Racism in Modern Canada

Essay by kerenfr2001High School, 10th gradeA+, April 2006

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Since the proclamation of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988), Canadians have grown to accept multiculturalism as a positive aspect of life in Canada. On the other hand, one can find many incidences of racism in Canada today, against different cultural groups, religious communities and people who are different from the majority. The Aboriginal people and the immigrants suffer from racist behavior, and the Canadian government decided to fight its expressions.

The Aboriginals, or the "Indians" as the racist call them, is one of the communities that suffer from racism. The Aboriginal people have been threaten since ever. Today they suffer from poverty. 42% of the Aboriginal women are poor, while only about 20% of the other Canadian women. The first nation women get lower salaries, as compare to other women in our society, as well as the Aboriginal men. In Canada, the universities history courses teach mainly about the western societies and not about the first nation's.

One could understand from this, that the western society's history is more important than the first nation's history.

The immigrants also are threatened by the Canadian society. In the past, the Canadian made the Japanese and Chinese people work hard and paid them almost nothing. They actually used them to build the country. Canada express institutionalized racism by allowing employers to require Canadian-based job experience in a potential employee .This is a big disadvantage to the landed immigrants and often result in highly educated people working for much lower pay than Canadian. This unequal footing has left many new immigrants feeling humiliate with the entire immigration process, and rejected from the Canadian culture.

On March 21st 2005, The Canadian Government announced the first ever action plan against the racism. It led by Honourable Raymond Chan, the minister of state. The 3 main objects...