of eyes”, etc. It is extremely difficult to disprove these claims because companies cook their own lies. Discouraging and disallowing carrier advancement is another example of this type of systematic discrimination. Of course, they will have an excuse such as, “you are overqualified”.

It is next to impossible to audit companies that use discriminatory policies. I spoke to a Human Resources Manager who was disgusted by how some of the selection processes were racist. His HR department threw out all the applications that did not have easy to pronounce names. The argument is that it is not racism, but because the company deals with the public, the names have to be easy to pronounce for English Canadians. But because this was only discussed verbally, the HR Manager cannot take the company to court. There are no viable proofs to prove a crime has been committed. It is his word against his company. During the last Canadian Federal election, some oil companies openly told their workers, “you either vote Conservatives who will build our pipeline, or you will be fired”. Under the Elections Canada rule, this is illegal and under UN law, it is voter intimidation. Canada has filed cases against other countries for voter intimidation in the UN. But because there is no solid proof, you cannot take these oil companies to court. I had friends who told me that their homes will be vandalized if they put out a sign belong to left-leaning parts in Canada. Again, it is clear voter intimidation, but it is very difficult to prove in a court of law.

Tokenism is a problem

Canadian far-right political movements have used minorities within their party to prove that discrimination is not part of their agenda.

Tokenism is defined “the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce”. In other words, use the minorities who are working for you to prove that your are not against minorities.

When an issue becomes public, the organization often use their own to prove that they are not sexist, racist or homophobic. If your police department is accused of racism, you will use Black and South Asian police officers during a press conference. If it is sexism, why not use a female employee to deliver the message to media that your organization is not sexist? Look we are not sexist. Our head of PR is a woman! Look we are not targeting South Asians, our Manager is South Asian! In fact, Canadian far-right political movements have used minorities within their party to prove that discrimination is not part of their agenda. Having South Asian and Black city Councillors, Members of the Legislative Assembly and Members of the Parliament while pushing policies to segregate and discriminate is in the playbooks of far right political movements. Some of these individuals such as Milo Yiannopoulos makes millions of dollars out of gullibility of the populous.

I must add that this tokenism issue is not isolated to just Canada but all Western nations. Disgrace Priti Patel, British politician serving as Home Secretary since 2019 after being caught making backdoor deals with powerful countries to promote racism is another wonderful example of tokenism. Both the Right Wing and Left Wing are not allowed to be critical of unethical behaviour of Priti Patel just because she is a “British-Indian”. She has promoted anti-Black, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant views not only in Britain but also in Scotland.

Undermining civil rights movements

This is how the far-right tries to justify the silencing of civil rights movements. Have you ever heard the following (My response is in parentheses):

• It should be all lives matter, not just black lives matter? (If you are saying all lives matter, why you do have a problem with black lives matter?)
• Why don’t we have a straight traditional marriage parade? (When was the last time Canadian Federal or Provincial law prohibit traditional marriage? People like Alan Turing suffered for what had happened to the LGBTQ individuals in the British Empire.)
• It is all about the Muslims. Why not the Buddhists or Christians takes to the street? (Buddhists have protested the Canadian government in the UN several times. Christians have protested all over the world against religious oppression. Look it up buttercup!)
• Why can’t they protest peacefully? (You mean like kneeling to a national anthem? How about bringing the issue to FIFA or Olympics when even players were accused of racism? Oh, so that is not allowed either. Famous sports people have tried to bring this up OUTSIDE the games. They were also told their NFL contracts will be terminated for speaking out even when they do it at their own time.)
• Why are you talking about gun violence and gun laws when we have a shooting tragedy now? (So, tell me when is the best time to talk about gun laws and regulations?)
• When my ancestors came to Canada, they had to plow the Alberta fields to earn money. These new immigrants have it so easy! (Your ancestors did NOT use computers. Why do you use them now? Why don’t YOU go plow the Alberta fields right now? Economic and industrial conditions have evolved since your European ancestors came to Canada.)

Vital role of technology

Racist Canadians often use the phrase, “the only reason we hear about racism all the time because of media”. This is not true at all. Racism has always been a part of Canada. The technology and media only highlight the issues and provide credibility for accusations. Are you that gullible to think racism did not exist before the Internet? The technology provided vital tools that society can utilize to speak up and prevent discrimination. Technology itself is not the problem as it is stated by a lot of neo-Conservative Canadians.

Why asking nicely never worked?

MLK and Gandi actually did far less for the progress of minority rights than we give them credits.

Asking nicely with letters and requests to the government and organizations to fix discrimination have so far not fixed the problems. Fact, after Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) was assassinated, 110 US cities started rioting causing $47 million (1967 value) in damages. On the 6th day of the riots, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was passed. I was born in a former Europan colony. European rulers have NEVER given rights to minorities without an uprising. In British-India, it was the assassinations of European rulers that lead to independence. MLK and Gandi actually did far less for the progress of minority rights than we give them credits.

When Justice Terry Clackson used racism and xenophobia as a tool to release David and Collet Stephan. Canadian Association of Nigerian Physicians and Dentists and several other organizations did write to the government. (ref) This was in October of 2019 and to this day, nothing had happened. No action from the Alberta judges or the bench. I can almost guarantee you that if the minority communities in racist Alberta took to the streets and lead a violent street protest, the judge will be punished for his actions.

The female RCMP officers have sent multiple requests to their superiors before the entire issue was blown out in the open. Initially, the RCMP, a federal government agency, did nothing. But when the information hit the media and whistleblowers came come in force, the disgraced RCMP management at that time decided to settle the case for $100M.

Whenever a minority community peacefully protest, the majority, the government, and organizations accuse them of bringing political issues to otherwise non-political stages. There have been several attempts at the Olympics, the UN, NBA, NFL, etc. Each time the majority European population complains. Players and managers have been threatened with employment terminations to appease the neo-Conservative right. So, you do not like peaceful protests and you use censorship. This is why people turn to violent protests.

I am not advocating for violence or circumvent laws and regulations in place. But when everything fails, you have to think outside the box. Asking nicely seems to be not working at least here in Canada. Sending the victim to collect his/her own evidence is disgraceful. In the Western world that preaches moral high ground to rest of the world at the UN, it important that we do something (or anything) to fix the broken system.

There are a lot of more things wrong with Canada. Religion-based discrimination is structured into all aspects of Canadian life while Canada is putting up the “we are secular” smoke screen. In fact, I can write a book on outright out in the open religious discrimination structured into Canadian legal, socio-economic systems. I can talk about how many times people have told me, “if you don’t like Canada, why don’t you go back to where you came from?” This is one of the popular responses to anyone of colour criticizing Canada. But this short easy is good enough to open some eyes.

I did not discuss the following items in detail in this essay. However, these are good key points I should highlight.

• Did you know that when Ahmed Hussen became our Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, the right-wing made fun of him calling him a Somali pirate?
• Did you know veteran, Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan has been accused of being a Muslim? First of all, nothing wrong with being a Muslim Canadian. Canada is NOT a Christian country by the constitution at the first place. Second, the right-wing seems to be having a hard time understanding world religions including of their own.
• Did you know the majority of racists Canadians have a problem with Members of Parliament being a non-European?
• Did you know KKK and Aryan Brotherhood are not illegal terrorist organizations in Canada?
• Did you know Canadians started to look at immigration statistics closely after 1960s? This is because, after the 1960s the trends in immigrants into Canada start changing significantly from Europeans to non-Europeans.
• Did you know the majority of African, South Asian, and Asain immigrants came to Canada under Permanent Resident (PR) schemes are highly educated?

I am taking a risk of losing job opportunities and friendships for speaking up against discrimination in Canada. “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” Benito Mussolini (fascist)

It is important for us to remember, the common thread of humanity far outweigh any differences. Dr. Will (24 Hours in A&E UK Channel 4).