Premier Doug Ford looked to clarify some troubling comments he made surrounding Ontario and Canada's long and deeply entrenched history of systemic racism.
In a Parliamentary session on Wednesday Ford backtracked on comments he made yesterday during a press conference where he said Canada doesn't "have the systemic deep-roots" the United States has "had for years."
Ford was speaking on the ongoing protests in the U.S. and around the world in response to police brutality, anti-Black racism and the systems of oppression that uphold both.
Soon after, fellow members of Parliament Mitzie Hunter and Michael Coteau called on Ford to "take concrete steps to fight systemic racism" and support the Black community.
Anti-black racism exists in Ontario and is a lived reality for hundreds of thousands in Canada. Today @coteau and I asked @fordnation if he would take concrete steps to fight systemic racism.
— Mitzie Hunter (@MitzieHunter) June 2, 2020
Talk is cheap. We're tired of lip service. We demand action now. #onpoli #scarbTO pic.twitter.com/6D0cFkT799
Ford responded today by saying "of course there's systemic racism in Ontario, there's systemic racism across this country."
NEW: Today Ontario Premier @fordnation has a different take on racism... now saying systemic racism does exist.
— Brandon Gonez (@brandongonez) June 3, 2020
Premier, what changed from yesterday to today? pic.twitter.com/PXvhIKHwmm
"I know it exists. What I don't know is the hardships faced by those communitites."
He said he and many others don't have those lived experiences or have "walked a mile in someone's shoes that has faced racism."
The backlash to his comments yesterday came swift and hard, with many, many people pointing out instances of systemic racism in Canada's history.
Among them is the fact that the entire country is a direct product of British colonialism that sanctioned the assimiliation and cultural, enviromental and corporal genocide of many Indigenous populations, practices of which persist to literally today.
THOUSANDS OF MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN AND GIRLS. FORCING A PIPELINE THROUGH SOVEREIGN INDIGENOUS LAND. BODY BAGS TO REMOTE INDIGENOUS RESERVES IN THE 2011 SWINE FLU INSTEAD OF AID. RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS. FUCK CANADIAN POLITICIANS AND THE CANADIAN ANGEL COMPLEX https://t.co/YcdaBlNRIS
— hello kitty says ACAB (@regularbrat) June 3, 2020
Ford said that he and his fellow politicans would not stand for racism and would work to "stamp this out."
by Lisa Power via blogTO
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