I spent a recent afternoon in conversation with a few friends and acquaintances about Canada’s changing attitude towards im/migrants and refugees-decreasing support and open xenophobia; the decreasing support for Pride and other queer initiatives nationally and locally especially from corporate Canada; and the increasingly vocal debates happening in feminist spaces on transgender rights.
One friend qualified the latter point, by insisting it was white feminists who seemed incensed about transgender women in sex specific spaces. I disagreed and shared comments, quiet asides, questions I have heard from colleagues and acquaintances and friends in varying social locations, including from queer folks.
Similar to the anti-immigrant/refugee sentiments coming from immigrant communities, including those communities who have arrived not too long ago, another friend pointed out.
For the past year, a few of my close sister-friends and I have joked that ‘Black people time have passed’. We pointed to the failed class action case of Black federal public service workers; the dying on the order paper of the amended federal employment equity legislation which designated Black people as a particular group and included 2SLGBTI+ people as a designated group for employment equity purposes.
We talked about the attempt by Toronto City Council to shelve the report by the City’s Ombudsman that found racism played a role in how African asylum seekers (refugee claimants) were treated when they landed in the city in 2023. It was the first time anyone could recall that a Toronto City Manager, the most senior staff in the city, had rejected outright an Ombudsman’s report and its recommendation.
And more recently, the province put a ‘pause’ on the roll out of new curriculum that would have seen Black Canadian history taught at the grades 7 and 8 levels as mandatory courses. New curricula on Indigenous issues and reconciliation were also ‘paused’.
One friend reminded us that disability rights are under attack through neglect at both the federal and provincial levels. That funding, including income supports are woefully inadequate to meet every day needs. I shared that a cashier at a large grocer while chatting with me about how expensive everything is, shared that school boards no longer cover the cost of speech therapists, and parents must now pay out of pocket. “A hundred and thirty dollars an hour” he told me, shaking his head.
The conversation soon turned into a heated debate on where we are as a society. Are we as a society better off now in spite of all that we are seeing? Or have we taken a giant oppressive step backwards to a time when ‘minority rights’ were constantly attacked and rolled back or didn’t exist at all?
The debate is ongoing. Some of us quoted the phrase popularized by MLK, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”.
“Too effing long” was the response!
I’m leaving this debate right here, knowing that the decisions being made by those elected to represent us, to lead us politically and economically are having real material impact on the lives of those who are most marginalized and made vulnerable by non-responsive systems.
The cuts to our sector are being felt as agencies are forced to wind down programs that made a difference in the lives of their clients, or make the difficult decision to lay off staff knowing that even if they qualify for employment insurance, the payments won’t be enough to cover monthly expenses.
So to hear that federal departments are being asked to find further ‘savings’ in their departments this year and in each of the next two years kept me up last night. IRCC has already made massive cuts to its workforce. It will worsen the backlogs of applications across all business lines.
At the provincial level, we’ve seen a flat lining of funding for the sector. Our subsector which provides services and programs to immigrant and refugees wasn’t even mentioned in the 2025 Ontario provincial budget. And for our employment services, the last two regions (Northern Ontario and Toronto) have been brought into the intermediary system manager model. A sort of privatization of services if you will, whereby private sector actors are contracted by the government to deliver through subcontracts with non-profit and charitable agencies employment support services. There is no sunset clause which will force a review of this initiative within a specific timeline.
Wages in our sector, while increasing incrementally, continue to lag behind other sectors including the public sector. Attraction and retention continue to be major challenges for community-based agencies. Members of this eighty percent female workforce, increasingly scoff at the idea that their bosses and the governments that fund them are committed to the grand concepts of Gender and racial equity. Can we blame them?
Bill C-2 continues to make its quiet way through 2nd reading in the House of Commons, which is currently on a summer break. There is a growing coalition of organizations and groups coming together to push back against this blatant disregard for individual and collective rights. Keep an eye on this space and on the website ocasi.org in the coming months for updates. We need you to get involved and say a loud NO to Bill C-2.
In solidarity
dd