By
Sarah Virginia Wayland

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of The University of Maryland in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
1995

© Copyright by
Sarah Virginia Wayland
1995

Chapter Five provided an overview of collective action efforts by immigrants and visible minorities in Canada in the 1980s. In general, collective action in Canada can be characterized as follows. First, it reflects the consensual style of Canadian politics. Though marches and demonstrations are not uncommon, race- and immigration-related rallies rarely attract more than a few hundred supporters. This stands in stark contrast to protest in France where even a routine demonstration can easily draw a crowd of more than 15,000 persons. In the Canadian context, mobilization is not so visible and is likely to take the form of negotiations with government officials, testimonies at hearings, or participation in public consultations. Second, collective action has very rarely assumed violent forms. In the most recent episode of race-related public violence, which occured in May 1992, the response from the government was significant. Third, most mobilization efforts are aimed not at the federal government but at local or provincial authorities. This reflects Canada's federal structure in which the provinces wield considerable power as well as the vast size of Canada which makes travel to Ottawa both time-consuming and costly. Though all levels of government have shown themselves to be remarkably open to the grievances expressed by protesters, decentralized state structures mean that changes are not easily implemented within the polity.

In addition, the issues around which ethnoracial minorities have mobilized are constrained by a number of factors within Canadian political culture: Canada's history as a country of immigration; expectations that immigrants will become Canadian citizens; its commitment to a pluralist model of minority incorporation, enhanced by recognition of Quebec as a distinct society as well as by the 1971 Multiculturalism policy and the 1988 Multiculturalism Act; and its recognition of the importance of group membership. As is the case in France, these "national identity structures" shape the structuring of mobilization efforts, namely the issues chosen by activist leaders and the outcomes of collective action.

What is noteworthy about the Canadian context is that while there is a relative absence of large-scale protest, a very vocal activist minority is not afraid to openly criticize the state, its structures, and its policies. The state is surprisingly receptive to these protestors, particularly if their grievances resonate with existing political culture.

This chapter details three mobilization efforts by immigrants, ethnoracial minorities, and their allies. These three cases, each of which peaked during the 1980s, were arguably the most important integration-related issues for newcomers to Canada and their descendants during the decade: mobilization for the creation of an independent unit to investigate police wrongdoing, especially shootings; the movement for affirmative action legislation; and pressure for improved access to social services. In keeping with Canadian styles of political mobilization, the targets in all of these cases were local authorities and especially the provincial government, in this case Ontario.

Something has to be done about the way the police and the justice system treat Blacks. We are tired of the double standards. We are tired of seeing Blacks killed by police, who then walk away without even as much as a smack on the wrist. We are tired of demonstrating and waiting for the powers that be to respond.

--editorial in Share

According to several veteran observers of race relations in Metro Toronto, "No single area of Canadian life has perhaps caused more concern and more persistent tension and conflict than the relationships between the police and people of colour" (Henry et al. 1995). The intersection between race relations and the police is a broad one and includes practices internal to the force such as the recruitment and hiring of police officers, training, and promotion as well as the relations between the police and minorities, including community-based policing and police accountability.

This case study focuses on one aspect of those external relations: how the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force (MTPF) deals with serious complaints against its own officers. This has been a particular concern of Toronto's Black community which pressed for the creation of an independent review board to investigate complaints against the police, notably in incidences of police shootings. Indeed, the section on minority mobilization in Canada in Chapter Five detailed the extent to which this particular issue has been a major source of protest activity by Blacks over the past fifteen years. Two particularly active periods can be discerned, 1978-81 and 1988-92. These periods are characterized by considerable mobilization over police shootings as well as by government response in terms of a task force and/or the creation of new institutions.

Though relations between the police and the Black community had been strained previously (Stasiulis 1990: 216-7), the police shootings of Buddy Evans in 1978 and of Albert Johnson in 1979 served as catalysts for Black mobilization. In a city not known for its demonstrations, numerous rallies were held in the wake of the Evans shooting and more than 2,000 people marched eight miles to protest Johnson's death. Several of the Black leaders who encouraged mobilization in the late 1970s are still active around police issues today, notably the lawyer Charles Roach -- who formed the Committee for Due Process in response to the Evans shooting and various other ad hoc committee and coalitions over the next decade -- and Universal African Improvement Association (UAIA) Director Dudley Laws who is today the most vocal member of the Black Action Defense Committee. The UAIA spearheaded the Albert Johnson Committee Against Police Brutality which collected funds for Johnson's widow, planned benefit concerts and meetings, and coordinated demonstrations.

Beginning with the Evans shooting in 1978, Roach, Laws, and other Black leaders used the occasions of successive police shootings to call for the creation of an independent body to investigate such shootings, arguing that the police should not be placed in the untenable position of investigating themselves. The Metro Toronto Board of Police Commissioners did appoint mediator Cardinal Carter to look into the Johnson shooting, but Roach, Laws, and others who adopted a more confrontational approach viewed the Carter appointment as nothing more than a mechanism to diffuse the protest. Some organizations such as the NBCC and the JCA did work with Carter and arranged meetings with government officials during this time.

For the more confrontational leaders, the decision not to participate in negotiations with officials and politicians was a mixture of choice, principle, and past experience. Since 1975, the Metro Toronto and Ontario governments had commissioned at least six special inquiries into complaints of police misconduct, all of which had some bearing on police-racial minority relations (Stasiulis 1990: 219; cf. Carter 1979; Maloney 1975; Metropolitan Toronto 1977; Morand 1976). While several of the reports called for some form of civilian oversight of the police, that minimal changes resulted convinced Black organizations that senior police officials were resistant to the MTPF being made more accountable to local needs.

Up to this point, there was no formal mechanism to handle public complaints against the MTPF; all were handled informally and internally. In response to the allegations of police misconduct over the Evans and Johnson shootings and mounting public concern over the secretive manner in which the MTPF dealt with complaints, in 1981 a three-year pilot project was established for Metro Toronto which was designed to provide an independent review of public complaints against Metro Police (Lewis 1991). This created the position of a Public Complaints Commissioner, who was appointed by the government and whose office was to be separate from the police. In keeping with practices in other large cities, the MTPF was to manage the initial complaint resolution. The Commissioner's main duties were to to monitor the handling of a complaint at the initial stages by the MTPF and to conduct a full review under unusual circumstances or if the citizen was dissatisfied with the initial handling.

The creation of the Office of the Public Complaints Commissioner (OPCC) only partially addressed the concerns of the Black community. Although most of the earlier reports and commissions had recommended it and a majority of Torontonians supported the idea, many community groups which were actively monitoring police reform objected to "police investigating police." The Urban Alliance on Race Relations, the Citizens Independent Review of Police Activities, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the 800,000-member Ontario Federation of Labor disapproved of the pilot project for precisely this reason. They banded together to form the Coalition Against Bill 68 (establishing the pilot project) which represented forty mainly umbrella organizations. Carol Tator, Chair of the Coalition as well as President of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, stated: "I know of no minority groups or organization that, after having studied the bill, came out in favour of it... There is no confidence that the police do fairly monitor their complaints" (Toronto Star, 28 November 1981).

The procedures set up under the pilot project were made permanent under the MTPF Complaints Act of 1984. Toronto police initially accepted the complaints system as an opportunity to defuse considerable public hostility. Resentment soon set in, however, in part because -- in the words of the the current Complaints Commissioner -- the police "felt that a watchdog had been imposed on them as a placebo to calm a vocal community and that police concerns had not been equally considered" (Watt 1991: 352). In 1987, the Police Association's president wrote in the Association newspaper that "The Association fervently believes that the only good external complaints system is a dead complaints system." In January 1988, MTPF officers engaged in a twelve-day work slowdown to protest an OPCC decision against a colleague. The Police Association and police management requested the Ontario government to modify (read weaken) the legislation governing the OPCC.

Despite attempts by the police to discredit the complaints system, the publicity only served to increase support for the OPCC. Many of the community organizations which had originally advocated the creation of a complaints process, but which had opposed the "police investigating police" aspects, made submissions to the government in defense of the existing complaints system. The Urban Alliance on Race Relations submitted:

While the record of the Public Complaints Commission is not as effective as many would wish, it apparently had some positive results. And, even more important, the fact that a Public Complaints Commissioner exists has an important symbolic effect (submission to the Attorney General of Ontario, 26 January 1988, cited in Lewis 1991: 168).

Black leaders Charles Roach, Wilson Head, and Bromley Armstrong each spoke up about the need to strengthen the OPCC, noting that only five percent of complaints investigated by the OPCC end in discipline against an officer (Toronto Star, 30 January 1988). In the end, Ontario's Liberal government moved to strengthen and expand the Office of the Public Complaints Commissioner. Before that could be accomplished, however, police-community relations took a turn for the worse.

Lester Donaldson was fatally shot by Toronto police in August 1988. Michael "Wade" Lawson became the victim of Peel Region police shooting in December 1988. The deaths of these two black men and the "deafening" (Watt 1991: 353) outcry from Toronto's Black community served as catalysts for the creation of the Race Relations and Policing Task Force, chaired by Police Complaints Commissioner Clare Lewis (Ontario 1989: 16). The Task Force heard one hundred presentations over a ten-day period on the problems of police-minority relations (which were subsequently published in 13 volumes). Though the Task Force's mandate did not include discussion of civilian oversight mechanisms for the handling of complaints, many of the presentations and briefs expressed concern about the involvement of police in investigations of other police officers or police services. As a result, the Task Force Report stressed the need for an Ontario-wide standardized process of civilian oversight.

In response to the report, Bill 107 was created to expand the Toronto complaints process model across the province. When another Black male was shot in Toronto in May 1989, the bill's Third Reading was hastened and Royal Assent was given to the bill in June 1989 (Watt 1991: 354). The Police Services Act was proclaimed in force on the last day of 1990.

The concerns expressed by racial minorities to the Task Force went beyond the general complaints process. As had been the case since the 1970s, Blacks and other racial minorities wanted an independent review body to specifically address wrongful action by police officers which led to death or serious injury. Again, there was suspicion that internal investigations lacked the necessary objectivity required of policing. One Task Force recommendation was that "the Solicitor General create an investigative team to investigate police shootings in Ontario." (Ontario 1989: 150). According to a subsequent task force, the 1989 Task Force was

prompted by persistent public outcry as to the perceived lack of impartiality of police investigating police shootings of civilians, and, of course, were mindful of the particular concern expressed by racial minority communities.... We limited our recommendation to investigations of police shootings because our mandate involved relations between racial minorities and the police, and it was clear that it was the issue of police shootings which was most contentious and the subject of greatest demand for independent criminal investigation (Ontario 1992: 117).

As a result of the Task Force recommendation, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) was created in the 1990 Police Services Act. The government did not implement the recommendation as suggested by the Task Force however: the SIU was comprised solely of civilians as opposed to having two police homicide investigators, and it was given a broader mandate than that foreseen by the Task Force (Ontario 1992).

In contrast to the Office of Police Complaints Commissioner which monitors police handling of complaints and may call for further inquiry, the SIU was established to conduct investigations of incidents where a serious injury or death has occurred that may have resulted from criminal offenses committed by police officers. Thus, in the course of one decade, two mechanisms to deal with wrongful police practices towards the public were created. The first, the OPCC, was established in part due to mobilization around the shootings of two Black men but was also due to increasing sentiment -- by the general public as well as by authors of reports commissioned by the government -- that the complaints process should be formalized. The second, the Special Investigations Unit, was created directly out of recommendations from the 1989 Report of the Task Force on Policing and Race Relations, a task force which was formed in response to the 1988 police shootings. In response to public pressure, the SIU was created on the principle of civilian oversight.

Though the creation of the SIU on the surface did meet the demands for an independent unit to investigate police wrongdoing, the circumstances of the unit left community activists dissatisfied. Criticized by some as a "quick fix" by the Liberal government in response to the Donaldson and Lawson shootings, the SIU has faced difficulties in ensuring full police cooperation. Though Section 1139 of the Police Services Act states that "members of police forces shall co-operate fully" with SIU members conducting investigations, in actuality this does not always happen, with police sometimes invoking their right to remain silent as allowed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Secondly, the SIU was given the broad mandate of investigating circumstances involving serious injury, sexual assault, or deaths that may have resulted from criminal offenses committed by police officers. Yet the unit employs a maximum of eleven investigators -- some of whom are part-time -- to cover all of Ontario, amounting to one investigator for every 4,000 officers (Toronto Star, 16 January 1993). As noted in the 1992 follow-up report of the Race Relations and Policing Task Force: "A very serious problem for the Unit in its short history has been caused by the combination of limited resources being granted to it and the rather extensive mandate legislated to it" (Ontario 1992: 120-1). In brief, the young SIU has faced serious barriers to effectiveness. Critics of the SIU claim that the unit was set up for failure.

Criticisms of the SIU came to a head in 1991 when the Toronto Star (25 July 1991) uncovered an agreement between the Ontario police forces, the Solicitor General's office, and the SIU giving Metro police the right to lead the probe into incidents involving off-duty officers. Community activists were outraged to learn that efforts to establish an independent, objective body to investigate police shootings had been erased by a backroom deal (Toronto Star, 17 November 1991). According to then SIU Director John Osler, the arrangement was not secret but simply a matter of who had the resources: to investigate the conduct of off-duty police officers would severely overtax the SIU's facilities (Toronto Star, 30 July 1991).

1992 witnessed two major reports dealing with relations between the police and racial minorities. The first was in response to the May 1992 "Yonge Street riots" in which hundreds of youth looted and vandalized stores in Toronto's downtown and clashed with police. In the wake of the violence, former United Nations Ambassador Stephen Lewis was commissioned by Ontario Premier Bob Rae to look into race relations in the province. After a hurried month of consultations, Lewis submitted a letter to Rae which included a number of recommendations and specific discussions of the OPCC and the SIU. Citing the lack of confidence by the public in police conducting initial investigations into complaints, Lewis recommended that all race-related complaints be referred directly to the OPCC for initial investigation, bypassing the police investigation. The Rae government announced in a 29 September 1992 press release that the OPCC would assume this role, but in fact it has not occurred.

With regards to the SIU, Lewis stated:

I have heard incessantly, and critically, of the Special Investigations Unit ... and there was rarely a charitable word uttered either about its various findings or its investigative capacity. It is clear that criminal investigation of police conduct is one of the most controversial areas of the Criminal Justice System (Lewis 1992: 8).

Lewis noted the SIU's lack of resources and recommended that it "must have adequate funding to ensure a totally independent investigative capacity." In response to another recommendation in the Stephen Lewis report, the SIU in September 1992 was moved from the aegis of the Solicitor General to that of the Attorney General where it operates as an arms-length agency. The most controversial SIU-related suggestion was to use active and retired police officers as investigators, a recommendation also made by the 1989 Race Relations and Policing Task Force. Noting that good criminal investigation requires years of experience and intimate knowledge of police culture, Lewis' conclusions were admittedly contrary to what he heard expressed by members of minority communities (Lewis 1992: 9).

Lastly, citing widespread support for the work of the 1989 Race Relations and Policing Task Force, Stephen Lewis recommended that it be reconstituted "to assess the status of current implementation, the status of recommendations still outstanding, and to suggest precisely how to proceed" (Lewis 1992: 5). As a result, Complaints Commissioner Clare Lewis chaired the 1992 Task Force which came out with an updated report. The 1992 Task Force maintained that "at least until civilian investigators can be thoroughly trained, top grade seconded police officers must be permitted to be used by the [Special Investigations] Unit" (Ontario 1992: 120). The 1990 Police Services Act has since been amended to allow the SIU to employ police officers as investigators, but the unit continues to be required to operate under a civilian director who reviews their work.

The 1992 Task Force Report also discussed the mandate of the SIU, urging that the government either keep it limited to what prompted the SIU's creation, i.e., investigations of police shootings, or that the SIU be provided with considerably more resources. The authors stated:

Whatever the scope of jurisdiction of the Unit, it must have public credibility in its investigations of police shootings. If its jurisdiction remains wide, and its resources remain inadequate, that critical function will suffer and be the subject of severe public criticism (Ontario 1992: 121-2).

In fact, widespread concern over the tensions between the SIU's mandate and its resources is in the process of being addressed.

In 1994, a committee was created to formulate a draft protocol on SIU reform. The Committee is chaired by the Ministry of the Attorney General and has representatives from the Ministry of the Solicitor General, Associations of Chiefs of Police of Ontario, the Ontario Police Association, the office of the Chief Coroner, the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, and the SIU. This effort is an attempt to more clearly state the policies and practices governing both the SIU and the police in the investigation of possible police wrongdoing. As it stands now, the draft protocol -- which is not a consensus document -- limits the mandate of the SIU and strengthens the responsibilities of the Police Chief.

The Urban Alliance, the only community representative on the committee, was responsible for coordinating community input through a series of public consultations around Ontario in September 1994. During the six public meetings, the Urban Alliance "found overwhelming community and public support for the work and objectives of the SIU" (UARR press release, 28 October 1994). The Black community in particular -- including members of BAD-C, which does not usually participate in public consultations -- made strong statements of support for the SIU.

Despite support for the work and goals of the SIU, the consultations reinforced public dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of the SIU. The main theme that emerged at the consultations was the need for more police accountability. Once again, concerns were voiced about the conflict of interest resulting from police investigating police. According to the Urban Alliance report on the consultations (1994: 2),

This [the Draft Protocol] does not serve to uphold the public perception of independence of process....By placing greater discretion in the hand of the Police Chief/designate, the Draft Protocol appears to recreate the original concerns surrounding the integrity of the process in which the police investigate themselves.

As well, many persons expressed dissatisfaction at the Urban Alliance being the sole community participant on the Draft Protocol Committee, whose composition appeared tilted in favor of police interests (Urban Alliance 1994). Some activists argue that the protocol does not satisfactorily address whether police should be accountable for their actions in the ways that civilians are, and that this is the key underlying issue with the SIU. Others do not believe the Draft Protocol will have any impact on police-minority relations.

Racial minorities have reason to be concerned about the relations of their communities with the police. Blacks in particular are at risk. In Metro Toronto, six of the fifteen victims of police shootings between 1988 and 1991 were Black, five of whom were unarmed youth (Henry et al. 1995). As well, Blacks are over-represented in Toronto's murders, both as perpetrators and as victims. In 1991, Toronto was host to a record number of 87 homicides, 30 of which were believed to have been committed by Blacks and 24 of which had Black victims (The Globe and Mail, 13 July 1992).

To summarize, the mobilization of racial minorities in Metro Toronto has been instrumental in effecting numerous changes to institutions and policies. One of the earliest responses was the creation of the Office of Public Complaints Commissioner which began as a three-year pilot project in 1981 and has since become a permanent institution. Almost a decade later, after continued demands for independent investigations into police shootings as such shootings occurred, the Special Investigations Unit was created. The OPCC and the SIU were the direct and indirect results of Black mobilization. Direct pressure was applied over police shootings and the resulting demands by Blacks for independent agencies to investigate police wrongdoing. Indirectly, beginning in the mid-1970s, the mobilization of Blacks and other racial minorities spawned the creation of numerous government task forces and reports on race relations and policing. These, in turn, drew further attention to racial minority grievances and recommended the creation of agencies such as the OPCC and the SIU.

Tellingly, it was the May 1992 Yonge Street disturbances which brought many of these issues into the mainstream media spotlight. Though Blacks and other minorities had for years been making numerous demands related to policing and the justice system, it took an incident of seemingly random violence in Toronto's downtown -- violence committed not only by Black youth but also by whites and Asians -- to spur government action. The resulting Stephen Lewis report made a number of recommendations, none of which were original according to critics (cf. Ubale 1992) but most of which were immediately implemented by the Rae government.

The government has responded to racial minority demands, but the responses have not been perfect. The SIU has been riddled with problems since its creation in 1990, stemming from its vaguely worded and broad mandate, its lack of financial resources, its understaffing, and difficulties in ensuring full cooperation from the police. The unit is young, and these problems are in the process of being addressed, though perhaps not to the satisfaction of critical minorities who have had input into the SIU reform process. Limiting the mandate of the SIU will only mean that more power falls back into the hands of the police.

As well, the OPCC has its own problems. Filing a complaint against the police can be an intimidating process, especially for immigrants and racial minorities, and many complainants quit the process before their case is resolved. In 1993, 1,125 complaints were withdrawn from a total of 4,125 (OPCC Annual Report 1993). Even those that stay to the conclusion may be dismayed by the light sentences given to implicated officers. To illustrate, the Toronto Chapter of the Chinese Canadian National Council had been involved with a complaint filed by a Chinese-Canadian woman who had been assaulted by a police officer. In 1994, she won her case, but the victory was Pyrrhic: the process took more than two years, and the officer was sentenced to only four days off without pay as well as to take a sensitivity training course. In 1993, only 5.4 percent of complaints resulted in the disciplining of the officer or officers involved.

Despite these problems, the creation of institutions to deal with alleged wrongdoing by police represents a major step forward for those wishing to ensure police accountability. Although the creation of the OPCC and the SIU fill province-wide gaps in police accountability, there is no indication that government action would have been taken in the absence of considerable mobilization by racial minorities in Toronto, especially Blacks, over the course of several decades. These issues are ongoing, and vigilance will be required to ensure further positive changes in police-minority relations.

Nobody's asking for any favors. We just want work environments to be barrier-free. And it's a whole new way of looking at jobs, of realizing how human rights can be enjoyed on a day-to-day basis. I think it's the way of the future.

--Coordinator, Alliance for Employment Equity

As in most societies, ethnic and racial minorities in Canada face barriers to equality in the workforce. Inequality stems from the lack of language skills and Canadian credentials among immigrants, from racism and xenopobia, and from systemic discrimination. Census and other data reveal that though relatively more racial minorities have a university degree than the total adult population of Ontario, they still experience above average unemployment rates (cf. Canada 1994). A widely-cited study conducted in Toronto found that despite almost identical resumes, a white applicant received three job offers for every one offered to a Black. In the study, whites were also treated more courteously than the Black applicants (Henry and Ginzberg 1985). As well, racial minorities are under-represented in managerial positions and over-represented in lower paying service and manual labor positions. Billingsley and Muszynski's No Discrimination Here? (1985) found that racial minorities tend to be ghettoized in personal services and in health and welfare organizations and are poorly represented in education, administration, and professional occupation categories.

In addition, racial minorities also face barriers to wage equality. A 1984 study by the Metro Toronto Social Planning Council found significant differences between white male earnings ($53,730) and racial minority earnings ($39,843) of equally qualified MBA graduates. More generally, the 1986 census found that at each level of education, racial minorities in Ontario earn less than whites: 74 to 84 percent of average earnings of whites with the same level of education (cited in Ontario 1992b: 9).

Studies such as these illustrate the importance of race in the labor market and serve to validate claims of discrimination by racial minorities. Discrimination touches immigrants as well, particularly as Ontario's racial minority population is increasingly composed of immigrants. Other groups also face employment discrimination, including women, aboriginals, and the disabled. This case study examines how these groups, particularly racial minorities, have mobilized for equality in the labor market. It considers one prolonged effort to ensure fairness in hiring and promotion in a society with great ethnic and racial diversity: the use of preferential policies to remove barriers in Ontario. Before discussing Ontario, the affirmative action context in Canada is presented.

The legal foundation for preferential policies in Canada is a complicated one, rooted in federal, provincial, and municipal legislation. Its main pillars are the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982), the Canadian Human Rights Act (1977), the Federal Government Employment Equity Act (1986), and the Federal Government Contractors Program (1986). In addition, by 1975 all Canadian provinces had established human rights commissions and human rights codes to aid individuals in filing complaints. The Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits employment discrimination based on race, ancestry, place of origin, citizenship, creed, sex, age, record of offenses, marital status, family status, handicap, or sexual orientation. Section 41(2) of the Code also permits remedial measures designed to "relieve hardship or economic disadvantage or to assist disadvantaged persons or groups to achieve...equal opportunity." In other words, the Human Rights Code supports affirmative action measures.

According to a federal government publication, some government initiatives in the human rights field -- including passage of the Canadian Human Rights Act -- were taken in response to increased pressures from women and minority groups for special programs to improve their employment situations during the 1970s and early 1980s. It soon became clear that barriers still existed, and "a number of reports, including those prepared by interest groups, urged the federal government to introduce mandatory programs" (Canada, Employment 1990: 4). As a result, the government commissioned Judge Rosalie Abella to look into the possibilities of affirmative action programs in Canada. Her Royal Commission received 274 written submissions and hundreds of letters and documents. Abella met separately with visible minorities and other groups, holding 137 informal meetings (Abella 1984). As had the Report of the Special Committee on Visible Minorities in Canadian Society (Canada, Parliament 1984), the Abella Report noted that in comparison to other immigrants, racial minorities have higher rates of unemployment, earn less money, and are less likely to find work in their chosen fields.

The Abella Report, formally entitled the Royal Commission Report on Equality in Employment, prompted the proclamation of the federal Employment Equity Act in August 1986 and contract compliance for federal government contractors in October 1986. In order to avoid the connotations of rigid quotas and reverse discrimination associated with "affirmation action" (particularly based on U.S. example), Judge Abella coined the phrase "employment equity" in her report. Employment equity (EE) was viewed as a process to expand the opportunities of individuals belonging to designated groups which previously suffered discrimination: women, native people, disabled persons, and visible minorities. Abella acknowledged the difficulties of implementing employment equity programs, saying that EE requires a "special blend of what is fair and what is workable" (Abella 1984). Interestingly, the Employment Equity Act applies to all federally regulated employers (with at least 100 employees), public sector companies, and Crown corporations, including banks, the armed forces, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but it does not apply to the federal government itself.

In the wake of the Abella Report, support grew among certain groups for affirmative action programs in Canada. Ontario is the Canadian province which has witnessed the most mobilization for EE. Disabled People for EE became the first exclusively EE-oriented organization to form in the province, hoping to increase representation of disabled persons in the workforce and to mobilize for Ontario-based legislation. Within government, employment equity was listed in a Liberal-New Democratic Party accord which was signed when the Liberals became a minority government in 1985. By 1987, another election was pending, and EE was one of only two issues in the accord on which no legislative progress had been made. It was at that point that a broad cross-section of disparate persons and organizations interested in EE as a way of increasing the representation of marginalized groups in the workforce came together to form the Alliance for Employment Equity. The organizations involved at the outset were the National Action Council on the Status of Women (NAC), Canada's most influential women's organization, represented by President Judy Rebick; the Coalition of Visible Minority Women; the Congress of Black Women; the Urban Alliance on Race Relations; the Cross-Cultural Communication Centre; Disabled People for EE, the Native Women's Centre, the Ontario Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Ontario Black Coalition for Employment Equity, and other organizations. According to the Alliance for EE's first coordinator, the strategy at that time was to work through the structures of existing province-wide organizations to promote support for EE legislation.

Concurrently, the Ontario Black Coalition for Employment Equity (OBCEE) formed, bringing together about 30 organizations but essentially run by a small core of activists. The OBCEE wrote its own draft of EE legislation which used the federal law as a base but strengthened it considerably. The draft contained six elements: EE legislation must be mandatory; it should cover public and private sectors; it should target visible minorities, native persons, women, and the disabled; it should create a "central monitoring and enforcement agency to set standards, review programs, advise on implementation, and impose penalties for non-compliance"; it should cover hiring, training, and promotion; and special committees with people from target groups should be established in each organization affected (Whylie 1988). The OBCEE presented the draft to Ontario's three political parties. In April 1987, the coalition met with Liberal Premier David Peterson who at first gave some rhetorical support but took little concrete action (Whylie 1992). Neither did the Conservatives, but New Democratic Party leader Bob Rae was more receptive.

Rae, who was then Opposition Leader in Ontario, was interested in tabling an EE bill in the provincial legislature. Beginning in 1989, the NDP worked with the Alliance for EE to hold a community consultation process on the issue. According to the current coordinator of the Alliance for EE, the resulting Bill 172 was the product of a great deal of discussion and work by the Alliance as well as by various communities. Rae submitted the EE bill as a private members bill, but it died on the floor from lack of votes in early 1990. In the May 1990 elections, the NDP won a majority in the legislature and Rae became the Premier, but Bill 172 was not revived. Instead, the NDP appointed an EE Commissioner to conduct another consultation process on the structure and implementation of EE legislation.

The EE Commissioner first released Working Towards Equality, a 60-page discussion paper in November 1991 (Ontario 1992a). This paper was widely distributed with the goal of providing a framework for the consultations to follow. Public hearings with invitation-only presentations, public forums allowing anyone to speak, and on-site community visits to give difficult-to-reach groups the opportunity for input were held in nine Ontario cities. Over 400 written briefs were submitted during the consultative process from equity seekers, employers, concerned community groups, EE practitioners, unions, professional associations, and individuals. Based on organization names in the list of submissions to the public consultations, a minimum of 45 ethnic and racial minority groups (excluding francophones and aboriginals) were involved in the process. This figure does not include the numerous associations which, though not exclusively ethnoracial, either have members or serve ethnoracial minorities in some capacity, the United Way and the Woodgreen Community Centre for example. Though many equity seekers were skeptical of the need for another public consultation and interpreted it as a way of stalling on EE legislation, the thoroughness of the consultation process was impressive and in the end was well-received (Whylie 1992).

The final report on the consultations, entitled Opening Doors (Ontario 1992b), was released on 25 June 1992. According to the report, "While there were many differences on the ways and means, on the timing, on the details of implementation, there was no disagreement that employment equity must become part of the fabric of life in Ontario." Opening Doors notes a number of themes which were expressed by racial minorities during the consultations, including personal experiences of open and systemic discrimination; the effects of racism, such as hiring minorities for only certain types of employment; the invisibility of racial minorities in school books, media, and advertising; the importance of education equity for ensuring workplace equity; and the desire for anti-racist training as a mandatory part of EE legislation (Ontario 1992b: 28-9). Racial minorities who were immigrants wanted to see the recommendations of the Report on Access to Professions and Trades implemented, which would facilitate assessment of prior learning and work experience of foreign-trained professionals.

In contrast to most consultation-based reports in Canada, Opening Doors did not contain recommendations. Instead, according to page one of the report, the recommendations arising from the consultations "directly contributed to the development of the employment equity legislation" which was introduced to the provincial legislature on the same day that Opening Doors was released. In fact, however, the new draft legislation, Bill 79, was not as strong as Rae's earlier bill had been in terms of monitoring and compliance areas. Bill 79 differed from its predecessor in a number of ways, but the principal difference was that it retreated from the provision of EE as mandatory business policy. Instead, "reasonable efforts" were to be made towards the implementation of EE. The strongly worded private members bill had built expectations for a bill which would be at least that progressive, so many equity-seeking groups were disappointed with the content of Bill 79. Nonetheless, weak legislation was viewed as better than none.

The release of Opening Doors came just weeks after the Stephen Lewis report on race relations in Ontario which recommended that EE legislation be introduced before the end of June, passed before the end of the year, and take effect as early as possible in 1993. Lewis commented in his report:

There was not a single meeting that I can remember where employment equity did not arise.... [E]mployment equity is a kind of cause celebre for visible minority communities everywhere. They see it as the consummate affirmation of opportunity and access. With the possible exception of education, nothing is so important (Lewis 1992: 17).

As one member of the OBCEE stated, employment equity was "perhaps the strongest symbol Rae could use to tell Black people, and other disadvantaged groups, that his government was serious about change" (Whylie 1992).

The Minister of Citizenship formed a technical advisory group on the implementation of Bill 79 which included representatives from the Alliance for Employment Equity, the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, the Chinese Canadian National Council, and other community organizations. According to Hageman of the Alliance for EE, the advisory group conducted a clause-by-clause review of the bill, showing where it would fail and how. In the spring of 1993, some of the community groups dropped out of the advisory, claiming that their concerns were not being treated seriously and that the advisory existed in name only. These included representatives from the Alliance for EE, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), and the Coalition of Visible Minority Women, who held a press conference to announce their resignations.

The resignations had at least two effects on the progress of Bill 79. First, the tensions between equity-seeking groups and business had been brought into the open, which affected the continuing advisory process. According to Avvy Go, who was on the Regulations Development advisory group at the time, the adversarial climate was evident in discussions of even minor points in the legislation. This put pressure on the government to take a firm stand in favor of EE, yet it did not.

Second, equity-seeking groups began to mobilize outside of the government committees. After publicizing their disillusion with the advisory process, the Alliance for EE stepped up its lobbying efforts by trying to get other organizations involved in the fight for EE, especially newer ones serving immigrant groups, OCASI, the Metro Coalition for Social Justice, and disability groups. The Alliance built up relations with existing member organizations as well, emphasizing the immediate importance of coalition building around EE. At that time, the Alliance was a coalition of more than 60 community and labor organizations.

Bill 79 was introduced for Second Reading in the Legislature on 16 June 1993, and its draft regulation was released. The bill at Second Reading was almost identical to what it had been at First Reading: not reflecting the views of the community and not strengthened, according to Hageman. Post-legislative hearings were held by Standing Committee for the Administration of Justice from 17 August to 2 September 1993. Held at the end of the summer, in Toronto only, and with little advance notice, 121 individuals and organizations were still able to submit oral testimonies. Written briefs were also solicited. The Alliance for EE compiled a briefing kit which was widely disseminated. Many organizations used the kit as a framework for their own submissions and endorsed the Alliance's recommendations. Only one, a Sikh organization that was not part of the Alliance, argued that the bill was sufficiently strong. A press conference was held to protest the fact that hearings were not held around the province as had originally been planned and that they were scheduled during the summer months.

Before the hearings, though the Alliance for EE had been working towards EE legislation for years, it had not endorsed the weak bill. This was a risk for the Alliance because it seemed unlikely that EE would be promoted by either a Liberal or Conservative government should Bill 79 fail. During the hearings, the Alliance targetted several members of the Standing Committee on the government side, who received letters from members of the Alliance as well as the Alliance's analysis of Bill 79. Thanks to the support of those committee members, as well as a meeting between the members of the Alliance and the Minister of Citizenship, the bill was sufficiently strengthened during its clause-by-clause review to win the guarded endorsement of the Alliance. Many of the legislative details, however, took the form of regulations, meaning that they can be altered on an order of cabinet rather than having to voted by the legislature.

Bill 79 received Third Reading on 9 December 1993 at which time EE activists held another press conference to announce their cautious support for the bill and to urge the government to move towards Proclamation. By this time, the NDP had lost popular support throughout the province and the EE legislation which had once been Bob Rae's battlehorse had become a political liability. The Alliance for EE held a conference in March 1994 entitled "Pooling our Resources" which, among other things, called for a strong public education campaign on EE and the creation of a community-based advisory committee for the implementation of the legislation. According to Hageman, the conference recommendations fell on deaf ears within a government which had lost its commitment to EE. On 13 June 1994, the Alliance for EE held a rally -- attended by about 150 supporters -- to demand that the final step for passage of Bill 79 be taken. Shortly thereafter, September 1 was named as the date for Proclamation of the Employment Equity Act, the date the legislation becomes effective. In the months following the Proclamation of EE legislation, the Alliance for EE -- which had always been funded from the provincial government, mostly through the Office of the EE Commissioner and the Ontario Women's Directorate -- depleted its project funding and currently exists in a state of limbo.

Because of the perception that the Ontario government is only half-heartedly supporting the legislation, there has been little euphoria among equity-seeking groups and members of the Alliance for EE. EE activists believe that the legislation is much too weak and are angry with the NDP for not promoting numerical targets and deadlines and for only calling for "reasonable progress" towards EE to be made by businesses. The NDP's supporters in general are disillusioned with the government for abandoning commitments, while other segments of the general public dislike the NDP for making such commitments in the first place.

Despite disillusionment, activists for EE have much to be proud of. Ontario is the only province in Canada which has even attempted to pass EE legislation. It was attempted because of strong grass roots pressure for equity measures. Not one person I interviewed, in government or on the advocacy side, believed that EE legislation would have come about if there had not been considerable pressure for it from various minority groups. That it passed is testimony to the pressure mounted by equity-seekers and labor organizations on the government in the midst of growing public sentiment against employment equity.

Moreover, the legislation is much broader than what exists on the federal level. The legislation is mandatory, and its enforceability is backed by an EE tribunal as well as the EE Commission. An estimated 17,000 Ontario employers will be covered by the legislation, including the provincial government ministries; the broader public sector (municipalities, colleges and universities, school boards, and health care institutions); and private sector employers with more than fifty employees. The Ontario government estimates that about 80 percent of those entering the Ontario workforce by the year 2001 will be women, racial minorities, aboriginals, or disabled. Though not the definitive solution, the passage of employment equity legislation will facilitate their efforts to find employment in a barrier-free environment.

In addition, a legislative framework has been put into place that in time could be strengthened with amendments. The extent to which this will be possible will depend on Ontario's next government and whether or not public sentiment can be made more favorable to the concept of EE. As one activist commented, "The advocacy is not finished yet.... This is only the beginning."

In conclusion, due to the mobilization of racial minorities, women, disabled persons, aboriginals, labor organizations, and others, Ontario now has an employment equity law in place. The law is the result of compromise between the interests of business, labor, and representatives of the designated groups. As such, it is not everything that advocates for EE had hoped for, yet their input was crucial to the outcome, not to mention getting the legislative effort initiated in the first place. It remains to be seen whether the legislation will be strengthened.

The future of the Alliance for Employment Equity is also unknown; it may be able to shift its gears from promoting passage of the legislation to monitoring its implementation, or it may cease to exist altogether. Whichever the case, the work of the Alliance has been instrumental to the passage of a meaningful employment equity law.

Immigrant service agencies are not concerned with replacing the other service providers in Canadian society, but rather with meeting the needs that have been ignored and helping them to transform their ways of functioning so that ethnoracial minorities have genuine access to services.

--Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI 1993: 16)

 

About two-thirds of immigrants and refugees to Canada are destined for Ontario and the majority of these for Metropolitan Toronto. In fact -- though migrations within Canada are not tracked -- it is believed that the concentration of newcomers in Ontario and in Toronto may be even greater than suggested by immigration figures since immigrants and refugees may move from their original destinations to join larger communities of their own ethnic, national, or racial groups (OCASI 1993: 4). The issue which probably most directly affects the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in Ontario is that of access to social services. This case study examines mobilization for better access and provides a general discussion of what has been achieved. Because of the complexity of issues and programs involved, the presentation focuses on the efforts of one particular access coalition only.

Throughout Canada's history, the federal government provided some "settlement services" such as initial orientation, language instruction, and citizenship classes to newcomers, but it was assumed that after a few years in Canada immigrants would not need further specialized services: they would use mainstream institutions such as government offices, hospitals, and schools for their service needs (Amin 1987). With the expansion of social services in the twentieth century welfare state, immigrants and ethnic minorities largely remained on the outside, unable to access the services provided by mainstream social service institutions by virtue of linguistic and cultural barriers. Instead, immigrants -- and often their descendants -- relied on services from within their own communities, meeting their particular needs through the creation of ethnoracial associations.

In the 1970s, this began to change. As a result of immigration policy liberalization, immigration to Canada diversified, thereby placing new pressures on social service systems as well as engendering the creation of a whole new range of ethnoracial associations, many of which were initially formed on a volunteer basis to fill gaps in social service provision to immigrants and refugees. The government began providing limited funding to ethnoracial associations, allowing them to hire paid staff and to better plan and coordinate activities. According to OCASI, based on the number of agencies founded, the diversification of activities, and the beginning of government commitment to their existence, "The period marked a turning point in the eventual development of a large and diversified network of immigrant service agencies" (1993: 5).

The OCASI paper notes several factors which contributed to the rapid development of immigrant service agencies (ISA's). First, settlement was not limited to two or three years but instead required life-long provisions to immigrants and their children in terms of language training and culturally-sensitive counselling. Second, immigrants were unable to get culturally-appropriate services from mainstream Canadian agencies (cf. Doyle and Visano 1987; Medeiros 1991). Third, immigrant and refugee clients preferred to receive services from organizations and persons within their own communities where they felt a sense of ownership and comfort. Lastly, though very limited in comparison to more established agencies, increased funding for ISA's from various levels of government as well as from the United Way enabled ISA's to become more firmly established.

ISA's are extremely diverse in terms of the services they provide, but some description of their structures and activities is warranted. In general, they are governed by Boards of Directors whose members are from the communities they serve; are formed in response to community needs that are not met elsewhere; and work for anti-racist community development and equal participation (OCASI 1993: 10). Agencies provide "settlement services" such as language training to help clients adapt to their new environment as well as programs for immigrant women, including support groups, health education, and skills training and re-training for employment. Individual and family counselling services as well as physical and mental health services help immigrants and refugees deal with multiple types of stress, ranging from cultural adaptation to post-traumatic stress disorder for refugee victims of torture. Some ISA's and community legal clinics offer legal assistance on immigration status, housing access, and employment rights. In addition, ISA's assist clients in gaining access to mainstream institutions by providing cultural interpretation, information, referrals, and sometimes intervention. ISA's also promote community education and development with newsletters, resource centers, and public forums. Lastly, ISA's advocate changes in the policies that perpetuate discrimination and racism (OCASI 1993: 11-2).

Given their full slate of activities, ISA's often find little time left over for advocacy. As a result, they have banded together to form coalitions which are better able to focus on advocacy. The Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) was founded in 1978 as an advocacy coalition of ISA's. OCASI advocates for access to culturally-appropriate, anti-racist services in Ontario, based on the principle that denying tax-paying immigrants access to needed programs and services is discrimination. With 135 member agencies as of November 1994 which serve about 450,000 immigrant and refugee clients annually, OCASI is easily the most influential nongovernmental body working on behalf of ISA's in Ontario. A brief overview of OCASI's history reveals much about how the battle for access to services for immigrants has been waged over the past fifteen years, and how far ISA's have come.

OCASI was formed as the result of a 1977 workshop sponsored by the federal government (Canada Employment and Immigration Commission) for agencies delivering services under the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program (ISAP) in Ontario. At the end of the "Infoshare" workshop, there was resolution among the agencies to keep in touch to monitor ISAP implementation. A steering committee was formed, and this evolved into OCASI which was incorporated late in in the following year. According to Howard Sinclair-Jones, OCASI's first paid staff member and Executive Director of the agency from 1983-1993, OCASI started out having no staff and no funding and using small membership fees to cover postage costs for minutes and mailings. Each member agency -- there are no individual members, only agencies -- nominated a delegate to be the person to laise with the network and collectively do whatever was necessary to monitor government policy, such as sending letters to cabinet ministers. From the beginning, a significant number of immigrants were active with OCASI: though it was up to member agencies to select their OCASI representives, OCASI encouraged front-line staff members (as opposed to administrative personnel only) to be involved. As well, it was felt that OCASI's Board of Directors should contain people with real expertise in the issues of service provision, should be predominantly immigrant and female, and should include a high percentage of racial minorities.

Sinclair-Jones, who had gotten involved in immigration issues by virtue of being an immigrant himself and through an interest in South America, was the delegate from the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples to the OCASI network and a member of OCASI's executive committee. By 1980, it had become obvious that the OCASI network could not develop much further without money to bring people together more often (five agencies were from outside Metro Toronto) and to have some staff to coordinate efforts. OCASI decided to apply for a government grant to do an outreach project. When the grant came through, with funding split evenly between the federal and provincial governments, Sinclair-Jones was hired as OCASI's first full-time staff member in 1982. As a result of much travel and outreach -- what Sinclair-Jones refers to as "very much a sort of political organizing" for improved funding criteria for ISA's -- OCASI's membership had jumped from 21 to 45 before the end of the year. It had reached its three-year goals in terms of size and expansion in year one.

Soon after OCASI's first conference which defined priorities for the organization, the leadership decided that OCASI needed stable, operational (core) funding from the government. OCASI convinced the federal multiculturalism program to provide it with $45,000 in operational funding. Though core funding was not taken lightly at the time and the government has since shifted away from such grants, OCASI still managed to get sustaining funding from the Secretary of State Multiculturalism (now the Department of Canadian Heritages) and in recent years has also received core funds from Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship.

From the beginning, OCASI's leadership has worked hard to improve links with government departments and to lobby for improved services for immigrants. At OCASI's first conference in 1982, delegates emphasized that better service provision could only be achieved through helping to shape government policy. Information-sharing and training were important, but a proactive, advocacy component in OCASI's activities was seen as essential to effecting change within the social services system. During the mid-1980s, the category of "advocacy" was eliminated from all government documentation. Yet OCASI member agencies and government officials continue to rely on OCASI to communicate ISA concerns and to campaign for new policies and programs beneficial to ISA's.

What is remarkable about OCASI, though not extremely unusual in the Canadian context (cf. Pal 1994), is that in Sinclair-Jones' words, "OCASI in fact developed tremendous strength while at the same time receiving large quantities of government money." Part of OCASI's philosophy is to use money to ensure equity, for example, by providing travel grants for members to attend meetings. Sinclair-Jones sees this as a real strength in terms of ownership of the organization and in terms of visibility, a strength not been possible for organizations which do not accept government funds. In fact, he argues, senior level federal bureaucrats working in multiculturalism or immigration issues

have a certain fear of OCASI and always have had, yet they give significant amounts of money to OCASI. They hate going to OCASI meetings because they are very intimidated by being faced with a knowledgeable delegation of visible minority immigrant women who have English as a second language.... I always saw my role at OCASI as making the largest number of people as possible in those positions of power think that this was an extremely strong, united, powerful organization that could influence the ethnic votes, and meanwhile to chip away at government policy in all sorts of areas which affected our membership of ISAs.

The respect which is accorded OCASI by government officials is evidenced by the attendance at an OCASI open house on 22 September 1994 by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism, Ontario's Minister of Citizenship, Ontario's Minister of Community and Social Services, and the Mayor of Toronto.

In brief, the words and deeds of organizations such as OCASI may make government officials uneasy, yet they continue to supply funding and verbal support because the needs of ISA's are seen as worthy. As well, the government does need mechanisms for consulting and for being seen to be consulting with minority communities. The existence of OCASI provides such a mechanism, adjunct to the government apparatus and with a vested interest in facilitating good relations with the state.

The remarkably diverse OCASI coalition of more than one hundred organizations has been maintained for over a decade, a feat made possible by the provision of government support. Maintaining a strict focus on immigrant services and avoiding issues which would divide the membership has also been crucial to its survival. OCASI has maintained a high degree of credibility among both immigrant and government circles.

In terms of the accomplishments achieved by OCASI and other agencies and coalitions working to improve immigrant services, they have been major. There has been a constant pressure on the social services system over the past ten to fifteen years to recognize "ethnospecific" services as an integral part of the social service system. There are two aspects to this. The first is the recognition of the services provided by immigrant-oriented and ethnospecific agencies as fulfilling legitimate needs. The second is the "multiculturalization" of mainstream service institutions, their transformation into more "user friendly" places for ethnoracial minorities. In Sinclair-Jones' view, every government would like to get rid of such a pluralistic approach, to homogenize and centralize, but the constant pressure by ISA's with legitimate needs means that homogenization is only a remote possibility. Even in times of government cutbacks, the immigration service sector is no more affected than is the mainstream sector. There is even some acknowledgement that smaller agencies are actually more cost-effective than the more established ones.

The sheer volume and diversity of social services in Ontario render the outcome of advocacy for improved access to services difficult to assess. Advances have been made, and they are briefly discussed below. They are (1) documenting and drawing attention to the difficulties of access for immigrants and ethnoracial minorities; (2) increased recognition by the government of the valuable and unique services provided by ISA's; (3) the securing of some core funding for ISA's; (4) the injection of "new" issues into the social service agenda; and (5) the high level of immigrant and ethnoracial service activity in Ontario compared to other provinces.

First, immigrants and racial minorities have been instrumental in drawing attention to the fact that members of their communities do not have equal access to services in Ontario. This lack of access has been documented in a number of recent reports which have lent legitimacy to ISA advocacy. The Social Assistance Review Committee of Ontario (SARC) was established in July 1986 to undertake public review of the province's social assistance system. SARC's Multicultural Advisory Group consisted of representatives from fourteen organizations involved in service provision to immigrants, including Harambee, the Ontario Women's Network, and OCASI. Its Report on Multiculturalism and Social Assistance (August 1987) concludes that Ontario's social assistance system is not meeting basic physical needs, lacks sensitivity and compassion, lacks consistency, and is unable to communicate effectively with clients. The report asserts:

Discriminatory and insensitive treatment [of immigrants and visible minorities] is not exceptional, but rather the norm. It would appear that an underlying assumption exists in the mainstream delivery system that immigrants are not legitimately entitled to receive social assistance (Multicultural Advisory 1987: Chapter 8).

The recommendations in this report, and in the overall SARC report entitled Transitions, were not allotted the funding needed for implementation. However, they were re-examined by the NDP government in its 1991 Back on Track report which led to at least one important reform examined below.

A report commissioned by the Ontario Race Relations Directorate (1987) examined barriers to racial minorities in accessing government services and found that racial minorities sought assistance from family and friends, community agencies, religious groups, and professionals before seeking government services. Lack of awareness of programs, language and cultural barriers, and insensitivity of government employees all prevented minorities from more readily accessing government services. Similar conclusions were reached in the City of Toronto's 1987 report Multicultural Access to City Service and in Metro Toronto's 1991 A Review of Ethno-Racial Access to Metropolitan Services.

One of the most publicized reports in this area has been Doyle and Visano's (1987) Access to Health and Social Services for Members of Diverse Cultural and Racial Groups, which is based on interviews with respondents from 135 health and social service organizations in Metro Toronto. The authors found that, though mainstream agencies recognize that barriers to access exist, they have not adequately responded to the barriers, have failed to articulate strategies for ameliorating problems, and lack financial resources to improve access. As a result, "the onus of ensuring a greater degree of access falls on smaller, poorly funded and understaffed ethno-specific agencies" (12). The Doyle and Visano report is significant in that does more than simply pinpoint barriers to access. It goes on to promote the role that ethnospecific agencies have provided in service provision, and even to recommend that mainstream and ethnospecific service agencies bridge their "two solitudes" in order to collaborate and develop closer linkages.

The disparity in resources for social service agencies is also documented in a 1991 report issued by the Multicultural Coalition for Access to Family Services. The Multicultural Coalition, which encompasses ten ethnocultural and ethnoracial communities, was formed in 1987 to address a concern that family services in Toronto are not accessible to most of the minorities needing them. Family Services for All provides ample evidence that governments and agencies have not adjusted their spending to address the dramatic demographic shift in Toronto's population. According to the report, "services are designed and delivered as if everyone speaks English fluently, subscribes to the same cultural values, and know where to find the family services they need" (Medeiros 1991: 1). The report was based on a two-year study of 28 agencies. The agencies surveyed had a total of 408.5 family services workers: the established family service agencies employed 96 percent of them while only 4 percent worked for ethnoracial agencies. The staff/client ratio was 1 worker to 38 clients per year in the established agencies and 1 to 84 in the ethnoracial agencies.

The reports cited here -- most of which were written with significant community-based input -- have had a major impact in drawing government attention to the difficulties of accessing services in mainstream Canadian service institutions. The sheer number of such reports -- only selected ones were described above -- indicates the extent to which public attention has begun to focus on the issue of access to social services by immigrants and ethnoracial minorities.

As well, the reports mark an evolution in the recognition of the valuable role played by immigrant and ethnospecific service agencies. As one OCASI staff member stated, whereas conferences and reports on social services access at first emphasized the need for alternatives to the mainstream model of service delivery, this need is today widely accepted. The focus has shifted from whether such services should exist to how they can exist, to the mechanisms of service delivery, and to obtaining more funding. To illustrate, in 1993, the Metro Toronto government initiated a series of lunchtime discussions entitled "Community Input into Service Provision" to investigate how goverment could be more responsive to the needs of various communities. These sessions actually consisted of community workers voicing their concerns to Metro-level bureaucrats and suggesting possible government action for improved access.

This recognition of ISA's as legitimate service providers by provincial and local government bodies is another measure of the advances made towards access equity. The existence and importance of ISA's have been acknowledged in various government initiatives. This "acceptance" of challengers as legitimate representatives of demands is one measure of success used by social movements theorists (Gamson 1975; Kitschelt 1986). As opposed to a substantive outcome or "new advantages," this type of gain hinges on recognition only. However, acceptance often opens the door for new channels of participation by the protagonists and may facilitate the securing of new advantages as well. Tarrow (1994: Chapter 5) notes that movements can create their own opportunities. Now that OCASI, its member agencies, and other access-oriented coalitions have been recognized as legitimate players, their input is often solicited for policy decisions. Such occasions are filled with opportunity.

Closely related to acceptance or recognition of ISA's is another measure of the outcomes of mobilization for access by ISA's: funding. In an era where government support for ethnoracial associations consists primarily of project grants, ISA's have been fairly successful at securing sustained funding. The Ontario Settlement and Integration Program, which provides core funding, was created in 1984-85 as a direct result of lobbying by OCASI and its member agencies. The federal Citizenship and Community Participation Program, though its focus has since shifted, was also created out of lobbying by OCASI for a core funding program for ISA's wishing to provide a variety of services. According to Sinclair-Jones, these two programs have provided about $10 million annually over the last seven or eight years directly to ISAs. More recently, the Multilingual Access to Social Service Initiative (MASSI) is a result of the community input into the 1991 Social Assistance Review Committee report whose recommendations are being implemented by the current Ontario government. Created directly from the Back on Track report, MASSI began in fiscal 1992-93 as an effort to provide more support for services and materials in languages other than French and English. MASSI funds cultural interpreter services around the province which work with social assistance agencies, and a massive training program is currently underway. It also funds agencies which directly assist immigrant clients in accessing social services. MASSI's implementation has been a slow process, but the initiative is viewed as a successful outcome of community input.

Despite these programs which have directly resulted from community input, however, ISA's remain largely underfunded (Doyle and Visano 1987; Medeiros 1991). In 1991, Metro Toronto had an $8 million social service grants budget, from which only 11 percent goes to ethno- or racial-specific community based agencies. Yet Metro Toronto's population is close to 30 percent visible minority. Lingering economic recession has meant that ISA's are faced with demands for more services -- and more intensive services -- at a rate which outpaces growth of resources (OCASI 1994). Despite the creation of several core funding programs, ISA's continue to rely heavily on project funding, thereby injecting an element of instability as well as creating undue pressures on ISA's in terms of paperwork and tying up human resources.

Other measures of the success of ISA's in Ontario include their ability to inject "new" issues into the social service agenda. Domestic violence is widely cited as an example of an issue which was treated seriously by community-based agencies for a number of years before it became an issue for mainstream service providers. Today, the government funds programs -- many of them implemented by ISA's -- specifically aimed to combat domestic violence. ISA's were also at the forefront of promoting the use of interpreters who understood cultural and linguistic nuances over those who provided strict word-for-word translations. The need for "cultural interpretation" is increasingly recognized by the Ontario government. More generally, mainstream service agencies are much more aware of linguistic and cultural issues and problems faced by ethnoracial minorities than they were even a decade ago.

Lastly, the success of ISA's in Ontario can be measured against access to services in other Canadian provinces. Though situations between provinces differ for a number of reasons, the fact is that Ontario's large immigrant population and strong base of ethnoracial associations has made Ontario the national leader in the provision of immigrant services. Compared with other Canadian provinces, Ontario has a wider range of types of ISA's, including "ethnospecific" and service-specific, with a broader funding base drawing from multiple government sources. Sinclair-Jones speculates that if the advocacy by ISA's were to be measured on a scale from one to ten in terms of access, Ontario has gone from a "two" to a "three": still miserable, but better than zero. He speculates that in the absence of pressure on the government, access to services in Ontario might have actually deteriorated over the past decade.

In conclusion, immigrant and ethnoracial minority associations have been able to work together over the past fifteen years to make significant gains in access to social services in Ontario. Most notably, their existence and their goals have been accepted by various levels of government as legitimate, thereby opening the door for future substantive gains for ISA's. This is an ongoing issue which involves finding a balance between existence of sufficient ethnospecific services and integrating existing structures in order to make the mainstream service agencies more accountable as well. Canada continues to be a country of immigration and, with over half its immigrants settling in Ontario, the province has already had to face the challenges of diversity that will increasingly be experienced elsewhere.

The three mobilization efforts examined in this chapter have each been nominally successful, but in all cases the activists involved have reservations about the extent to which significant change has been made. In the case of mobilization around police shootings and other instances of possible wrongdoing, Blacks and to a lesser extent other racial minorities were calling for the creation of an independent body to investigate such actions since at least the late 1970s. Throughout the following decade and into the early 1990s, Black leaders have used the occasions of police shootings of Blacks -- in many cases, of unarmed Black youth -- to publicly call for more police accountability. In addition, sometimes as many as 2,000 persons took to the streets in protest of the shootings. These protests, as well as the task force reports that were generated in their wake, were instrumental to the creation of two institutions to promote police accountability in Ontario: the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner, made a permanent office in 1984 after a three-year pilot project, and the Special Investigations Unit, created in 1990. Though the creation of these offices is in many ways unexceptional -- it seems only logical that there should be independent mechanisms in place to investigate possible police wrongdoing -- it is unlikely that they would exist today had there been no collective action. Criticisms abound by minority activists regarding both offices, namely regarding the extent of their independence, but -- at a minimum -- structures have been created which address the concerns of Blacks and other minorities in Ontario.

Similarly, Ontario's recent employment equity legislation owes its existence to the mobilization by a coalition of equity-seeking groups: racial minorities, women, aboriginals, and the disabled. Racial minorities were active in drawing attention to the need for employment equity measures, in shaping the legislative framework through consultations and hearings, and in working outside government circles through the Alliance for Employment Equity. By the time the legislation was proclaimed in 1994, many activists who had been working towards this goal since the mid-1980s had become disillusioned with Ontario's NDP government and were disappointed that the legislation was not stronger. Nonetheless, that employment equity legislation exists at all is a credit to the mobilization effort and especially to the leadership of the Alliance for Employment Equity.

The issue of access to social services for immigrants and ethnoracial minorities is diffuse, involving a wide range of associations, government departments and programs, and specific policies. That the issue is broad makes analysis of the mobilization for improved access difficult, yet it deserves to be attempted in that access to services directly affects a large proportion of Canada's immigrants and ethnoracial minorities. With specific focus on the more than one hundred associations that are members of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) as well as on OCASI itself, I have argued that these organizations have been able to increase awareness in government circles as to the need for culturally sensitive social services in Ontario. There are still many barriers to equal access, but a number of advances have been made, including documenting and drawing attention to the difficulties of access for immigrants and ethnoracial minorities; increased recognition by the government of the valuable and unique services provided by immigrant service agencies (ISA's); and the securing of some core funding for ISA's.

These three mobilization efforts are linked to Canada's "national identity structures," including its pluralist model of minority incorporation, the ties between citizenship and nationality in Canada, and the country's immigration history. How these dimensions of national identity are related to the collective action cases is detailed below.

In Chapter Four, a history of immigration was presented, revealing that -- not unlike France -- Canada needed manpower and persons to settle in the western provinces but preferred to limit immigration to "more assimilable" peoples, i.e., Western European and especially British Christians. Despite this preference for assimilation, not at all uncommon among countries of immigration, the fact that the 1867 British North America Act recognized two "founding races" -- one English and one French -- laid the groundwork for cultural pluralism. The fledgling Canadian state depended heavily on the labor of Italians, Ukrainians, Asians (especially the Chinese), and others in the early twentieth century. "Anglo-conformity" remained an ideal among many Canadians, but the arrival of new languages, religions, and ethnoracial identities profoundly influenced the development of the Canadian state. Whereas migrants to European countries generally entered long-established nations, newcomers to North America were more able to influence the formation of national identity.

In the Canadian context, citizenship was historically a non-issue, with Canadians being legally defined as British subjects until after World War II. In 1947, Canada passed a citizenship act, in part to boost nationalism and thereby increase enthusiasm for war-time obligations. The act was a significant step towards the development of a distinctive, independent Canadian identity and the rejection of Anglo-conformity. In addition, Canada has very high naturalization rates, especially among racial minorities, and citizenship is generally expected of immigrants. Immigration and citizenship acquisition have been traditionally linked in Canada, and today citizenship is linked to cultural diversity also.

That the 1960s was a decade of turbulence and upheaval worldwide is reflected in Canada's altered immigration policy as well as in its official rejection of Anglo-conformity. Simultaneously with decolonization, the expanding role of the United Nations, and increased attention to the world's refugee problems, Canada moved to liberalize its immigration policies, abandoning its race and nationality-based system in favor of a more objective "points system" in 1967. Concurrently, the work of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism resulted in official languages legislation in 1969, recognizing both English and French as Canada's languages. In an attempt to placate "other" ethnic minority groups, Prime Minister Trudeau announced a Multiculturalism policy in 1971. This policy was strengthened in the 1988 Multiculturalism Act. The increasingly diverse immigrant populations settling in Canada coupled with officially-sanctioned cultural pluralism has resulted in powerful forces of diversity which make increasing demands upon the state.

It is in this context that the particular mobilization effort for enhancing police accountability has occurred. Mobilization has been instigated by Black activists and to a lesser extent members of other communal groups. In contrast to French society -- where the term "race" is used sparingly, particularly by racial minorities themselves -- these leaders have not hesitated to express their views that much police violence is race-based. This is all the more noteworthy in that the most prominent of whom are immigrants from the Caribbean who have not taken Canadian citizenship. That immigrant racial minorities are openly critical of structures within the police force is testimony to the power which anti-racism forces have assumed in Canada, and in Metro Toronto in particular.

Similarly, Canada's commitment to multiculturalism, anti-racism, and to equity empowered various minority groups to come together to pressure the government of Ontario to enact employment equity legislation. Whereas in France even ethnoracial minorities tend to look upon the idea of affirmative action with disdain, activism by minorities in Ontario was instrumental to securing government backing for employment equity. It also ensured that the bill was not weakened as much as it might have been otherwise. The Alliance for Employment Equity -- which interestingly relied almost solely on government funds for its existence -- spearheaded the mobilization effort, overtly criticizing attempts to dilute the legislation. In the end, Ontario recognized that group membership does matter to employers and has taken steps to ensure that barriers to workplace entry and promotion be torn down.

Lastly, mobilization for access to culturally sensitive services has only been possible within a context which recognizes and supports cultural and linguistic diversity, notably through both the ideal and the policy of multiculturalism. Ethnic and racial diversity in Ontario has paved the way for public support for the maintenance and even expansion of ISA's in the province. The existing network of state-supported ISA's in Ontario and other parts of Canada could not have been possible in an assimilationist country which lets its immigrants "sink or swim" but assumes it can count on the assimilation of their offspring. The Canadian approach has been a bolder, more complicated one. It has also been more difficult to maintain in terms of popular support, especially during periods of economic downturn. Nonetheless, national identity structures in Canada -- including the framework of multiculturalism -- have allowed for the creation of "ethnospecific," multilingual social services which have not received such extensive government funding elsewhere and have thus existed on a much smaller scale.

In conclusion, the instigators of collective action in Canada have not hesitated to overtly criticize government structures and policies. In the cases examined above, grievances have been framed with references to multiculturalism, racism (including past and present racist policies in Canada), and equality of access. With surprising frequency, activists have often been rewarded through some sort of accommodation by the state, though rarely to an extent satisfactory to mobilizers.

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Virtual Library		Updated February 09, 2004