On December 3, the organization Quebec Native Women held a large rally in front of the National Assembly, calling on the Government of Quebec to recognize the existence of systemic racism and discrimination in Quebec against Aboriginal people, especially aboriginal women. On this occasion, the organization invited the population to sign an online petition on the site of the National Assembly in order to support this process. It should be noted that this demonstration followed the tabling of a disturbing and well-documented research report on numerous cases of sterilization imposed on First Nations and Inuit women in Quebec.
Let’s admit that the current interminable debate on the existence or not of systemic racism in Quebec has taken a distressing turn. We turn arround. However, the question is not whether this is a reality that really exists, but rather how these notions of systemic discrimination and systemic racism can be useful to us.
Let’s first discuss the concept of systemic discrimination. It has been widely used in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada since the 1980s. It has nothing to do with what could be considered deliberate systematic discrimination from the highest levels of organizations or institutions in our society. . The legal concept of systemic discrimination is useful precisely because instead of focusing on perpetrators and strict interpersonal relationships, we focus instead on what is at the source of inequalities within the very structures of our society.
Thus, in human rights jargon, three forms of discrimination are generally distinguished: direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and systemic discrimination. These concepts are nothing new. With respect to systemic discrimination, the courts have defined it as follows: […] as the sum of disproportionate effects of exclusion which result from the combined effect of attitudes imbued with prejudice and stereotypes, often unconscious, and of practices generally adopted without taking into account the characteristics of the members of the groups targeted by the prohibition of discrimination. » (CDPDJ c. Metropolitan Gaz Inc.. 2008)
Systemic discrimination is not an organized system. It is insidious, because it is hidden in a set of rules, procedures and laws that appear neutral, but which generate effects of exclusion and unfavorable treatment, thus undermining the right to equality.
In a report made public in 2020 on the sidelines of a consultation it carried out on the subject of racial profiling, the CDPDJ warned as follows: “The fact of drawing up a report on discrimination and systemic racism in Quebec does not mean that individuals and society as a whole are “systematically” racist. Very often inherited from the past, the various manifestations of racism and systemic discrimination, whether conscious or unconscious, are the result of laws, regulations, policies, practices, decision-making processes, ways of doing and decisions. To recognize the systemic nature of racism and discrimination is to recognize the existence of persistent structural barriers that hinder the participation and inclusion of all. In this sense, they should not be reduced to a few individual and isolated acts. » (Pedneault and Triki-Yamani 2020)
As for the notion of systemic racism, which is widely overused in current public debate, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse suggests the following elements of definition: “In short, we understand systemic racism as a phenomenon that draws its origin from historical unequal power relations that have shaped society, its institutions (norms and practices), its representations, as well as the social relations and individual practices that take place therein, thus contributing to the reproduction over time of inequalities racism and the persistence of denials of rights arising therefrom. »
Systemic racism designates an unequal social relationship made up of dynamics of inferiority, subordination and exclusion resulting from social organization which impose on racialized groups, in particular black communities and indigenous peoples, an accumulation of disadvantages in different spheres of their existence: education, work, housing, health, public safety, justice system, etc. (CDPDJ 2021)
Finally, limiting the reality of discrimination and racism to a series of interpersonal relationships or differences in behavior is a reductionist vision that no longer has its raison d’être in Quebec. The concepts of systemic discrimination and systemic racism allow us to go further in understanding the phenomenon and in the search for appropriate solutions.