To fully understand the investigation of the Duty on complaints of racism to the City of Montreal, let us first recall the context. In 2016, a coalition of civil society groups (of which I was a part) challenged the Premier of Quebec, Philippe Couillard, to request a commission on systemic racism. The term “systemic racism” is then new for a large majority of Quebecers. Many of us explain, somehow, what it is, and what it is not, on the forums that we are willing to offer.
We are talking about policies and institutional cultures that create and reproduce social inequalities. In response, we are accused of being a “trial of Quebecers” and the words “systemic” and “systematic” are mixed up…a distinction that everyone already makes very well when it comes to political issues, with which we is already more comfortable.
We point out the circles where so much remains to be done to break the silence on systemic racism in Quebec, particularly in the fields of health, education, justice and employment. We are told that we can resolve the situation quite easily without bothering with all that. Let’s use anonymous CVs when hiring, organize job fairs for immigration in the regions, and voila.
The provincial commission on systemic racism ultimately never took place. But the idea will have made its way in civil society, and changed mentalities. And when George Floyd and Joyce Echaquan lost their lives in front of the cameras, suddenly more of us had a word to name things.
The end of inadmissibility in Quebec will not discourage anti-racist mobilization. In Montreal, it is the former candidate of Projet Montréal, Balarama Holness, who takes the ball back in 2018. In the City, we are in no more hurry to name systemic racism and to act against it. . But there is a flaw in the system: citizens have the power to impose a subject for consultation on the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) if they collect at least 15,000 signatures… by hand. A group of young people gathered around Holness roll up their sleeves and pull off the feat.
Let us not lose sight of this, therefore: if the City of Montreal has recognized the existence of systemic racism and has undertaken to implement the recommendations of the report produced by the OCPM, it is because a citizens’ movement forced his hand. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the fight against racism in Montreal that resembles breaking open doors.
In the wake of this report produced at the end of a consultation that the City did not want, the Office of the Commissioner for the Fight against Racism and Systemic Discrimination was created. Several key players in the City of Montreal, of course, did not want more. But we are at the start of 2021, just months after George Floyd and Joyce Echaquan. Since it is not exactly in tune with the times to name one’s discomfort with the very existence of the office, all the criticism is concentrated on the person who will run it. Bochra Manaï cashes in, does not flinch, and gets to work.
Its team mainly has the power to recommend and support the various City teams struggling with problems of racism. Necessarily, in context, it is difficult to curb the expectations of employees who have experienced racist harassment from co-workers, in some cases for decades. The investigation of Duty describes an institution where the boroughs, the central city and the unions pass the hot potato on employees who contribute to a toxic work climate, without there being any real consequences for the culprits. The only people who should be surprised here are those who have not yet understood, after all these years, the exact meaning of the expression “systemic racism”.
So let’s go back to the question that was launched in 2016, namely the importance of shedding light, breaking the omerta and finally taking action against systemic racism in a host of institutions in Quebec. The municipal administration of Montreal had this work imposed on it, following a mobilization of citizens, and we see, in particular in the investigation of the Duty, which was hiding. Unheard of levels of hateful harassment, employees denied promotions based on the color of their skin, careers shattered, victims whose sanity ends up failing, and of course the taboo, conveyed in particular by the ban on speaking to journalists.
But it is not because the spotlight is on the City of Montreal that the injustices there are worse than in other municipalities, or than in the private sector, the health and social services, education, righteousness, etc. Simply, Montreal has begun to do work that we still refuse to start elsewhere.
When you have one foot in the field, with the communities most affected by racism, you have already heard hundreds of testimonies similar to those unveiled byr Le Devoir this week, in just about every employment sector. While the fight for freedom of expression is very much in vogue these days, let’s take a moment to measure the magnitude of the mobilizations and the resilience required to break only a tiny part of the silence on systemic racism.