The following are essential components of a racially fair Canada according to a pair of federally appointed brainstormers: dedicated Black courts and federal departments, racial “decarceration” targets … and, possibly, reparations for slavery.
These measures, numbering 114 in total, were recommended to the federal government by a steering group at the end of June to shape the Liberal government’s forthcoming Black Justice Strategy. It’s an initiative that will be sure to promote disorder and advance the well-being of a select few, if the guiding material is any indication.
The idea behind creating such a strategy, according to a government press release on the matter, is “to address anti-Black racism and systemic discrimination that has led to the overrepresentation of Black people in the criminal justice system.” Black people comprise nine per cent of federal inmates but only four per cent of the general population, a disparity that some activists attribute to slavery and discriminatory laws of the past. They interpret today’s unequal outcomes as a sign that Canada’s justice system is unfair, and the Liberals are hearing them out.
Hence, the steering group’s first recommendation advises the federal government to create a “federal department or agency responsible for championing and coordinating efforts to advance the interests of Black people in Canada.” Essentially, its job would be to spend money on initiatives that benefit just one of Canada’s many minority groups.
Subsequent recommendations ask for a Black-dedicated branch within the federal justice and public safety departments.
The report’s authors go on to suggest more employment programs for their particular in-group; prioritization for housing; inclusion in all provincial school curriculums; addition of specialized Black courts to the Canadian judicial system; funding for Black businesses, mental health professionals, parental supports, court workers and early-career lawyers.
Also floated were race-reserved seats on judicial selection committees, a new anti-Black racism stream for the Court Challenges Program and race-conscious programming and practices for Black inmates.
As for race-specific criminal law reforms, they asked to have Black identity made a factor in sentencing and to have courts consider race in bail decisions.
Together, these initiatives would work towards a “decarceration” target aimed at reducing the rate of Indigenous and Black inmates relative to the rest of the population by 50 per cent by 2034.
It’s all unjust on its face. Canada should be a country of equal treatment, not elaborate race handicapping. The justice system already regularly discriminates in favour of racial minorities and newcomers to “even the scales” of privilege; it needs less of that, not more. The same can be said for government resources and jobs, which are often allocated to a growing number of diversity considerations.
As for current support for the Black community, it’s puzzlingly high already. The Liberal government has already dedicated an eye-popping amount of resources to the group ($760 million since 2015, boast this year’s budget documents). Historic injustice and systemic racism are often cited as reasons for doing this, even though slavery was outlawed generations ago and discriminatory laws have been dead for decades. It should also be noted that 60 per cent of Black Canadians are immigrants from abroad and thus can’t carry intergenerational trauma from pre-Confederation Canada.
It might be some consolation that the steering committee’s report made some non-race-specific recommendations, but that’s hardly the case. Those were crazy, too. The federal minimum wage, the authors said, should be raised to $21 per hour and a “Canada Livable Income” of $9,000 for all adults in poverty (timeframe unspecified) should be introduced. A “safe supply” of drugs, meanwhile, should be expanded.
On crime, the authors recommended cutting the number of grounds on which courts can revoke bail from three to two, making it vastly easier for those charged with odious crimes to be released. Additionally, the government should “Make conditional sentence orders available for all offences,” which would mean house arrest could be on the table for any convict — even first-degree murderers. Further, every mandatory minimum should be eliminated from the Criminal Code, and the Youth Criminal Justice Act should be made to apply to anyone 24 and under (instead of today’s ceiling of 17).
Immigration-wise, the writers suggested a slate of reforms that would further hamper the country’s ability to deport non-citizens, including those convicted of crimes.
Finally, they’d have the government refund all victim fine surcharges paid to the courts since 1989. In just 2014-15, these charges raised $10 million across nine provinces and territories; coughing up a 30-year refund would be painful.
The report amounts to a socialist manifesto advancing cliché policy ideas that were all the rage during the Summer of George Floyd. Which is probably what the Liberals hoped to get out of the process: some kind of document that allows them to run the “experts said” defence when they ultimately propose to vandalize the Criminal Code.
Indeed, Canadians are overwhelmingly in favour of colourblind (rather than colour-conscious) policy at a rate of 70 to 30. When it comes to drugs and crime, a 2023 Leger survey found that nearly 80 per cent believe that too many violent offenders are being given bail, and about the same amount believe that the justice system is too lenient on criminals. About 70 per cent wanted more policing and tougher laws on drugs.
Beyond being plain offensive to the general public’s sense of justice, the ideas currently being weighed in Minister Arif Virani’s office likely miss some number of their target audience, too. One prominent voice, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, is one example in the “no” camp.
“Black Canadians, like all Canadians, deserve a justice system focused on community safety,” he wrote last week on X.
“If the policies contained in the so-called ‘Black Justice Strategy’ report are adopted, there will surely be more crime, drugs and disorder in our communities. There will also be more victims of crime, and black Canadians will be affected along with the rest of the country.”
If the final Black Justice Strategy looks anything like what handpicked experts envision, it will be painfully out of touch. It will cost. It will reek of unfairness, diverting even more public resources to a fraction of Canadians to the detriment of everyone else. And it will be genuinely harmful by hamstringing the state’s ability to separate bad actors from the law-abiding public — by imprisonment or deportation.
Perhaps worst of all, it will promote the corrosive conception of Canada as a confederacy of racial groups rather than a unified state for Canadian citizens.
National Post