The Minister for Anti-Racism, Michael Coteau, has introduced new legislation which would allow for government and public sector organizations to identify and respond to systemic racism.
The proposed Anti-Racism Act would build on the work of Ontario’s Anti-Racism Directorate, which works to address and prevent systemic racism in government policy, legislation, programs and services.
Highlights of the proposed Act include:
- Developing a framework for equity for racialized populations
- Establishing the Anti-Racism Directorate in legislation to ensure its long-term sustainability.
- Ensuring the governments anti-racism work is ongoing by developing and maintaining a multi-year anti-racism strategy to be reported on annually.
- Requiring a review of the anti-racism strategy at least every five years, in consultation with the public.
- Mandating race-based data collection and an anti-racism impact assessment framework in order to apply an anti-racism perspective to public sector policies and programs.
On March 15th 2017, Ontario announced a three-year Anti-Racism Strategic Plan which aims to identify and eliminate barriers for racialized populations and combat systemic racism. Systemic racism is defined throughout the document as the process in which an institution or set of institutions work to maintain racial inequality and further create gaps for racialized populations. A key component of A Better Way Forward: Ontario’s 3-Year Anti-Racism Strategic Plan was to introduce anti-racism legislation that would give government authority to mandate the use of race-related data collection and the anti-racism impact assessment framework.
Learn more about the strategy.