Canada is on the cusp of embarking on a new comprehensive campaign to dismantle systemic racism, as it prepares to launch a brand new federal anti-racism strategy. The operation is being shaped by the voices of tens of thousands of Black, Indigenous, and racialized persons, as well as those who belong to religious minorities. 

During community town halls, national summits, roundtable conversations, and smaller focus group discussions, they called on the federal government to take more purposeful and lasting steps to remove the structural and systemic barriers that enable racial discrimination to fester. They also made a strong case for tackling the distinctive ways in which racism affects different populations, such as Indigenous Peoples, and members of Black, Asian, Muslim, Jewish, and Arab communities.

Our national statistical office – Statistics Canada – has long documented the persistence of racial inequalities. For example, its “Study: Education and earnings of Canadian-born Black populations” paints a disturbing picture of racial inequities in Canada. 

While Black persons in Canada tend to be as educated as – and in some case more educated than - non-racialized persons, they experience greater hardships in the labour market and disproportionate wage gaps. The statistical office admits that most of the inequalities cannot be explained by standard socio-demographic factors, such as education, region, or occupational group. 

Since 2018, when Canada officially recognized the International Decade for People of African Descent, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has publicly acknowledged the persistence of anti-Black racism in our public institutions. He has also affirmed that systemic racism remains embedded in our federal institutions. 

That is one of the reasons the federal government launched Building a Foundation for Change: Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy, 2019-2022. The Strategy sought to demonstrate federal leadership by laying the bricks and mortar of a future, broader federal effort to combat systemic racism in Canadian society. 

This centered on establishing the office I run, the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat. It plays a unique coordinating and catalytic role within the federal public administration.

We work with countless government departments and agencies to identify and remove systemic racial barriers. We also help federal organizations develop new responsive initiatives that meaningfully meet the everyday needs of populations with lived experience of racism while honouring their fundamental rights. 

To fulfill this broad mandate, the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat operates as a federal center of expertise on racial equity. We serve as a hub, a convenor and a catalyst, which drives policy and systemwide change from an intersectional anti-racist perspective. 

This means listening attentively to and regularly centering the voices of thousands of organizations and groups serving diverse populations. They speak quite candidly about the daily challenges they face; they identify systemic barriers to their communities’ success; and they provide recommendations for more effective, inclusive, and transformational federal policy. 

Thanks to this public to government policy pipeline, we can more effectively support federal departments in crafting measures that are anti-racist in intent and in impact. Since 2019, when the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat was established, Canada has taken several bold steps to combat systemic racism, notably anti-Black racism. 

The federal government has established the Black Entrepreneurship Program, an unprecedented federal initiative supporting thousands of Black entrepreneurs and Black-led businesses who face barriers to success. Canada has made a major investment in establishing the country’s first-ever Black-led philanthropic endowment fund. It is set-up to provide a steady and sustainable flow of capital to support Black-led and serving organizations across the country, which are historically underserved by the philanthropic sector. 

Canada’s Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative is also pumping millions of dollars into Black communities across the country, as they build critical capacity and readiness to meet the real needs of their members. In addition to delivering a unique Black-centric housing program, the Government is now working on Canada’s Black Justice Strategy, another first. It will address anti-Black racism in the administration of justice. 

The Government of Canada has also been active in addressing the spike in anti-Asian racism and hate through record investments in Asian community organizations. Tackling the ongoing threat of anti-Muslim hatred across the country, the federal government established and appointed Canada’s first ever Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia. Canada has also taken critical steps to increase funding and support for Jewish, Muslim, and several other communities targeted by hate.

With our shared bonds and common history, it stands to reason that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, committed in 2021 to work together to combat systemic racism and discrimination in all forms. 

Their commitment was formalized in January of 2023, when Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, and the former Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Luis Ebrard, signed the Declaration on the North American Partnership for Equity and Racial Justice. 

The Partnership provides a tri-country framework for bolstering our cross-border collaboration in advancing racial justice, notably through the creation of a North American Civil Society Network for Racial Equity and Inclusion and a North American Government Forum on Equity and Racial Justice. 

As Canada prepares to launch its brand-new Anti-Racism Strategy, the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat looks forward to working closely with US and Mexican authorities, as well as national and grassroots organizations, like the National Urban League, on this critical work of eliminating all forms of racism, discrimination, and hate.