Experts, policy makers and community leaders met Monday in Ottawa to develop an action plan to “eradicate” racism in French Ontario.
“Black, French-speaking and racialized people experience racism on a daily basis. This has to change,” says Léonie Tchatat, founder and director of La gateway IDE, the organization that orchestrated the event and set up the Call to Action Against Racism advisory committee.
Titled Resolutions 2023: Defeating Racism Together, the two-day conference aims to “highlight the systemic oppression faced by Black and racialized communities in Ontario and Canada”, and to make recommendations aimed at different levels of government .
The choice of location for the event – the federal capital – is not trivial, says Bernadette Clément, special guest of the conference. “It is very deliberate that the conference is held here. […] We want to speak to elected or appointed officials in spheres of influence. » A senator since 2021, in 2018 she became the first black woman to hold the position of mayor in Ontario, after her election in the municipality of Cornwall.
According to the panelists, racialized French-speaking Ontarians must both “fight for [le français] » and experience “systemic racism”. “It is intersectionality which is an asset, but which really brings us challenges”, summarizes Mme Clement.
“I have seen how Francophones and Black and racialized Ontarians are affected by systemic racism. I saw the impact of racism: how economic insecurity particularly affects black and racialized francophones in this province,” she wrote in a press release.
If there is “a lot of hope”, she deplores the “micro-aggressions which are still very present in workplaces, for example, in job searches”. The conference also focuses on racism within the education system, health, the economy, and the representation of racialized people in politics and in the media. ” It is […] discouraging to know that people still have to talk about these challenges in 2023.”
Build relationships
According to Mme Tchatat, “systemic racism” has “always been there”, but it is taboo within French-speaking communities. “We are still afraid to talk about this theme. »
She therefore sees the event as an opportunity for “black, francophone and racialized communities to come together to raise the issue of racism within our society”. The conference also allows us to forge links between “different racialized French-speaking communities”, which “do not all know each other”, indicates Senator Bernadette Clément. “We really have a duty to build bridges. »
Because racism is everyone’s business, says Ronald Bisson, member of the advisory committee. “Racism is never cured by itself. So the approach that we advocate is to carry out our own examinations, each in our organizations, in our school boards, to ensure the good representation of people from these communities, who must participate in the establishing solutions.
“It’s not because I’m black that racism belongs to me, it’s an issue that affects our societies, and together, we must eradicate it,” explains Léonie Tchatat.
A “pluralist” French-speaking Ontario
“The Franco-Ontarian community is a community that has itself suffered a lot of racism and discrimination for hundreds of years. A lot,” recalls Mr. Bisson. But with the “massive” arrival of French-speaking immigrants “over the past 40 years”, the Franco-Ontarian believes that it is time to “develop a new social project”: “pluralist French-speaking Ontario”.
A symbol of inclusion, the Maison de la francophonie d’Ottawa no longer speaks of “Franco-Ontarians”, a term “associated with a culture”, but of “French Ontario”. “When we talk about French Ontario, that’s what brings us all together, because it’s this language that unites us,” says its president, Fatima Aden Osman, calling on Franco-Ontarians who “have experienced this discrimination » not to reproduce it “with people who speak their language”.
The goal is “not to criticize, it’s not to point fingers, it’s not to insult, but it’s to denounce things that are wrong in order to provide solutions.”
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.