Categories
CIPAA Data

Why Afrikan Canadians should become data warriors

Data is one of the most important tools for activists in the fight for basic human rights to be respected. One reason is that data can back up the anecdotal evidence activists and community members have had for years. Like, when the Ottawa police were forced to start collecting race-based traffic stop data in 2013, it showed what Black people in Ottawa had long suspected: the police were disproportionately stopping Black people.

The basic data advocacy steps are:

  1. Identify data gaps (i.e. what data is needed).
  2. Ask the target organization if it has the data.
  3. If they say they don’t have it, ask them to produce it.
  4. If they refuse or delay, take action to force them to collect it.
  5. Ask them to act on the data they collect.
  6. If they refuse or delay, take action to force them to act on it.
  7. Continuously refine data literary skills, including countering misinformation.

The first step to getting good data is identifying which data you have and which you don’t. This can be done by searching organizations’ websites and asking the organizations directly. Gaps can be at the organization or systemic level. For example, regarding housing in Ottawa, at the organizational level, Ottawa’s largest provider of community and affordable rentals, Ottawa Community Housing, doesn’t collect race-based data on who its tenants are while anecdotal evidence indicates they’re largely Black people. Despite this, Ottawa’s 2023 Progress Report on its 10-Year Housing and Homelessness Plan 2020-2030 doesn’t mention Black people once. At a systemic level, there’s no race-based data on judicial decisions at any court level despite Canadian judges’ role in the disproportionate incarceration of Black people in Canada and the fact that most Canadian judges are white.

For single organizations, you can just ask them if they have the data. Systemic data gaps are harder to fill. The collection of race-based data on judicial decisions, for example, would likely require federal and provincial legislative changes, changes to judicial council policies, and policy directives from judicial and governmental bodies like Justice Canada and provincial attorney generals…which could take years to achieve.

If organizations don’t have the required data, they can be asked to produce it. If they refuse, or delay, action can be taken to force them to collect it. In November 2022, we asked the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa (BGC Ottawa) what percent of the referrals from the Ottawa police to BGC’s Community Youth Diversion Program were Black. BGC Senior Manager of Community Services Tom Scholberg said BGC didn’t track identity-based data for OPS referrals in their database. In March 2023, Scholberg said BCG could ask their database guy to add a tick box to designate a youth as ACB [African-Canadian Black] in their database, instruct staff to use it, then take a look in a few months. In May 2024, we followed up and Scholberg said BCG had added a tick box for ACB clients to their database related to the diversion program as of January 1, 2024 and that he’d be willing to ask BGC’s database person to create a report. However, when I followed up about getting the report, BGC CEO Adam Joiner got involved and in July 2024 said, “At this point, there is no significant conclusions and/or meaning that we can attribute to the data at this point, because it is so early in our collection of this type of information. We’d be happy to revisit after a year of us collecting this type of information and see if this is information that would have value in sharing broadly. Our goal with data collection is to help inform our programs and services.” I followed up with Joiner at the end of March 2025 but got no reply.

If required, organizations can be forced to collect race-based data. In 2017, the Government of Ontario introduced the Anti-Racism Act and the Education Equity Action Plan, which required schools across the province to collect and publicly report on identity-based data. Ontario ordered all Ontario police services to add race to their use of force reporting starting in January 2020. However, just because an organization is ordered to collect data doesn’t mean it will. The Ottawa Carleton District School Board only started collecting identity based data in the 2019-2020 school year.

Although the Ottawa Police Service began collecting race-based use of force data in January 2020 as mandated, they only released the 2020 data publicly in May 2022. The data showed Black folks being over represented by 4.8 times in use of force reports in 2020, 3.1 times in 2022 but back up to 3.3 times in 2023. Despite Ottawa police leadership saying each time that the force “must do better”, they haven’t set an actual goal to do so. And Ottawa Police Services Board (OPSB) Vice Chair, Ottawa city councillor Marty Carr, provided some insight into why that is.

Carr testified at the inquest into the death of Abdirahman Abdi who died in 2016 following an arrest by Ottawa police. The inquest ended in December 2024. Carr spoke about the OPS’ disproportionate use of force against racialized Ottawa residents and said several times that the Board was concerned that there has been no change in the use of force race data “in the last decade” and that the Board was responding by creating “new key performance indicators”. I asked Carr at the January 2025 OPSB meeting why the Board was creating new KPIs when it already has use of force data showing the OPS continues to use force disproportionately on Black and Middle Eastern residents. In response, Carr said the use of force data aren’t KPIs because the Board hasn’t used them to set targets for the OPS to reduce its disproportionate use of force against Black and Middle Eastern people. She said the data is “just data” and that’s why the Board is creating new KPIs. But the Board doesn’t need to create any new KPIs because the OPS has already done that. They’re listed on page 6 of the Ottawa police’s DRIVE2 Strategy 2023-2027, under Key Performance Indicators, where it lists “Race-based data. Use of Force and traffic stops”. So the Board simply has to require the OPS to follow its own DRIVE2 strategy and set targets to reduce its disproportionate use of force against Black people from 3.3 times more than expected to zero ASAP. 

At the Board’s March 2025 meeting, the Board presented its Strategic Plan Objectives, including KPIs. However, the use of force KPI was far too vague, being, “Proportion of use of force incidents involving Black, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, and other racialized individuals.” At that meeting we pushed the Board to set more specific data-based targets for the existing KPIs. They said they would come back with revised KPI information at their April meeting but didn’t. Also, it wasn’t clear whether they meant more specific goals based on existing KPIs or creating new KPIs. Them creating new KPIs would be an example of a standard tool of resistance to change: responding to negative data by saying more data is needed.

Another tool of resistance organizations use is creating their own false or misleading data. In 2019, the Ottawa Police Service hired Carleton University professor Linda Duxbury to evaluate its latest community policing program called Neighborhood Resource Teams. Duxbury had done research on Peel Regional Police’s School Resource Officer program that minimized voices of Black and Indigenous students. When community groups pushed Duxbury to include Black and Indigenous voices in her NRT study, the OPS cancelled the 3-year, $260,000 research project.

The Ottawa Police Service regularly uses misleading statistics like the Crime Severity Index (CSI) and the police to population (cop-to-pop) ratio to support the myth that violent crime is increasing and the only answer is more police. The Crime Severity Index is a complex tool which tracks changes in the severity of police-reported crime by accounting for both the amount of crime reported by police in a given jurisdiction and the relative seriousness of the crimes. The Ottawa police selectively use stats from the CSI to fan fears about increasing crime. For example, the OPS’ 2023 Annual Report says, “the severity of crime in Ottawa increased 5 percent to 58.8 points in 2023.” It also shows that, according to the CSI, “violent” crime in Ottawa increased by 0.1 percent from 2022 to 2023 and “non-violent” crime increased by 7.6 percent in the same time. But couldn’t that mean that some people switched from committing violent to non-violent crime? Also, what is “violent” crime? Statistics Canada’s Understanding and using the Crime Severity Index says “the CSI is not intended to be used in isolation and is not a universal indicator of community safety.” – but the police don’t mention that.

However, the police often say Ottawa has a lower police to population, or cop-to-pop, ratio than many other cities and that makes it less safe. However, there’s no evidence that a higher cop-to-pop ratio leads to more safety. In fact, what is clear from the OPS’ own use of force stats is that more police officers would mean more officers using force disproportionately on Black and Middle Eastern folks.

Black communities must develop expertise in addressing misinformation, including how to file federal Access to Information and provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy requests for government information. They must also learn how to file appeals with the appropriate privacy commissioner if the government organization from which they’re requesting information refuses. When you file an appeal with Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner they assign a mediator who calls you and the freedom of information representative of the organization and helps mediate a deal. 

So, in order to advance systemic change and the respect for human rights, we must push organizations and systems to collect and act on data. To that end, it would be great to have an organization focused on data advocacy for Afrikan Canadians. And perhaps the Canadian Institute for People of Afrikan Descent could play that role.

On August 30, 2024, the Government of Canada announced that a total of $7.25 million would be provided over three years to Caribbean African Canadian Social Services (CAFCAN) to establish the first-ever National Institute for People of African Descent. In February 2025, at the 4th National Black Canadians Summit, CAFCAN executive director Floydeen Charles-Fridal announced that the organization had been renamed the Canadian Institute for People of Afrikan Descent.

CIPAA’s objectives include informing and influencing policy and program development at all levels of government from a Black-centric perspective and conducting applied research, knowledge development, information sharing, stakeholder engagement, and network-building. 

Given these objectives, CIPAA could become a centre for data advocacy for Afrikan Canadians. It could house, and share, existing data, help identify data gaps and push organizations and systems to move to the next level of data development. It could advocate against the unlawful collection and use of data such as carding. It could also provide data literacy resources to empower Afrikan communities to effectively use data and protect themselves against it being used against them.

CAFCAN is currently holding consultations with Afrikan communities to help shape what CIPAA will be. We will continue calling for CIPAA to help Afrikan Canadians become data warriors by becoming a national Afrikan data advocacy centre.

No data. No justice. No peace.

Categories
Housing Police

The thin blue line between housing and policing

At the end of 2024, I decided to shift a chunk of the work I do on policing to housing – and immediately began learning the links between the two.

The first link is the close connections between the Multifaith Housing Initiative (MHI) and the Ottawa Police Service (OPS). MHI’s website says MHI “exists to build affordable housing that helps fix Ottawa’s housing crisis and gets at-risk people into secure, safe homes”. What I couldn’t find on MHI’s site was any mention of MHI being one of two recipients of funds raised through the13th Annual Ottawa Police Gala, held November 2, 2024 in Ottawa. 

Sahada Alolo, MHI’s Director of Community engagement, is the Community Co-Chair of the Ottawa Police Service Community Equity Council and the Co-Secretariat Director of the Guiding Council on Mental Health and Addictions which the Ottawa police created and on which the OPS sits.

Then there’s Herongate, a large rental neighbourhood in Ottawa which is owned by multi-billion-dollar real estate investment firm, Timbercreek Asset Management. Around 800 people — predominantly lower-income, racialized households — have been demovicted and displaced from the neighbourhood since 2016, leading to the emergence of the Herongate Tenant Coalition to fight the evictions and confront Timbercreek. 

Suzanne Valiquet, Timbercreek’s former public relations consultant and overseer of tenant relocation in Herongate, served multiple terms on the Ottawa Police Service Board, including as Chair. According to Andrew Crosby’s 2023 book about Herongate, Resisting Eviction, court documents spotlight her relationship with Ottawa police and Timbercreek. On October 4, 2018, a 911 call was made from Timbercreek’s office requesting police assistance to disperse a tenant rally. Emails written by Valiquet to Timbercreek officials indicate that she received advice directly from the chief of police (Charles Bordeleau at the time) on how to escalate the police response: “At 5:39 pm I called 911. I called a second time (on the advice of the Chief of Police). This way our call went from a priority 2 to priority 1 emergency call. Six police officers arrived around 6:03 pm”. Valiquet further indicated that the police officers advised her to continue to call for assistance if there were future demonstrations, noting that “the more times you call the bigger the file against [them] will grow.”

Ottawa Police Services Board member, Ottawa city councillor Cathy Curry, is also on the Planning and Housing Committee. Decisions about housing policy—such as zoning, development approvals, and funding allocations—are deeply interconnected with the lived realities of over-policed communities. Curry’s dual role raises questions about potential conflicts of interest and whether community voices are adequately represented in these critical discussions.

In November 2024, real estate lawyer Michael Polowin was appointed to the Ottawa Police Service Board, raising more concerns about links between those shaping Ottawa’s housing landscape and those overseeing policing. When individuals with vested interests in real estate development are placed in positions of police oversight, it risks further prioritizing corporate and development interests over community well-being.

The CEO of Ottawa Community Housing, Ottawa’s largest provider of community and affordable rentals in Ottawa, Stéphane Giguère, is on the Board of Crime Prevention Ottawa with Ottawa Police Service Chief Eric Stubbs. Crime Prevention Ottawa says it contributes to crime reduction and enhanced community safety in Ottawa through collaborative, evidence-based crime prevention. On July 12, 2023, Ottawa city council approved the merger of Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO) with the City’s Community Safety and Well-Being office “for a more cohesive, integrated approach by the City to crime prevention.”

Another link between housing and policing is the disproportionate amount of funding spent on both.

In its 2025 budget, the City of Ottawa committed $22.9 million to develop more affordable and supportive housing for residents in greatest need. In the same budget the City gave the Ottawa police budget a $16 million increase, bringing the OPS net operating budget to $388.7 million.

However, while there is ample evidence of the benefits of investing in affordable housing, the same cannot be said for policing. In its 2017 report, Understanding the Benefits of Investments in Affordable Housing, the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis says:

“Investment in affordable housing provides substantial economic benefits at both the local and regional levels (provincial in Canada or state in the U.S.). Investment in affordable housing has the potential to generate new jobs, wages and salaries, economic activity, and government revenue due to the economic activity generated by the direct construction or revitalization itself, the indirect purchase or sale of goods or services upstream or downstream by firms directly involved in construction, and the induced activity that occurs due to the increased wages and salaries that these previous effects generate. Furthermore, at each of these steps, government revenue is generated through taxation, permits or fees required throughout the process.”

However, there’s no evidence supporting the claims of the police and their supporters that investing in policing achieves policing’s main stated goals: preventing and reducing crime.

There is, however, ample evidence that the police negatively impact racialized people all along the pre-school to prison pipeline. From their presence in schools that disproportionately harms racialized students to their disproportionate use of force and traffic stops against racialized residents, the police inflict harm on racialized residents on a daily basis. This harm contributes to the disproportionate involvement of racialized people in the criminal justice system – which can be financially crippling to people already financially marginalized. 

It’s hard to pay your rent…when you have to pay your lawyer.

Categories
CHRC HRTO Human rights

Black human rights matter

Fighting discrimination in court is long and expensive. So it’s good we have the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Or is it…? The Canadian Human Rights Commission is Canada’s national human rights institution. Or, at least that’s what it was supposed to be… 

The Canadian Human Rights Commission was established by Canada’s Parliament in 1977 with a mandate to promote and protect human rights. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal was created in 1998. The Commission investigates and screens complaints, and decides whether to send them to the Tribunal for a hearing. The Tribunal hears complaints referred to it by the Commission, and decides whether discrimination has occurred.

The Commission was supposed to be the place where people can seek justice if they feel they’ve been discriminated against based on one of the categories covered by the Canadian Human Rights Act such as disability, age or race. However, in September 2023, the Canadian Senate released a report titled Anti-Black Racism, Sexism and Discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The report cited allegations of anti-Black racism raising concerns about the Commission’s treatment of its own employees, as well as its decision-making processes when dealing with complaints. The report said witnesses described a toxic culture at the Commission and provided specific evidence of systemic discrimination.

The issues at the Commission is one reason some Black groups have called for the federal government to adopt the direct-to-tribunal human rights complaint model like in Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia. However, the Tribunal model has its own issues. In Ontario, one of the main issues is a backlog of complaints.

Tribunal Watch Ontario’s May 2024 report, The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario: A Continuing Crisis, says that, “according to Tribunals Ontario’s most recent Annual Report, the HRTO backlog grew by another 500 applications over the 12-month period covered by the report, despite the fact that it received the lowest number of new applications since 2015/16. The HRTO’s unresolved caseload rose to 9,527, amounting to a three-year backlog. Equally alarming is the way the HRTO is now dealing with its backlog. Analysis of the Open Data Inventory on the Tribunals Ontario website reveals that an unprecedented 96% of all final HRTO decisions in 2023/24 were “jurisdictional or procedural” dismissals of applications, without the applicant having an opportunity to make oral submissions or attempt mediation. Most of these dismissed applications had been stuck in the HRTO backlog for years. Almost 80% of “jurisdictional or procedural” dismissals are based on a finding that the applicant abandoned the application, but a review of 2024 dismissals based on abandonment reveals the overwhelming majority are applications that were filed by unrepresented applicants three or more years previously. In many cases, it appears that the application was dismissed after the applicant failed to meet a newly- imposed filing deadline that seemed to follow years of HRTO inactivity on the file. What this record indicates is that, if the tribunal fails, over multiple years, to effectively move applications towards resolution, it can count on a significant number of applicants giving up, or being unable to continue to pursue their claim, especially when the vast majority are not represented by a lawyer.”

The preamble to Ontario’s Human Rights Code declares that “it is public policy in Ontario to recognize the dignity and worth of every person and to provide for equal rights and opportunities without discrimination that is contrary to law”. Ontario’s Human Rights Tribunal is now conducting itself in a manner that is contrary to the public policy enshrined in the Code, by allowing delays and backlogs to undercut access to enforcement of the right to live without discrimination.

The Tribunal’s issues disproportionately impact Black Ontarians who face disproportionate levels of poverty and thus need access to justice that doesn’t always require hiring a lawyer.

But delays caused by an under-resourced Tribunal isn’t the only issue. Another issue is the Tribunal requiring Black people who file complaints, called “applicants”, to produce proof of explicit racism, despite the Tribunal acknowledging racial discrimination is often subtle. 

For example, in the 2007 case of Nassiah v. Peel (Regional Municipality) Services Board, the Tribunal ruled in favor of Jacqueline Nassiah, a Black woman, who filed a complaint against a Peel Regional Police Service officer for the way he treated her during his investigation into an allegation that she had stolen a bra from a Sears store. The Tribunal adjudicator said she based her decision partly on the fact the officer asked whether Ms. Nassiah spoke English “in part because she is Black”, called her a “fucking foreigner” during the investigation and threatened to take her to jail if she did not produce the bra. The discrimination Nassiah faced was unusually explicit.

In contrast, in the 2008 case of Sinclair v. London (City), the Tribunal ruled against Vincent Sinclair, a Black man, who filed a complaint after a dispute at London, Ont. City Hall which led to someone calling a security guard who escorted Sinclair out of the building and called the police on him. At least two City Hall employees said Sinclair “raised his voice” and “pounded his fist on the counter.” In his ruling, the Tribunal adjudicator said, “In this case, the question is whether, on a balance of probabilities, the complainant [Sinclair] and [the Ontario Human Rights] Commission have proven that the evidence supports a finding that race was a factor in the involvement of security. I find that this has not been proven…On balance, the evidence supports the non-discriminatory explanation that the City has suggested, that the call resulted only from Mr. Sinclair’s behaviour.”

The adjudicator found this despite saying this earlier in his decision in response to expert testimony of Frances Henry, a York University Department of Anthropology professor and an expert on various issues of race and racism, including racial profiling, race and the media, and race and the criminal justice system:

“I accept from Dr. Henry’s evidence that race is a factor in many social interactions in our society. Racialization affects Black men in particular, often without the conscious involvement of those making decisions, through stereotypes of them as physical, violent, and more likely to be criminal. This may lead to heightened monitoring and racial stereotyping.”

The fact that the adjudicator didn’t recognize that systemic discrimination means that race is always a factor is a problem. And this leads to the final issue with Tribunals: the lack of race-based data on Tribunal rulings. Here’s what ChatGPT said in reply to the question “Is there disaggregated race-based data on Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decisions?”:

Disaggregated race-based data on decisions by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) is not routinely published or systematically available. If you’re interested in such data for a specific purpose, it might be necessary to:

  • Conduct independent research by reviewing HRTO decisions.
  • File a formal request for data through Freedom of Information mechanisms, if the HRTO collects race-based data not publicly available.
  • Consult existing studies or analyses on HRTO outcomes, as some researchers or organizations might have undertaken this work.

In Sinclair’s case, the adjudicator found that Sinclair failed to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that race was a factor in people calling security on him. But most Black folks reading this case would ask the same question: would they have called security on him if he was white? But we can’t know the answer to that until we start consistently adding the category “white” to all our data collection systems.

London City Hall staff no doubt have a system for tracking incidents like Sinclair’s. If staff had been required to start collecting race-based data, including the category “white”, in 2008, they would now have 16 years of data helping to answer the question “would they have done the same thing if the person was white?”

Other decisions, like McDonald v. CAA South Central Ontario, 2018 HRTO 163, also show that applicants can be successful by arguing to the Tribunal’s satisfaction that it’s more probable that the treatment they faced was discrimination because on their race (or age, disability, etc.) than the non-discriminatory reasons provided by the respondent. This should be easy to do in cases where perpetrators of discrimination provide justifications that make no sense or are easily provable lies. However, in cases like Sinclair, where the justification seems just (i.e. he was getting aggressive), we need data to prove whether white people doing similar things are being treated the same – and that requires consistently adding the category “white” to forms that track race.

Tribunals could offer an affordable, powerful path to justice for Black folks if they’re properly resourced, make decisions based on the probability of discrimination instead of explicit evidence of it and produce publicly available race-based data, consistently including the category “white”, on their rulings

This is good advice for the federal and provincial governments because, you know what they say: no justice, no peace.

Categories
NABJ Trump

Attending the National Association of Black Journalists Conference

My wife and I attended the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago, July 31 to August 3, including attending the event with Donald Trump being interviewed by three Black female journalists. All conference attendees were eligible to attend – if you were willing to wait 45 minutes in line and go through security to get in… which we did. We then waited with about 600 others for the event to start over an hour late.

For those who haven’t seen the videos or read about it, the first exchange between ABC’s Rachel Scott and Trump pretty much sums it up. Scott asked Trump, “Mr. President, we so appreciate you giving us an hour of your time. I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room sir. A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Niki Haley to Barack Obama saying they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congresswomen of color who are American citizens to go back to where they came from. You have used words like “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black district attorneys. You have attacked Black journalists calling them a loser, saying the questions they ask are both stupid and racist. You’ve had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-lago resort. So my question sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you, why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?” And Trump replied, “Well, first of all, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. You don’t even say hello, how are you…Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country.” A short while later he said, “I will tell you that coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs.” When Scott asked “What exactly is a Black job sir?”, Trump replied, “A Black job is anybody that has a job.” 

In response to a question about Vice President Kamala Harris being a “DEI hire” Trump falsely claimed Harris, “happened to turn Black” a few years ago, saying that “all of a sudden, she made a turn” in her identity. “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said. I don’t recall Trump answering one question directly. 

I heard from various sources of two possible goals Trump may have had for his NABJ appearance: to fire up his core voter base and to secure more Black votes. If those were his goals, I’d say he nailed the first one, including appealing to Black members of his base. However, I suspect he failed miserably at the second, as his treatment of Rachel Scott would likely repel far more Black voters than it would attract, especially since, according to the Pew Research Center, Black voters remained overwhelmingly loyal to the Democratic Party in the 2020 election, voting 92%-8% for Biden over Trump. 

NABJ’s decision to include invite Trump sparked vigorous debate among conference participants. Conference attendee, independent journalist Pacinthe Mattar critiqued the NABJ for inviting Trump in her August 10, 2024 Walrus article “Donald Trump Insulted a Room Full of Black Journalists. I Was There.” Mattar wrote, “The NABJ convention was meant to be a time to lift each other up. Instead, we were shushed into silence while Trump attacked us.” She quoted NABJ conference panelist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, creator of the 1619 Project and founder of the Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard University, “I did not believe that NABJ…that came out of the traditions of the Black press, should give a platform to someone who does not believe in democracy…. I’m not saying we don’t cover him…but I don’t know that we lend our platform to that.” Mattar said Hannah-Jones also questioned the highly curated format, which prevented other journalists in the room from getting a chance to ask questions.

I very much respect Pacinthe Mattar but disagree that the NABJ was wrong to invite Trump. She says it was ironic that they invited him given the convention theme was disinformation but that is exactly why it was good to invite him: to give Black journalists a chance to ask him tough questions (which Rachel Scott did) and let him answer with disinformation – which he blatantly did for an international audience. Pacinthe also said that NPR journalist Eric Deegan tweeted that at a membership meeting a few days after the convention, NABJ’s executive director told attendees that Scott has faced death threats for her unflinching questions, with Pacinthe adding that, “As the debate continues about whether it was worth inviting Trump to a convention for Black journalists, that alone seems like too high a price.” I completely disagree with this. Journalists avoiding asking people like Donald Trump tough questions because they might get death threats from their supporters would give people like Trump more power.

I do fault the NABJ for including Fox News journalist Harris Faulkner as one of the three moderators seemingly in a flawed attempt at “balance”. As Fox promotes Trump 24/7, the NABJ could have achieved better balance by replacing Faulkner with someone more left of the mainstream. (The third moderator was Kadia Goba, political reporter with Semafor which leans center-left according to media bias monitor AllSides). I also agree with former NABJ conference co-chair Karen Attiah who pointed out that “none of the moderators represented Black-owned, independent or Black local media outlets. In that sense, the event essentially perpetuated the same exclusion and disrespect to historically Black media and Black issues that we associate with White systems.” Attiah also shared that NABJ leadership turned down an opportunity to hear from Kamala Harris through a remote appearance. Attiah resigned as co-chair after the NABJ announced the Trump event, saying she hadn’t been consulted and couldn’t be part of “performative, journalistic charades that degrade our communities, and further undermine trust in our profession.”

I also question the conflict of interest of the NABJ conference theme being “Winds of Change: Journalism Over Disinformation” and one of the event’s platinum funders (the highest level) being Fox Corporation that owns one of the main fake news purveyors, Fox News (Fox News The Five’s coverage of Trump’s NABJ appearance is a fake news master class.)

More notable things from the conference included:

  • At the Thursday, Aug. 1 session “Survival in a World of Misinformation, Disinformation and Artificial Intelligence”, CBS Congressional Correspondence Nikole Killion shared that one way CBS has responded to AI is by creating a Confirmed Video Verification Unit that verifies things like the deep fake video Elon Musk tweeted about Kamala Harris.
  • The Thursday lunch session, “Voices Unheard: Black Women in Media – A Panel on Growth, Resilience and Triumph”, was all women from Fox and was described by a woman at our table as “as shallow as a kiddy pool” (and we agree).
  • There were two Haiti panels. Wed. July 31, “Haiti at a Crossroads: The Media’s Role in Shaping Global Context” with panelists Yinka Adegoke, Africa Editor, Semafor; Manoucheka Celeste, Professor and Media Scholar, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC); Ralph “Onz” Chery, Haiti-based reporter, The Haitian Times; Vladimir Duthiers, National Correspondent/Anchor and Featured Host, CBS News; and Edvige Jean-Francois, Center for Studies on Africa and its Diaspora, Georgia State University and Friday, Aug. 3 “Reporting from Haiti: Taking on Risks and Myths Through Quality Journalism” with panelists Jacqueline Charles, Haiti/Caribbean Correspondent, Miami Herald; Darlie Gervais, Advertising Boost Initiative Director for the Center for Community Media, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, City University of New York; Harold Isaac, Independent journalist; and Widlore Mérancourt, Editor-in-Chief, AyiboPost. When asked about the challenges of reporting on and from Haiti, Mérancourt said loneliness and mental health. When asked what the international media is missing in its Haiti reporting, the panelists said most mainstream international reports tell a single, reactive story. Harold Isaac said some people take unnecessary risks to get social media content. The NABJ conference book store sold Gildan t-shirts despite the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) breaking the August 2023 story “Haitian Workers at Factory Supplying Gildan Activewear Fired for Striking over Poverty Wages”
  • At Thursday’s session “Fighting for Truth in the Face of Lies – Misinformation and the Battle for Democracy” one of the panelists shared that a study by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) found that polling was the #1 thing negatively affecting Americans’ trust in politics.
  • At Thursday’s “Covering the Climate Crisis in Black Communities” session The Post and Courier’s Senior Projects Reporter Tony Bartelme shared details of his project, “The Saharan Connection and Lessons From Senegal” which was partly inspired by him finding out that dust from the Sahara Desert was making its ways to Charleston, South Carolina where he lives. 
  • At Friday’s session, “Abortion, IVF and Contraception: How to Produce Responsible Journalism in a Post-Roe World”, someone asked panelist, Atlanta Journal Constitution Statehouse reporter Maya T. Prabu, how she handles editors who want her to use terms like “pro-life” instead and “anti-abortion”. She pointed out that the AJC’s Editor-in-Chief was in the room, then courageously shared how she would sometimes have to educate/fight with her immediate editor who was an older man.
  • Friday’s session, “Taking Your Journalism from Good to Great”, was hosted by, and featured panelists from, the New York Times owned sports website The Athletic. In response to me asking if they faced pressure not to do critical stories about professional sports team billionaire owners, James Edwards III, who covers the (very bad) Detroit Pistons National Basketball Association team said no. Former NFL Network reporter Jim Trotter also said no. Jim sued the league and its media arm in September 2023, alleging racial discrimination and retaliation after his contract was not renewed earlier in the year. Trotter was employed by the league for five years and repeatedly spoke publicly and privately about the NFL’s diversity issues, including the lack of Black head coaches and NFL Network executives. In May 2024, NBC Sport reported that Trotter’s lawsuit survived an attempt by the NFL to have it dismissed. 
  • My favourite session was Friday’s “The Deciders: How to cover issues driving voters in 2024″ featuring the very lively and experienced panelists NBC News Washington Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, NBC News Correspondent Shaquille Brewster, SAG-AFTRA reporter/anchor Marion Brooks, MSNBC Legal Analyst Charles Coleman Jr. and MSNBC The Weekend co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend. One of the many interesting things they shared were polls – taken before Trump’s NABJ appearance – showing a slight increase in Trump’s support among Black men.

In stark contrast to the intensely political environment inside the conference, we attended a stand-up comedy show at Chicago’s famous Second City and were surprised that none of the five comedians who performed told one prepared political joke (they made some unscripted ones after learning we were in Chicago attending the NABJ conference and saw Trump). I spoke with one of the comedians after the show who said comedians he works with generally stay away from political humor – unless they’re really good at it – because it’s too divisive…and he was a lawyer for Barack Obama’s team before he quit politics to go into comedy. Clearly, political humor is very popular as the success of shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver demonstrate. 

On the NABJ feedback form I’m going to suggest that, for next year’s conference in Cleveland, Ohio, that they invite President (hopefully) Kamala Harris and very political comedian Dave Chappelle (who lives in Ohio) to perform right after her. He’ll be way more entertaining than Trump.

Categories
Labour shortage

Black Canadians and the “labour shortage”

My April 10 post on high food prices said one of the many reasons given for the high prices was COVID-related “labour shortages”. From fall 2021 headlines like “Labour shortages to become the new norm in future” to the Government of Canada saying in November 2022 that it was, “Solving labour shortages in key sectors like health care, construction, and transportation” to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business stating in Nov. 2023 that Labour shortages cost Canadian small businesses over $38 billion in lost revenue opportunities, certain groups have been sounding the labour shortage alarm for years.

However, panelists on the May edition of rabble’s Off the Hill political panel, which I co-host with former NDP member of Parliament Libby Davies, challenged the labour shortage idea. The panelists – NDP MP Matthew Green, economist Jim Stanford, Ontario Federation of Labour president Laura Walton and researcher and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives policy analyst Véronique Sioufi – all challenged the assumption that Canada has faced and continues to face a “labour shortage”. They said what Canada has is a shortage of bosses who want to pay fair wages and provide good working conditions. Stanford added that it’s employers who have  been complaining of a labour shortage – especially in low wage industries like retail and hospitality – and suggesting “solutions” like delaying the retirement age, reducing employment insurance and other income security benefits (saying they’re a disincentive to work) and bringing in more temporary foreign workers.

Referring to Ontario’s education sector Laura Walton said there was a “labour shortage”  because education workers aren’t paid enough. “It’s not a lack of people wanting to work. It’s a lack of bosses wanting to respect workers for the labour they provide”, she said. People saying no to low wages is, “workers using their collective power to say we will not be disrespected as workers”. But she added that a real labour shortage is being created as people are more reluctant to go into the education field because of low wages and poor working conditions. 

Véronique Sioufi said the impacts of the labour shortage myth are felt disproportionately by Black, Indigenous and women of color, particularly by recent immigrants and temporary migrants who are over-represented in sectors like retail, accommodation and food services.

A January 2024 Calgary Herald opinion piece said “an increasing proportion of TFWs [temporary foreign workers] are working at fast food counters and in hotel lobbies. Perhaps the most well-known instance of this is our national coffee icon Tim Hortons, which has been at the centre of a number of controversies surrounding its extensive use of the TWF program.” The article cites a story highlighting a link between the fabricated labour shortage with the real housing shortage. “Most recently, D.P. Murphy Inc, which operates Tim Hortons restaurants across Prince Edward Island, found itself in hot water when it bought an apartment building in the small seaside town of Souris – and promptly evicted the tenants to make way for TFWs.”

Sioufi says that if there was an actual labour shortage in these low wage sectors dominated by women we’d see wages going up to attract more women to the sector or maybe they’d be investing in training women to upskill them – but that’s not happening. Instead, she says what we’re seeing is job vacancies supposedly increasing while wages stagnate or even erode. And she says wages are below the living wage. In Vancouver, where she lives, the living wage is $25/hr – not what Tim Horton workers are making.   

The Calgary Herald article said that, according to Statistics Canada, there were 111,000 temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in Canada in the year 2000 and that this number had ballooned to 777,000 by 2021.

The federal government tried to address the “labour shortage” in Oct. 2022, announcing the temporary lifting of the 20-hour-per-week cap on the number of hours that eligible post-secondary international students are allowed to work off-campus while class is in session. 

That was before people starting blaming international students for Canada’s housing and health care crises. Professors Leah Hamilton and Yvonne Su pushed back against this blame game in their Jan. 2024 article International students cap falsely blames them for Canada’s housing and health-care woes. Their article was in response to the federal government announcing its plan to decrease the number of new international student permits issued to approximately 360,000 for 2024, a decrease of 35% from 2023.

Similar to real crises, the largely fabricated labour shortage has had a disproportionate impact on Black workers as detailed in the July 2023 Toronto Star article Labour shortage narrows the pay gap between white and racialized workers — but for Black workers, things are worse. The article speaks for itself:

“Lower unemployment rates and higher wages in 2022 helped to narrow the employment gap between racialized workers and workers who identify as white, but not for Black workers, according to a new report released [July 5, 2023] by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The report found that the benefits of the pandemic recovery, such as wage increases, have been unevenly distributed for racialized workers, as the wage and employment gap widened between Black workers and their white counterparts. The data indicates that anti-Black racism is a dominant force in the labour market, the report’s authors told the Star. “Despite some progress for racialized workers as a whole, Black workers continue to bear a disproportionate burden of employment inequality,” said Grace-Edward Galabuzi, a professor in the department of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University and report co-author…The research found that racialized workers are overall more likely to be working in industries with high employment growth and faster wage growth than Black workers. In lower-wage occupations there is an overrepresentation of Black workers. Fifty-two per cent of racialized workers are in occupations in the bottom half of the wage distribution compared with 48 percent of white workers and 60 percent of Black workers…And though wages increased during the pandemic, racialized and Black men still earn less than their white counterparts, and Black and racialized women face even greater hurdles. Black workers are overrepresented in retail; accommodation and food; and arts and entertainment, which were the hardest-hit industries during the pandemic, said Galabuzi, and are experiencing the most gradual recovery.”

So Black and racialized workers, many of them women, are working disproportionately in low-paid, non unionized work – including in the gig economy like food and parcel delivery and companies in these sectors continue to complain about “labour shortages”. So it appears that some companies have adopted low paid, high turnover workforces as their business model supported by large numbers of largely racialized temporary workers. The 2024 federal budget included measures to address “labour shortages” in health care and construction. I couldn’t find anything explicit in the Budget that appeared to be responding to the “solutions” Jim Stanford says businesses recommend to address “labour shortages”: delaying the retirement age, reducing employment insurance or bringing in more temporary foreign workers. So perhaps, the government isn’t buying the hype.

However, the Budget doesn’t mention the Temporary Foreign Worker Program or the International Mobility Program, or IMP.

Regarding the IMP, the Calgary Herald article cited before says companies looking for cheap labour “are aided by an underreported TFW stream: the International Mobility Program (IMP). The government website Canada.ca advertises the IMP succinctly: “Hire a worker without a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA)”. Whereas for the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP), employers need to at least go through the motions of trying to hire a Canadian, the IMP temporary worker stream bypasses this requirement entirely. IMP work permits have doubled from 2017 to more than 470,000 last year, which does not include the 200,000 international students who hold IMP permits. This program is a big contributor to the astronomic growth in temporary foreign worker numbers, and the shift in the proportion of foreign workers towards jobs in food, accommodations, retail, and administrative support.”

The Budget’s silence on the TFWP and the IMP is telling as you can’t solve a problem without acknowledging it. The Budget also doesn’t explicitly mention “racialized women” or “Black women”.

Laura Walton’s assertion that people saying no to low wages is, “workers using their collective power to say we will not be disrespected as workers” applies mostly, and perhaps only, to unionized workers. And recent strikes have been inspiring examples of unionized worker solidarity. But Black and other racialized people working in the gig economy for companies like Uber and Amazon are almost entirely non-unionized and so have far less power to say no to low wages.

But the stories of low wages and poor working conditions get drowned out by the “labour shortage” story being pushed by companies. This is similar to how, during the January/Febuary 2022 Freedom Convoy which occupied Parliament Hill for three weeks, there was no mention of how low wages and poor working conditions have created a “labour shortage” in the trucking industry. Convoy protestors had lots of “F$%^ Trudeau!” signs but there wasn’t one “PAY US MORE!” sign to be seen.

This might be related to the fact that many, if not most, of the Convoy protestors weren’t truckers and the ones that were likely weren’t unionized as only 35% of Canadian truckers are according to Canada’s largest private sector union Unifor.

One of Laura Walton’s final points in the Off the Hill “labour shortage” panel was that we need governments that will remove the barriers to unionization by passing things like anti-scab legislation. More unionization means more workers able to collectively demand better wages and working conditions.

We also need governments to explicitly acknowledge – and address – the problems with the temporary foreign worker programs, especially easing the path to permanent residency for temporary workers. Véronique Sioufi said the best way to address the so-called “labour shortage” is giving folks permanent status. “We must stop this accepted racism of “we’ll take your labour but not your person””.

The Washington Post’s slogan is “Democracy Dies in Darkness”. Corporate bad behaviour thrives in darkness so we must keep shining the light on it – and telling our members of Parliament to not believe the “labour shortage” hype.

Categories
Food prices

The Price is Right! (or is it…?)

For over two years, the soaring cost of food has been making headlines – and giving Canadians headaches. Many reasons have been given for the increase, including COVID-related supply chain disruptions and labour shortages, changes in consumer purchasing patterns, poor weather in some growing regions, tariffs, higher input costs, higher wages, the falling Canadian dollar, higher interest rates, climate change, high oil and gas prices and the war in Ukraine. And the stories have named those people who Canadians hold most responsible for actually raising their prices: Canada’s big grocery chains.

Major Canadian grocers have faced accusations of profiteering as food prices have climbed. In Sept. 2023, Global News reported that, for months on end, food price inflation had outpaced overall inflation while, at the same time, Loblaw, Metro and Empire – which operates chains including Sobeys, Safeway and FreshCo – had reported continued profit growth in their most recent quarters.

The leaders of Canada’s major grocery chains appeared in March 2023 before a parliamentary committee studying rising grocery prices. At that hearing, the CEOs and presidents of Loblaw, Metro and Empire insisted that increased food prices weren’t caused by profit-mongering and that their profit margins on food-related profits have remained low. The companies — which also own pharmacy chains and other businesses in addition to grocery stores — cited other factors to account for increased profits, including strong sales of non-food items. The federal government summoned the grocery chiefs back in fall 2023 to begin discussions on a plan to lower food costs. 

Let’s start by examining some of the stated reasons for the increase.

COVID-related supply chain disruptions and labour shortages – The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted food supply chains when it shut down huge chunks of the economy. This reduced the supply of food which led to price increases as per basic supply and demand economics. One way labour shortages affected prices also has to do with supply and demand but also something else: the war in Ukraine. 

When the war in Ukraine interrupted global supplies of grain, that increased prices due to less supply. That gave Canada, a major grain producer itself, a chance to step up and fill the gap, with an April 2023 Global News story quoting a National Bank report citing “unprecedented” demand for the country’s agricultural products. The Global story also cited a report released by RBC’s Climate Action Institute warning “a looming wave of retirements among Canada’s farm operators and shortages of skilled workers who could replace them is set to crash down on the country’s agricultural sector”. The RBC report said two of every five farm operators in Canada will retire over the next decade – and two thirds of producers also don’t have succession plans in place. Mohamad Yaghi, RBC’s agriculture and climate policy lead, said disruptions like those caused by the Ukraine war “show the need for Canada to build out and reinforce its agricultural production in the decade to come as the world needs a reliable source of crops to keep food affordable as the global population grows.”

Changes in consumer purchasing patterns – According to the November 2022 Statistics Canada report Behind the Numbers: What’s Causing Growth in Food Prices, “when goods rise in price, consumers tend to alter their purchasing behaviors in response to relative price movements. Consumers may purchase less of a given food item, omit the purchase entirely, or purchase a cheaper food product.” So when one food item increases in price it can cause other items to also increase in price as more consumers buy them as lower priced alternatives.

Higher input costs – The same StatsCan report also said, “Commercial farming requires the usage of machinery, labour, and energy to produce food products and transport them to retailers. Energy prices surged in early 2022, due partly to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and reduced oil output from oil-producing nations. In August 2022, [ammonia and chemical fertilizer] prices remained elevated 42.8% year over year, and up 95.8% compared with January 2020. Volatility in the fertilizer market is linked to the price of natural gas, which is a central component for nitrogen-based fertilizers. Temporary closures of fertilizer plants in Europe, alongside reduced output due to sanctions against Belarus and Russia (the two nations produce 40% of the global potash market, a component in some fertilizers) led to reduced supply, contributing to higher prices.”

The Retail Council of Canada which “advocates for retailers in Canada through effective advocacy, communications and education” argues rising supplier costs such as these are what’s driving increased prices at the grocery store.

Canada’s Food Price Report 2023 published by Dalhousie University and the universities of Guelph, Saskatchewan and British Columbia says, “Although there is not currently any evidence to suggest that there is abuse by grocers, almost 80% of Canadians claim there is abuse in the system.” This may be because Canadians remember when Canada’s Competition Bureau caught grocery retailers apparently fixing bread prices in 2016. In 2018, the Competition Bureau alleged at least $1.50 was artificially added to the price of a bread loaf during the 16-year conspiracy involving Canada’s largest bakery wholesalers and grocery retailers. Or maybe it’s because Canadians are asking why the big grocers didn’t use some of their profits from non-food items to reduce food prices…

Canadians could also be wondering why major grocery stores have responded to increased shoplifting with more security instead of lowering their prices in recognition that people steal food because they don’t have enough money to buy it.

And one reason people may not have enough money takes us back to businesses’ claims of a worker shortage. This idea has been challenged suggesting that the issue may not simply be that there aren’t enough available workers – but that there aren’t enough available workers willing to work for the low wages many businesses are offering.

In the May 2023 CTV article StatsCan report casts clouds on claims of a widespread labour shortage in Canada, Jim Stanford, an economist and the director of the Centre for Future Work, says the report busts “long-standing myths” about labour shortages in the country. “If you were really short of labour, and you couldn’t find someone to do that minimum wage job at a McDonald’s restaurant, then why aren’t they either increasing the wage or trying to replace the work with machinery?” Stanford asked. He said neither are happening, which suggests employers in general are quite happy with the current state of affairs.

So what explains the high number of job vacancies? The article quotes StatsCan’s Rene Morissette saying that, for low-skilled industries, businesses may be choosing to keep wages low and accept higher vacancy rates. “For employers that have negligible training costs, a human resource strategy that combines relatively low wages with high worker turnover and some vacancies might actually … maximize profits.”

Which begs the question: have you been seeing lots of new faces at your local grocery store?

Another question is, if more and more low wage, non-unionized workers are saying no to low wages we must wonder whether they have been inspired by the many striking unionized workers – from government employees to Hollywood writers – who have made headlines over the last two years.

In June 2023, Canada’s Competition Bureau released its report on competition in the grocery industry with one of the recommendations being a voluntary grocery code of conduct. But the idea that the people caught supposedly fixing bread prices will voluntarily do anything that could reduce their profits seems unlikely.

I haven’t seen any studies about the impact of high food prices on Black Canadians but considering Black folks are over represented among low income and poor people we can safely assume it’s not good. What I have seen is police cars outside my local grocery store more frequently and always wonder if they’re there to arrest someone who has been reduced to shoplifting to feed themselves and their families.

So what can people do? Well, one thing they can do is to complain to their grocery store about them implementing anti-shoplifting measures instead of using their non-food items profits to lower prices. They can also complain if the stores are implementing their new security measures inconsistently – like my local Loblaws. Sometimes they check receipts. Sometimes they don’t – and that creates fertile ground for the kind of anti-Black discrimination which would violate Ontario’s Human Rights Code.

It’s time for a food fight!

Categories
Federal Housing Ontario

The Black housing crisis

In these days where consensus on important issues seems in short supply, there is one thing that everyone seems to agree on: Canada has a housing crisis. What there is little consensus on is what, or who, caused it. As Canada heads for an election by fall 2025, media reports declare housing will be one of the central issues. 

According to a Dec. 4, 2023 CBC article, “Housing costs have been on the rise for years in Canada, with the national average home price sitting at roughly $650,000 in October 2023. Canadians are also facing increased pressure from rental costs, as well as mortgage costs as interest rates climb.”

Like many stories that suddenly burst onto the scene as a “crisis”, the roots of the housing crisis date back decades partly to actions taken by both Liberal and Conservative federal governments.

According to the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights May 2022 article Fifty years in the making of Ontario’s housing crisis – a timeline, Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government ended the federal co-operative housing program in 1992, after successive federal governments had built nearly 60,000 affordable homes for low- and moderate-income households. Mulroney froze investments in social housing the following year. In 1995, Jean Chretien’s Liberal government stopped funding the development of affordable housing for the first time in 50 years. From that year until 2002, almost no new non-profit housing units were created.  In 1999, the Chretien government shifted the responsibility of administering and funding social housing to provincial governments. In Ontario, this was done through the signing of the Canada-Ontario Social Housing Agreement. A year earlier in 1998, Ontario Premier Mike Harris’ Conservatives passed Ontario’s Tenant Protection Act, which provided more protection to landlords than tenants by eliminating rent controls on vacant units. Because of these cutbacks, 17,000 non-profit and co-operative housing units that had been slated for construction were cancelled.

That was the beginning of things getting bad for many Canadians regarding housing. But, as with most national crises, evidence indicates the housing crisis is having a disproportionately negative effect on Black Canadians.  

According to Statistics Canada’s Housing experiences in Canada: Black people in 2018, in 2018, 52% of Black people in Canada lived in rented dwellings compared to 27% for the total population. Among Black people who rented their dwellings, 57% reported being satisfied (or very satisfied) with their dwelling compared to 69% in the total population. Of Black people who lived in rented dwellings 30% were more likely to live in unsuitable housing compared 19% of the total population who lived in rented dwellings.

According to the Canadian Housing Survey, in 2021, Black and Indigenous Canadians were 2 times more likely to be evicted compared to white Canadians. This same study found that 12% of Black and 13% of Indigenous respondents had experienced an eviction in their lifetime compared to 7% of respondents who identified as neither Black nor Indigenous. 

There are many more stats just as there are many organizations taking action to address the crisis.

The federal government’s 2019 National Housing Strategy Act declared that “the right to adequate housing is a fundamental human right affirmed in international law.” Adequate housing is understood in international law as housing that provides secure tenure; is affordable; is habitable; provides access to basic infrastructure; is located close to employment, services and amenities; is accessible for people of all abilities; and is culturally appropriate.”

In December, 2020, the federal government, in partnership with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Habitat for Humanity Canada, announced an investment of $40 million to create 200 home ownership “opportunities” across the country for Black Canadians (it’s very unclear what that means as it doesn’t say it means 200 new homes.)

February 1, 2022 the federal government announced up to $50 million dedicated to building housing for Black households. The funding through the National Housing Co-Investment Fund (NHCF) will support Black-led organizations to build housing, as well as more affordable housing for Black renter households in Canada. On June 24, 2022, the federal government launched applications for funding for Black-led organizations dedicated to building housing for Black households through the $50 million program.

February 18, 2022, the federal government announced $10 million in federal funding for the BlackNorth Homeownership Bridge Program. The announcement said the investment will help deliver an estimated 200 affordable homes to first-time homeowner Black families in the Greater Toronto Area within the next four years. The program is led by BlackNorth Initiative (BNI) in partnership with Habitat for Humanity Greater Toronto Area and the Dream Legacy Foundation.

According to the BNI website, the program works by enabling families to get mortgages – with no down payment required – for as much of the home purchase price as they qualify for. BNI then gives them a mortgage for the remaining amount and shares the equity in the house with the family.

In December 2023, Ontario passed the Affordable Homes and Good Jobs Act, which it claims will make it cheaper and easier to build affordable homes, provide certainty to municipalities and help more Ontarians find an affordable home based on their household income. The Act is supposed to support measures made through the government’s housing supply actions plans and its commitment to help communities across Ontario build at least 1.5 million homes by 2031. The Ontario government says the proposed changes would update the definition of affordable housing units that would qualify for development-related charge discounts and exemptions and help lower the cost of building, purchasing and renting affordable homes across the province.

Locally, the City of Ottawa increased its affordable housing budget from $15 million to $23.8 million in its 2024 budget but media reports said the budget increase won’t necessarily result in more units hitting the market as the federal and provincial governments need to sign on first.

The Alliance to End Homelessness continues its work in Ottawa including producing a report on scaling up affordable housing in Ottawa, convening an expert steering team including people with lived experience of homelessness and leading the DASH Project in collaboration with researchers at the University of Ottawa to create a dashboard that will integrate existing databases of people waiting for social housing, people in the shelter system, and the available housing stock in a given community.

Starts With Home is leading an initiative in my home town of Ottawa. The initiative focuses on three key messages: stop the loss, create more and preserve the quality.

Stop the loss means stopping things like renovictions where landlords evict tenants to renovate their properties and turn them into high priced unaffordable units. Start With Home recommends stopping the loss by 1) creating municipal policies strengthening tenant protections against renovictions and demovictions and 2) creating a non-profit housing acquisition strategy, supported by City purchases of private market residential properties, for the purpose of turning them over to non-profit housing providers.

Starts With Home recommends creating more affordable housing by 1) developing a strong Inclusionary Zoning policy ensuring new builds have permanent affordable units, based on a household’s income and 2) increasing the municipal budget to house 1,000 households each year, committing 30% as part of a For Indigenous, By Indigenous Housing Strategy.

Finally, to preserve the quality Starts With Home recommends 1) requiring landlords in Ottawa to be licensed for more effective oversight of property maintenance and providing funding, where needed, for small landlords to do maintenance repairs rather than sell their rental units and 2) assigning an independent Housing Ombudsperson to implement the right to housing in line with the federal commitment to housing as a human right.

Starts With Home’s recommendation to create a non-profit housing acquisition strategy has support from at least one organization that’s part of the group some blame as being one of the main contributors to the housing crisis: real estate investment trusts. REITs are companies that own, and in most cases operate, income-producing real estate. REITs can own many types of commercial real estate, including office and apartment buildings, warehouses, hospitals, shopping centers, hotels and commercial forests. REITs have been criticised as enabling speculation on housing, and reducing housing affordability, without increasing finance for building. However, in a July 2023 article, Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (CAPREIT) President and CEO Mark Kenney supported the idea of an “affordable acquisition fund” very similar to Start With Home’s non-profit housing acquisition strategy. CAPREIT’s website says its Canada’s largest publicly traded provider of quality rental housing that, as of September 30, 2023, owned approximately 64,500 residential apartment suites, townhomes and manufactured home community sites well-located across Canada and the Netherlands. 

ACORN Canada, an independent national organization of low and moderate income people with 160,000+ members in 20+ neighbourhood chapters across 9 cities is linking housing justice and climate justice with its eco-tenant union initiative. ACORN’s website says, “…no one is reaching out and connecting [low income tenants’] primary concerns of high rent, expensive bills, and disrepair in their units, to the issue of climate change. This is where ACORN’s eco-tenant unions come in. These are tenant unions that work to advance improvements in their buildings, neighbourhoods and city that are win-win for tenants AND the environment.”

I also came across a poster for the Rental Registry with ACORN’s Tenant Union logo at top. The Rental Registry is a public website where people can list their rents that allows tenants to know the rent paid for a rental unit, currently or in the past. “It gives the power of open data to tenants, by creating transparency in the rental market.”

The Black-owned consulting firm CP Planning works on affordable housing in Toronto, Peel, York, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Ottawa. It describes itself as “a non-profit urban planning organization practicing a human rights-based approach to community planning. Our mission is to align public, non-profit, and private sector organizations within the land use development industry to invest in solutions that uphold the economic, social, and cultural rights of marginalized people to have access to good housing, good jobs, an adequate standard of living, and opportunities for cultural expression. We envision a world with more joy, where people are affirmed through a sense of community and belonging.”

I have attended several excellent in-person and online CP Planning events focused on a broad range of affordable housing issues. They have a workshop series that includes several covering how people can organize to develop their own affordable housing projects. CP meets people in their neighborhoods instead of always requiring people to come to them.

With all these initiatives underway the main question will be: are they getting houses built? This question is particularly important given the complexity of the housing issue makes it especially vulnerable to diversity and inclusion illusion initiatives that support collective resistance I talked about in my post It’s time to end the “War On Hate”. 

If program websites don’t have big “NUMBER OF HOUSES BUILT SO FAR” buttons right at the top of their website and testimonials from people who have actually gotten houses via the program we must ask: why not?

Categories
Anti-Black racism Israel

Israeli governments have a long history of anti-Blackness

This is a follow up to my October 2022 post Black and Jewish activists share a long history of collaboration and is about the actions of Israeli governments, not Israelis or Jewish people in general.

Since Israel’s creation in 1948, much of what successive Israeli governments have done has been pro-Israel – and anti-Black. Being pro-Israel is largely what they got elected to do, being anti-Black isn’t.

This started with Israel’s complex relationship with South Africa’s apartheid regime – which South Africa also started in 1948. 

[Note: Much of what follows is taken from the Wikipedia post Israel-South African relations which I have indicated with quotes. I enclose things I’ve added with square brackets.]

“The Union of South Africa was among the thirty-three states that voted in favour of the 1947 United Nations (UN) Partition Plan, which endorsed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. On 24 May 1948, nine days after Israel’s declaration of independence, the South African government of Field Marshal Jan Smuts became the seventh foreign government to grant de facto recognition to the State of Israel. Two days later, Smuts was voted out and the new South African government was formed by D.F. Malan’s National Party (NP), which had run on a platform of legislating apartheid. This result was of interest to Israel primarily because of the presence in South Africa of a large Jewish population: by 1949, there were 120,000 Jews living in South Africa, the overwhelming majority of whom were Zionists….[According to Oxford Languages a Zionist is “a person who believes in the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel.”]…many of whom had provided important financial support to the Zionist movement…After its election to government, the NP apparently overcame its earlier tendency towards “virulent anti-Semitism”. The South African government granted de jure recognition to Israel on 14 May 1949. Formal diplomatic relations between the countries began in the same year, with the opening of Israel’s consulate-general in Pretoria…In addition to granting Israel diplomatic recognition, Malan…relaxed South Africa’s rigid currency regulations to permit the export of commodities and foreign exchange to Israel…Annual flows of funds to Israel from South Africa were estimated at $700,000 by [1959], and in all it was estimated that South African Jews sent more than $19.6 million to Israel between 1951 and 1961.”

This friendly start to Israeli-South African relations quickly changed. In the 1950s and 1960s, Israel began taking positions opposing South African apartheid at the United Nations. During this time, UN General Assembly debates over apartheid had become increasingly vociferous. “This had begun in the very week of Israel’s accession to the UN in May 1949, when it had supported a motion requiring South Africa to enter into roundtable discussions with Pakistan and India over apartheid and its implications for Indian and Pakistani citizens. In December 1950, [Israeli] diplomat Michael Comay wrote in an internal memo that the Israeli strategy in such votes was to:

“generally refrain from condemnation of South Africa, and from passing any judgment on the specific merits of the issues… On the other hand, we can and should refrain from any express or implied support for the South African caste system…”

In a letter in December, Comay summarised this position as responding to the need to “find a compromise between our principles and convictions on matters of racialism, and our desire to maintain friendship with South Africa”. According to legal historian Rotem Giladi, during the 1950s this manifested in frequent “equivocation” on apartheid by the Israeli mission to the UN – though Giladi also argues that Israel’s speeches and votes on apartheid were nonetheless “considerably more progressive” than those of many Western states. And, during the 1960s, Israel became increasingly consistent in its criticism of the South African government; it frequently voted against South Africa and apartheid at the UN.

In October 1962 at the UN General Assembly, Israel voted in favour of the landmark Resolution 1761, which strongly condemned apartheid and called for voluntary sanctions against South Africa. Members of the Israeli legislature, the Knesset, approved the measure in a 63–11 vote. [In 1962, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was serving for his second time as prime minister and head of the Mapai party, a democratic socialist political party that was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the modern-day Israeli Labor Party in 1968.] The following year, Israel announced that it had withdrawn its envoy to South Africa…It also announced that it was taking steps to enforce an embargo against the South African military, as called for by Resolution 1761…In the 1960s, senior Israeli politicians frequently framed diplomatic opposition to apartheid as a matter of principle: in October 1963, Golda Meir, then Israel’s Foreign Minister, told the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “deep abhorrence for all forms of discrimination on the grounds of race, colour or religion… stems from our age-old spiritual values, and from our long and tragic historical experience as a victim”. Israel also had strategic reasons to distance itself from South Africa: as a counterbalance to the hostility of the Arab and Soviet blocs, it increasingly sought closer ties with black African states, which were gaining their political independence during that time and which strongly opposed the apartheid policy and South Africa’s regional hegemony. These moral and strategic considerations had to be balanced against the concerns of South African Jews…”

Then something happened that would draw Israel and South Africa back together…

“In 1967, Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War and subsequent occupation of the Sinai and the West Bank alienated it diplomatically from much of the Third World and black Africa, whose nationalist movements began to view Israel as a colonial state. At the same time, Israel became the object of admiration among parts of the South African white population, particularly among the country’s political and military leadership. An editorial in Die Burger, then the mouthpiece of the South African National Party, declared:

“Israel and South Africa… are engaged in a struggle for existence… The anti-Western powers have driven Israel and South Africa into a community of interests which had better be utilized than denied.”

The 1973 Yom Kippur War, however, came with “the near-complete collapse of Israel’s position in Africa.” [The war was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria]. By the end of 1973, all but four African states had severed diplomatic relations with Israel. This was partly due to the 1973 oil embargo instituted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries against Israel’s Western partners, which reinforced a new alliance between the Arab and black African states. 

At the UN General Assembly in the 1970s, Israel abstained from some key votes affecting South Africa, such as the vote on granting observer status to the African National Congress (ANC) in 1972, and votes against apartheid in later years.

In the 1970s Israel aided the National Liberation Front of Angola …forces organized and trained by South Africa and the [US Central Intelligence Agency] to forestall the formation of a government led by the  MPLA [People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola] during the Angolan Civil War…”

“By 1987, Israel found itself the only developed nation in the world that still maintained strong relations with South Africa.”

Israeli governments’ checkered past regarding treatment of Black people in South Africa mirrors their treatment of Black Israelis.

Following high profile stories of Israel airlifting thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1991 far less was heard about how life was for Ethiopian Jews, known as Beta Israel, in Israel.

In a January 2023 article Fighting on Behalf of Ethiopian Jews in Brandeis University’s The Jewish Experience, Penny Schwartz features the story of Ethiopian Jew Shula Mola. Schwartz writes that, “Mola arrived in Israel in 1984 at age 12, but life in the country hasn’t been what she imagined. Ethiopian Jews, in her experience, face mistreatment, discrimination, and injustice. Today, she is one of the community’s leading activists, a board member of the New Israel Fund, a group advocating for equality for Israel’s minorities, and a co-founder of Mothers on Guard, which the Israeli newspaper Haaretz described as the “Black Jewish wall of moms fighting Israeli police brutality.” She was recently named one of Israel’s 50 most influential women by the country’s leading economic newspaper, Globes. Ethiopian Jews started coming to Israel in the late 1970s. As a result of efforts by Ethiopian Jews, the U.S., Israel, several other countries, and activists around the world, many more managed to leave over the next two decades. Today, there are some 160,000 Israelis of Ethiopian origin.”

The article describes Ethiopian Jews experiencing things similar to African Americans and African Canadians. Mola attended boarding school where some classmates taunted her for her dark skin color and challenged her Jewish identity. Her younger brother, a special education high school student, was in a class too large to accommodate his specific needs, and she felt there was a lack of precise diagnosis for his particular learning challenges. She was even more disturbed when she realized that more than half the class was from the Beta Israel community and faced similar circumstances.

Beta Israel income levels remain around 40% lower [than the general population], according to a 2018 report by the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, an Israeli research center. 

And Beta Israelis face police brutality as Schwartz writes:


“Mola helped start Mothers on Guard in 2016 in response to a decision by Israeli authorities to close an investigation into the death of Yosef Salamsa, a 22-year-old of Ethiopian descent. Salamsa was tasered by police in Jerusalem two years earlier and found dead several months later. Police were never charged in the incident. Four years ago, when an off-duty Israeli cop in Haifa shot dead an Ethiopian-Israeli teenager, Mola protested for months, demanding reforms in the criminal justice system. In a newspaper editorial, [Mola] recounted a conversation with her son while she was out demonstrating.

“The police killed an Ethiopian boy. Why didn’t you tell me that they are killing us?” he asked her over the phone. 

“Sweetheart! My dear child,” she told him. “There are stupid policemen — hotheads who kill people. They’ll pay for what they did.”

According to [Israeil newspaper] Haaretz, cases opened [by police] against Ethiopian minors were 4.3 times their share of the population between 2018 and 2020.

Mola said she’s had to have “the talk” with her son where she instructed him on what to do if the police stop him: “Don’t be smart or cool. Don’t get angry. After that, call your ima,” she told him, using the Hebrew word for mother. “It was the most painful moment,” Mola said in an interview. “It was the hardest thing for me … to realize that I’m raising kids with limits on their freedom.””

In addition to Israeli police limiting the freedom of Black Jewish kids, the Israeli government denied some Ethiopian Jewish women another basic freedom: the freedom to have children. A January 2013 Independent story, Israel gave birth control to Ethiopian Jews without their consent, reported that, “Israel has admitted for the first time that it has been giving Ethiopian Jewish immigrants birth-control injections, often without their knowledge or consent.” The story detailed how Israeli gynaecologists, on orders from the Israeli Health Ministry, had been giving Ethiopian Jewish women injections of “Depo-Provera, which is injected every three months and is considered to be a highly effective, long-lasting contraceptive.”

From support for South African apartheid to arming the wrong side of African colonial struggles to enforcing systemic anti-Black racism against their own Beta Israeli citizens, successive Israeli governments have supported the very policies Black and Jewish activists have a long and rich history of opposing together.

Categories
Hate crime War on Hate

It’s time to end the “War on Hate”

Over the last few years, the city and country I live in, Ottawa and Canada, have been committing increasing resources to combat “hate”. In November 2019, the United Way of Eastern Ontario launched Ottawa’s United for All coalition. U4A was billed as “a coalition of 44 organizations representing 150+ partners who are all committed to overcoming hate-based violence, racism, and extremism in East Ontario.” The coalition’s website says it includes “social service agencies, faith-based organizations, policymakers, human rights groups, health providers, school boards and post-secondary institutions, grassroots social justice groups, criminal justice professionals, cultural groups and more.” The coalition also includes the Ottawa Police Service (maybe they’re the “criminal justice professionals”?) but no Black-led groups or police abolitionist groups, and only one Indigenous group.

The Government of Canada’s Budget 2022 announced the launch of a National Action Plan on Combatting Hate to be combined with a new anti-racism strategy to replace the existing one. 

Also in March 2022, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) and the Chiefs of Police National Roundtable announced the formation of a joint Task Force on Hate Crime at a national hate crimes conference. The announcement said the task force would be co-chaired by the CRRF and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The problem is that initiatives to combat hate in Ottawa, which is the home of the federal government, have had the impact of funneling money to the Ottawa police and initiatives at all levels have done little to address hate, let alone systemic, state-led anti-Black hate. This, despite the fact that Statistics Canada reported that Black Canadians faced the most hate crimes in Canada in 2020.

Instead, what we’ve seen is that the War on Hate, much like the War on Drugs, at all levels, is:

1) disproportionately harming Black Canadians by diverting focus and resources from addressing systemic, state-led, anti-Black hate;

2) fueling police budget increases; and

3) doing little to address the rise in white supremacist hate.

This isn’t because the War on Hate has failed. On the contrary, like the War on Drugs, it’s going exactly as planned.

One of the clearest indicators that Ottawa’s War on Hate isn’t designed to actually stop hate is the fact that the Ottawa police didn’t charge a single Ottawa Freedom Convoy protestor with a hate crime despite some of them carrying signs with Swastikas, being members of known white supremacy groups and allegedly verbally harassing women and racialized Ottawa residents for three weeks.

That the United for All coalition was never intended to address state-sponsored hate is clear from the fact the Ottawa Police Service are members and the coalition has been silent on issues like the OPS’ own data showing they continue to use force disproportionately on Black, Indigenous and Middle Eastern Ottawa residents – and have presented no plan to stop doing so.

Another question raised by the War on Hate is – hate against who? The Government of Canada has shown itself to be very selective in the hate it targets as indicated by a November 2023 open letter to the federal government from El Jones, a poet, journalist, professor and activist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In her letter, Jones cites February 2023 Government of Canada press releases announcing a change to the way the government would vet funding requests for community and anti-racism projects. According to these reports, government ministers would have the power to terminate funding to groups who “espouse hate and discrimination”, including vetting of social media accounts of staff of organizations who have received funding. 

Jones asked whether the government would be suspending funds to CIJA (Centre for Israel and Jewish affairs) and reviewing the record of its funding. She argued that “even the most cursory read of CIJA’s social media reveals deeply disturbing anti-Palestinian racism, incitement to violence, and harassment of advocates speaking for Palestinian lives. The recent anti-Semitism conference hosted by CIJA and attended by numerous government leaders and officials featured a speaker who posted deeply dehumanizing content online, including a depiction of Palestinians as cockroaches. This post was labelled by Twitter as “sensitive content” due to its hateful nature – as the community note pointed out, the depiction of ethnic groups as cockroaches has a long history in inciting genocide, notably in Rwanda.”

Jones had not received a reply as I write this…

The fact the Ottawa police are members of the United for All coalition is one indication of the close ties between anti “hate” groups and police. Another indicator was former U4A leader Abid Jan leaving the United Way in March 2023 to become Director, Community Safety and Well Being…with the Ottawa Police Service.

This movement of people between the police and other organizations is one aspect of what we call “collective resistance”. Another example was former Ottawa police Chief Financial Officer, Cyril Rogers, becoming Ottawa’s General Manager and Chief Financial Officer in January 2023. 

I first came up with the concept of collective resistance after seeing a woman from the Tamarack Institute talk about what she called collective impact at a November 2022 conference. She said collective impact was a key operating principle for Tamarack and defined it as “a network of community, members, organizations and institutions that…advance equity by learning together, aligning and integrating their actions to achieve population and systems-level change.” However, when I saw her definition an alternate definition – of collective resistance – immediately popped into my head:

“Collective resistance is a network of community, members, organizations and institutions that…impede movement toward real equity by working together, aligning and integrating their actions resulting in resistance to population and systems-level change.”

The November 2022 conference was the United Way’s Leveraging Our Strengths conference – focused on implementing equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives. 

In his new role as Ottawa’s General Manager and Chief Financial Officer, Cyril Rogers gave a presentation on the City budget at a consultation hosted by three city councillors in February 2023 and said money from the police budget couldn’t be moved anywhere else. When I challenged this by reminding him that, in 2021, the Ottawa Police Services Board and City Council approved $3 million dollars less than the police asked for – and used the money for youth mental health services – Rogers then admitted that money could in fact be moved from the police to other things. If he had done that just once, I might have thought he temporarily had his facts wrong – but then he made exactly the same claim at an October 2023 budget consultation. This kind of misleading information helps justify police budgets that help fund the War on Hate.

A key tool of collective resistance is creating initiatives that claim to be working for fundamental change but have little to no criteria, or misleading criteria, to measure what they’re actually achieving, if anything. The Ottawa Police Service’s hate crime unit is an example. 

In January 2023, the Ottawa Police Service issued a press release titled “Annual Hate Crimes data show a 13% increase in reporting to police”. The first line of the release was, “The Ottawa Police Service Hate and Bias Crime Unit released its 2022 Annual statistics. The Hate and Bias Crime unit saw 377 total incidents, including 300 criminal and 77 hate incidents, which marks an increase of 13% over 2021.” Later, the release said:

 “The groups most victimized are:

    Jewish

    Muslim

    Black

    LGBTQ+

    Arab West Asian

    East and South Asian”

The release didn’t say how many incidents each group faced and when I asked the guy who is the Ottawa police hate crimes unit (the “unit” is only one guy) – why that was, his answer made no sense. One thing he did say in an earlier conversation that did make sense was that the number of hate crimes against Black people is probably three times higher than what’s reported because Black people are likely reluctant to report incidents to the police because they have little faith the police will do anything.

In addition to weak to non-existent evaluation criteria, another way War on Hate initiatives support collective resistance is taking a really long time to produce anything to evaluate. Federal government consultations on the new Anti-Racism Strategy and Action Plan on Hate ended May 8, 2022 but the government web page on the initiative still says, “The Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat is currently synthesizing what they heard from communities across Canada in their various engagement sessions to inform the development of a new anti-racism action strategy for Canada.” 

Our definition of collective resistance is similar to the definition of system racism in Turner Consulting’s November 2023 report Systemic Anti-Black Racism by the Numbers: Canada vs the US:

“Systemic racism describes how policies, institutional practices, organizational culture, individual attitudes, and other norms within a system work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial inequity. Systemic racism is not something that a few people or organizations choose to practice. It is a key feature of our social, economic, and political systems.”

Interestingly, the only reference to the “War on Hate” that came up when I Googled it was Henry Kopel’s book War on Hate: How to Stop Genocide, Fight Terrorism, and Defend Freedom. Kopel is a former U.S. federal prosecutor and serves on the global advisory board for the Abraham Global Peace Initiative which bills itself as “a prominent international Canadian NGO that educates, advocates and publishes articles, reports and produces exhibits, symposiums and media content to counter Antisemitism; combat Holocaust denial; advance The Abraham Accords, defend Israel, Canada  and their allies;  and advance freedom, democracy and universal human rights.”

The “War on Hate” is focussed on the wrong enemy – by design. The real hate is in the actions taken everyday by the organizations, led by mostly white people making six figure salaries, that run programs that provide some relief while also supporting collective resistance against addressing systemic, state-led, anti-Black hate. These organizations get funding to provide Bandaid solutions to more serious societal issues. And if you’re in the Bandaid business – it’s in your interest for people to keep bleeding.

Categories
Europe Slavery Travel

Seeing what slavery built: my family’s European tour

My family and I recently returned from a European vacation, spending a few days in London, Paris, Barcelona and Rome. Members of my family had spent time in former colonies including Jamaica, the Bahamas, Mexico, Ghana and Brazil – so it was time to see what all that colonial wealth had built – and who was most benefiting from it today. We toured mostly on our own because we didn’t want to pay to have someone tell us an incomplete story about how all that great stuff got built. 

In London, we walked through Hyde Park passing Speakers Corner on the north-east side –  “where free speech, open-air public speaking, debate, and discussion are allowed…as long as the police consider their speeches lawful.” There was no one speaking when we went by.

We saw Buckingham Palace where newly crowned King Charles doesn’t actually live (he and Queen Camilla continue to live at his London home, Clarence House which is a 3-minute drive to the Palace). 

Buckingham Palace

The article The British Empire: From Profitable to Loss-Making on the UK-based website Historic Cornwall provides a succinct description of the origins of the wealth upon which the British Empire was built:

“The British Empire was one of the largest empires in history and at its peak controlled a territory that was home to over 400 million people…[it] was founded in the 16th century and for centuries it was incredibly profitable…due to the fact that the empire was built on the exploitation of natural resources and the labor of slaves. However, by the 19th century, many of the colonies had been exhausted of their resources and the slave trade had been abolished. This led to a decline in the profitability of the empire.”

So England no longer benefits off the labour of enslaved Black people. However, it still benefits from the labour of all tax paying Canadians, including Black ones, through what the Canadian government pays annually to support the British monarchy. According to the pro-Monarchy Monarchist League of Canada, British royalty “could cost taxpayers more than $58.7 million annually.” In a May 2023 CBC article, royal commentator and historian Rafe Heydel-Mankoo estimated King Charles’s coronation would cost Canadians between 50 million and 100 million pounds (about $85 million to $170.5 million Canadian dollars). 

Our walk ended up at Trafalgar Square that, “commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the British naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars over France and Spain that took place on October 21, 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar.” The Battle of Trafalgar is what my African history teacher calls a “European tribal war”. According to a 2005 Socialist Worker article, “Britain’s rulers have reason to be grateful to Horatio Nelson for his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar 200 years ago this week, a victory that would be decisive for the creation of the British Empire. France and Britain had been fighting a long war for control of the world. This started when the French had their revolution in 1789 and chopped off their king’s head four years later. When they did that, Britain went to war with them. It was a war against revolution — a war for kings and to preserve the old power.”

We passed White Hall, “a street…recognised as the centre of the Government of the United Kingdom…lined with numerous departments and ministries. Consequently, the name “Whitehall” is used [to refer to]…the British civil service and government, and as the geographic name for the surrounding area.” I couldn’t help thinking how aptly named Whitehall is considering who no doubt occupied it, especially in its early days.

We saw The Tina Turner Musical in London’s West End – London’s Broadway –  where the almost all Black cast put on a great show for the almost all white audience. 

On our last day, we visited Brixton, “…a multi-ethnic community, with a large percentage of its population of Afro-Caribbean descent.” Emerging from the Brixton tube (i.e. subway) station we expected to encounter a scene similar to what we saw when we exited the subway in Harlem, New York in June of this year. There we saw lots of Black folks, many of whom appeared continental African and Muslim, bustling among lots of small stores. In Brixton, we emerged into a crowd with lots of white folks and big brand name stores and fast food places. We ate an indoor market with moderately priced restaurants of many varieties – but none Black owned from what we could tell. 

We went to the Black Cultural Archives and paid to see the exhibit Over A Barrel: Windrush Children, Tragedy and Triumph. Windrush refers to the “Windrush generation” which is a group of West Indians who arrived in London in June 1948 on the ship the HMT Empire Windrush. The Windrush “was a troopship en route from Australia to England via the Atlantic, docking in Kingston, Jamaica, in order to pick up servicemen who were on leave. An advertisement had appeared in a Jamaican newspaper offering cheap transport on the ship for anybody who wanted to travel to the United Kingdom.” Many Windrush immigrants left children behind who they helped out by sending them barrels of goods, earning their offspring the title “Barrel Children”. The exhibit focused on both Barrel Children – who had minimal contact with their parents beyond the barrels – and children born in Britain to Windrush parents. Some children eventually joined their parents in England and the exhibit, chronicled “the incredible journeys of children who traveled from the Caribbean to the UK during the Windrush era…exploring the profound impact of separation and reunion, isolation and belonging, as well as the cultural and social adjustments these children had to make in order to thrive in a hostile environment.”

On a much lighter note, we also visited the Twist Museum, a museum of visual illusions which was educational and entertaining (see pic below).

Our next stop was Paris where we saw displays of excessive wealth touring the Paris National Opera Garnier Palace and seeing Versailles Palace and the Louvre Museum from the outside. We didn’t buy Versailles tickets online beforehand so found a long line of tourists waiting to get into the sold out venue. 

Versaille is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV. “About 15,000,000 people visit the palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.” The opulence in all three places was striking and was starkly contrasted by the African men selling cheap Eiffel Tower models outside Versailles. The short film Dafa Metti (Difficult) gives voice to Senegalese men selling Eiffel Towers at the base of the actual Tower. They speak of making the dangerous sea voyage from France due to unemployment in Senegal. They try to sell enough trinkets to eat each day and, hopefully, make some extra to send money to family back home. If they’re lucky, they evade police. If not, some die trying.

As we did in London, we visited a section of Paris with a large Black population called La Goutte d’Or which translates to “The Drop of Gold”. Also known as Little Africa, it’s where you find African food, culture, and fashion and a large population of people from North and West Africa. Throughout the community, there are stores and street vendors selling food, spices, fabric for custom-made outfits and more. Looking from the street, most of the people behind the store counters appeared to be North African rather than West African…

Next stop was Barcelona where we started off with a self-guided tour of Castell de Montjuic which was built due to its raised altitude but which “far from protecting the city in fact bombed it during the 1842 insurrection when Barcelona rose up against the Spanish government in Madrid. The garrison continued to be a sinister symbol on high for the rest of the century and beyond, serving as a political prison and even a place of execution for dissidents such as Catalan nationalist Lluis Companys who was killed there in 1940 by Franco’s men.” A plaque in a less visited corner of the castle said that, when Catalan nationalists briefly took over Montjuic, they used it to execute their enemies.

We also saw La Sagrada Familia church and Park Güell, both designed by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi. 

La Sagrada Familia

As the picture shows, La Sagrada is incredible. What it doesn’t show is what Richard Eiler wrote in his April 2016 Guardian article Barcelona’s slave trade history revealed on new walking tour, “The work of Antoni Gaudí in particular defines much of the city centre but few locals, let alone the tourists queueing to get into world-famous sights such as Palau Güell and Park Güell, know their dark secret: many were built with money made from the slave trade.” Eiler added, “Barcelona has a radical new mayor, Ada Colau, who made her name as a social activist, and the city council is supporting a new walking tour of places with a slave history.” We couldn’t find any signs that the walking tour still exists…

We travelled from London to Paris and from Paris to Barcelona via French SNCF trains with Eurail passes and loved that experience. The high speed trains were new, fast and on time. They were also extremely clean due to the great work of the cleaning staff who appeared to be exclusively continental Africans.

Our final stop was Rome where we did our one and only tour with a live tour guide. That started at Piazza Navona which featured yet another amazing fountain – but with a twist. This one has an obelisk with Egyptian hieroglyphics on it – but they weren’t written by Egyptians, they were written by Romans. Turns out the Romans liked the obelisks they took from Egypt so much, they created some of their own, including the Obelisk of Piazza Navona which dates back to the reign of Roman emperor Domitian (81-96 AD). So, as the Arab conquest of Egypt took place between 639 and 646 AD, Domitan and his buddies were ripping off obelisks – and modeling their own – based on ones built by Black Africans.

Without question, the most incredible structure we saw the entire trip was the Roman Colosseum, due to its size, what happened in it and how it happened. The Colosseum appears as big as modern day mega sports stadiums. According to Wikipedia, “It could hold an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 spectators at various points in its history, having an average audience of some 65,000; it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles including animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Roman mythology, and briefly mock sea battles. Accounts of the inaugural games held by Titus in AD 80 describe it being filled with water for a display of specially trained swimming horses and bulls.”

I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between what happened in the Colosseum and sports like boxing, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)…and football.

The only water we saw around the Colosseum was in bottles being sold by what appeared to be exclusively Indian men. Rather than African men, like in Paris, all the street vendors we saw in Rome were Indian men. And, like the African men, they all offered their goods once and didn’t ask again if we either didn’t reply or said no thanks. However, clearly other tourists have had different experiences which leads to posts like this from the From Home to Rome website:, “How to deal with street sellers in Rome – Tip no. 2: Ignore & keep walking. We can’t say this enough: whenever you are accosted by someone trying to sell you anything, you must ignore them. Don’t slow down because some African guy has complimented on your shoes or asked you where you’re from: it’s their “in” and they won’t leave you alone until they get money from you. Don’t acknowledge them, don’t make eye contact, don’t talk to them.” We made lots of eye contact, said no thanks, and had no issues. Assuming that, similar to the Senegalese men in Paris, if the Indian men don’t sell they don’t eat, they all showed an amazing amount of restraint in their sales pitch.

What we saw on our European journey supported what American journalist, author, and photographer Howard French argues in his October 2021 book Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War – the intentional obliteration of the central role of Africa in the creation of the West’s vast wealth.

It would be great if the tours of all the European monuments, statues, building and fountains, etc. were held to the same standard as court witnesses: to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.