The federal government can be commended for its commitment to implement the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, or ICERD, but there could be improvements in its reporting. In a letter to the Human Rights Policy Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canadian Bar Association’s Equality Subcommittee, International Law Section and Immigration Law Section offer a few suggestions.
While the Sections are happy with the list of subject areas to be included in the “Overarching Implementation Considerations” portion of the report, they single out two items that are especially important: consultations with civil society and Indigenous organizations and federal, provincial and territorial mechanisms to combat racial discrimination.
Another issue that’s not currently included by should be is the overlap between racial and religious discrimination, the progress made and what still needs to be done to fight religious discrimination. “Racial and religious discrimination should not be viewed as distinct issues,” the letter says, “and the issues stemming from their intersectionality must be highlighted.” And finally, every one of the overarching implementation considerations should account for intersectionality.
The Sections are also pleased with the issues included in the “Ethnocultural groups” part of the report, “including education, employment equity, hate crimes and hate speech, victim reporting and compensation, investigation, detention of migrants, the STCA and the status of temporary migrant workers.”
The Sections stress how important it is not to aggregate those groups into an “ethnic minorities” catchall category, given that racial discrimination does not affect all groups the same way.
In addition, there needs to be additional discussion around racist hate crimes, specifically on equal access to law enforcement services and the justice system for members of all groups. And the complexities surrounding the application of the Safe Third Country Agreement in situations where racialized and/or gender-diverse refugee claimants cross into Canada from the United States need to be included in the report.
The CBA Sections applaud the issues included in the section on Indigenous Peoples and add that consultation with Indigenous groups is needed to determine which ones are priority and which key issues might be missing from the existing list.
On justice issues, the CBA letter says that the report “needs to be expanded beyond the consideration of criminal justice to all interactions with the justice system, especially interactions of minority groups with the administrative justice system in immigration, employment and human rights.” In particular, training for judges should be tailored with “an anti-racist approach” rather than a colour-blind approach that allows discrimination and inequalities to persist because it ignores “the underpinnings of race in the evidence and facts.”