Lack of Evidence to Support Claims of Systemic Racism in Canada, Report Finds

Toronto’s financial district in a file photo. Michelle Siu/The Canadian Press

There’s little evidence for the claims of systemic racism in Canada, says a new report, while noting that some minority groups earn more than their Caucasian counterparts.

“Systemic racism claims in Canada,” authored by Matthew Lau, a senior fellow with the Calgary-based Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, says that many minorities do well in Canada when considering educational attainment and income levels, with some even surpassing Caucasians in these areas.

“Contrary to the narrative that racial minorities in Canada suffer widespread disadvantage, a Statistics Canada analysis of the weekly earnings of Canadian-born individuals based on 2016 Census data found many visible minority groups out-earn the white population,” Mr. Lau wrote.

Using government data divided into 10 minority groups, further divided into male or female, Mr. Lau says that only four groups under-earned Caucasians: those from the black community, Latin Americans, Filipinos, and those categorized as “other racial backgrounds.” He also noted that 11 of the groups earned on par with their Caucasian counterparts, while five groups earned more.

When it came to educational attainment, Mr. Lau found that many non-white individuals were just as well educated, if not more so, than Caucasians.

“Many minority groups achieve higher levels of education—again, not what one would expect if Canadian institutions put visible minorities at a disadvantage,” he wrote in the report.

Mr. Lau said that Statistics Canada itself said that many Asian populations earn bachelor’s degrees or higher education at rates “well above” the national average.

The report says that many minorities are overrepresented in well-earning careers, including medicine and engineering.

“For example, relative to their share of the working-age population, Canadians whose backgrounds are South Asian, Chinese, Arab, West Asian, Korean, Japanese, and ‘multiple racialized groups’ are overrepresented among doctors,” Mr. Lau said. “Latin Americans are underrepresented among doctors, but overrepresented among engineers and computing professionals.”

White Students Not Superior in School

When it comes to the public school system, Mr. Lau used the Peel District School Board (PDSB) as an example to measure student performance. Despite the PDSB’s own assertions that the school system was designed to favour white students, he said, test results show that many Caucasian students don’t perform as well as other minority groups.

“At the Peel District School Board, grade six students from East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern backgrounds all outperform the white students on average on the EQAO mathematics tests,” he said in the report, adding that the number of white students in the district that were meeting provincial math standards was low.

Mr. Lau also examined income earnings among indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians and found that while there was a disparity, it may not be due to a systemic problem.

The pay gap between First Nations people and Caucasians is 11.2 percent, but the gap between Caucasians and Metis workers is 2.7 percent. The report explains that many Metis are “more educated and likelier to live in urban areas than the First Nations.”

“This suggests that location and education are the main drivers of income disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians, leaving little room for systemic discrimination as an explanation,” Mr. Lau said.

“The evidence to support the claim that Canada is rigged to disfavour racial minorities is indeed scant—at best,” he concluded.