IN-DEPTH: What Canadian Schools Are Teaching About ‘White Privilege’ and ‘Systemic Racism’

Backpacks, jackets, and shoes belonging to students at an elementary school classroom in Vancouver, British Columbia, on April 13, 2023. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

“Anti-racism” is being taught to schoolchildren across Canada, and some parents say their kids have come home distraught. The reason is they feel a wedge between them and their friends driven by an ideology that divides them into two groups: white oppressors and non-white oppressed.

Dan Brooks, a parent in Vanderhoof, B.C., told The Epoch Times about the experience of his daughter Rachel. It’s an experience similar to those reported by others across the country.

Rachel has an older sister who is indigenous and never imagined anyone would group her with “racists” because of her white skin. Then an “honouring diversity” course came to her school.

“Honouring diversity seems like such a laudable goal, who could disagree,” Mr. Brooks wrote in an email to the school district’s superintendent, which he shared with The Epoch Times.

“However, Rachel came home upset about what was being taught, so much so that she walked out of class. She felt that as a white person, she was being attacked and shamed because of her whiteness,” he wrote. “To perceive she was being labeled as a racist or privileged oppressor was deeply offensive and contrary to both Rachel’s experience at home and her values as a person.”

Mr. Brooks said he’s sure the teacher, who he knows cares about Rachel, didn’t intend to hurt her. But the anti-racism content can easily cause anger, guilt, and shame, especially in someone “not mature enough yet to respond to this discussion.” This was two years ago; she was 13 at the time.

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Mr. Brooks said he has felt anguish at watching his older daughter, as an indigenous person, struggling with her racial identity, but the answer to racism isn’t to then have his white daughter in a similar internal conflict.

“We feel the concepts of white guilt are incredibly toxic,” he said.

Some have also raised concerns about the effects of anti-racism teachings on non-white students.

“I’ve had parents of an indigenous student and an Indo-Canadian student reach out to me and talk about how their kid was taught this pedagogy of the oppressed,” Jeff Park, executive director of the Alberta Parents’ Union, told The Epoch Times. “They had never thought of themselves as oppressed before, and it was traumatizing to them to have to think about their classmates as oppressors and think about themselves as oppressed.”

Ideological Foundations of Anti-Racism

Anti-racism is essentially the neo-Marxist ideology of critical race theory going by a different name (though it has, at times, openly been called “critical race theory” by some leading anti-racism thinkers in Canada and abroad).

The "Wheel of Privilege and Power" promoted by the federal government and included in many anti-racism programs.

It also goes by names such as “social-emotional learning” and “restorative” learning, Mr. Park said. “That’s used to obscure that they’re actually talking about critical race theory.” It has also been called “culturally responsive” teaching by some.

Although various definitions of critical race theory (CRT) exist, it is generally characterized by its assertion that racism is systemic and that race is an important part of a person’s identity. This latter point is often contrasted with the idea of a colour-blind society that treats all people equally as individuals rather than identifying people based on race.

Although Canadian parents hold varying opinions on such matters, the anti-racism view is being widely disseminated in schools. Many consider the ideas presented to be radical, with controversial thinkers such as Ibram X. Kendi cited in anti-racism materials.

For instance, Peel District School Board in Ontario has encouraged teachers to read Mr. Kendi’s book “Antiracist Baby” to kindergarten children, according to documents leaked to Samuel Sey, a Ghanaian Canadian who is a vocal opponent of critical race theory.

Mr. Sey described the book as the “kids version” of Mr. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist.”

Mr. Kendi says in “How to Be an Antiracist” that “the only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.” He advocates the creation of a “department of anti-racism” in the U.S. government that would have non-elected anti-racism experts “responsible for pre-clearing all local, state, and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity.” The Constitution would be amended to make such inequities unconstitutional.

Another prominent CRT advocate is Robin DiAngelo, who says in her book “White Fragility”: “A positive white identity is an impossible goal. White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy.” An article on anti-racism published by the Canadian Principals Association cites Ms. DiAngelo’s writing.

Some U.S. states have banned CRT in the classroom. This year, many Canadian parents have increasingly voiced concerns over gender and sexuality teachings in schools, and rumblings over CRT are growing as well, Mr. Park said.

The Epoch Times has collected examples of how CRT is manifesting in classrooms from across the country.

British Columbia

Before anti-racism took hold, according to a former B.C. teacher, schools were already addressing racism, but they were doing it without CRT. “If there was anything to do with race that was in any way insulting or pejorative to others, then it would be, of course, banned,” Jim McMurtry of Abbotsford told The Epoch Times.

“There was a lot of attention for decades to Martin Luther King, and not to judge people on the colour of their skin, but on the content of their character,” he said. “And then something happened.”

He was a teacher on call, working for schools all around the city, when he started to notice the word “privilege” popping up in classrooms, even at the elementary level. “I started to challenge colleagues about this.”

Many white children at the schools live in poverty, Mr. McMurtry said. “So how dare you assume that every white child is privileged?” he would say to his colleagues.

Parents walk their children to school in North Vancouver in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward)

They would argue back, he said, and “start to create the assumption that I was somehow racist.”

Mr. McMurtry was fired earlier this year, after about 40 years of teaching, for telling a class that the majority of residential school deaths were due to illnesses, such as tuberculosis. He wrote his master’s thesis on indigenous education policy and has kept his knowledge on the subject up to date, so he sought to contextualize reports about residential school deaths, he said.

Toward the end of his career, he saw phenomena such as “equity marking” and “equity backpacks” in schools.

“There are many classes now where there’s equity marking, where teachers have to give more attention to kids who are not white-skinned,” Mr. McMurtry said.

He noted an “equity backpack” initiative started by a Grade 6 social studies teacher in Abbotsford who has a master’s degree in equity. She started it in 2021 and it spread across the province and into Alberta.

She had children make backpacks out of cardboard and put anti-racism classwork in them. A video about the initiative shows students including many positive messages in their backpacks, such as promises to love themselves, to love others, and to work hard to realize their dreams.

They also include messages steeped in CRT language. “I promise to challenge my biases,” one student says. “I promise to stand up for what is right, when the time is right, and become an activist if needed,” another says.

Engaging teachers and students in “social justice” activism is often part of anti-racism teachings. The honouring diversity course taught to Grade 8 students in Vanderhoof, for example, culminated with having students “make a claim” in front of the class about their new commitment to diversity and social justice.

A paper published in the UCLA Law Review last year by Theresa Montaño and Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen praises CRT in the classroom and says it “engages students in social activism to defy majoritarian supremacy.” The paper promotes K–12 anti-racism teaching and, while some try to distance anti-racism from CRT, the authors don’t. “Rather than deny CRT is being taught in schools, the authors embrace CRT,” the paper says.

Ms. DiAngelo said in an essay she co-authored, titled “Is Everyone Really Equal,” that “education is a political project.”

British Columbia’s education ministry has an anti-racism guide for teachers, including suggestions on how to start class discussions on privilege, identity, and systemic racism. “Be outspoken about anti-racism,” it says. “Recognize that authentic allyship is not performative, rather it is active work. ... Think about how you can be vocal about the importance of anti-racism work in every part of education.”

A father in a small town in B.C.’s interior told The Epoch Times that his daughter’s Grade 8 class was asked to place themselves on the “Wheel of Privilege and Power.“ It’s a common tool in anti-racism programs to show people how much ”privilege” they have by looking at their identities as an intersection of various identity groups.

The most “privileged” are at the centre, where terms such as “rich,” “white,” “settler/colonizer,” “property owner,” “heterosexual,” and “able-bodied” converge.

The father asked not to be named because he holds a position in the local school board and could face repercussions for speaking publicly on the matter. He said that when his daughter objected to being defined by her skin colour, she was told that being white put her in the “oppressor” group.

Students had to leave their anti-racism workbook in the classroom, he said, and he suspects it’s because the teachers didn’t want the parents to see the material.

“My daughter told me, and other students [told me] as well, that as this class went on, the First Nations and minority students, they thought it was hurting their relationship, because they would talk to each other less in the hallways,” he said. “They just felt like it was dividing the kids rather than bringing them together.”

Alberta

In Alberta, too, CRT is prevalent, Mr. Park said. He has had parents come to him after their children were asked to place themselves on the Wheel of Privilege. He said there’s some denial around how much of it is presented in the classrooms.

“They tend to say anti-racism training is only used as training for teachers, we’re not teaching it to the students, but I just find that a little hard to believe because, first of all, there are lots of resources being produced to help teachers bring this into their classrooms,” he said.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) shares many such resources, Mr. Park said. He noted that the ATA recently invited its members to participate in an educators’ anti-racism conference in Toronto on Nov. 30. The keynote speaker, Martin Brokenleg, has cited Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire in his writings.

Mr. Park pointed to a 2012 article Mr. Brokenleg wrote, titled “Transforming Cultural Trauma into Resilience.” In it, he positively quotes Mr. Friere, saying “it is impossible for the oppressor to liberate the oppressed.”

Teachers Pay Teachers and other online educator marketplaces are selling materials to bring CRT pedagogy to the classrooms, Mr. Park said. “Certainly a company that sells lesson plans as their business model isn’t going to produce things that people aren’t using.”

He said many teachers feel themselves to be moderate, but that’s only because the teaching profession today is steeped in CRT. “They’re moderate—in the teachers’ lounge,” he said. “They don’t realize the faculties of education have been so captured by critical Marxism.”

Ontario

An Ontario teacher was recently in the spotlight for a video he posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, in which he called parents “snowflakes” for disagreeing with his CRT and other controversial teachings. The video has since been removed.

A teacher walks in the hallway of a junior public school in Ontario in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette)

“I teach about Marxism, I teach about socialism, I teach about trans rights, I teach about LGBTQ history, I teach about black history, I teach about the racial history of our country and the genocide that we have inflicted upon indigenous people,” Frank Domenic Cirinna of Craig Kielburger Secondary School in Milton said in the video.

He called parents who oppose any of this “antiquated dinosaurs” whose children will eventually turn away from them and adopt his worldview. His school board, the Halton District School Board, did not reply to an Epoch Times request for comment.

In the York Regional District School Board (YRDSB), teacher trainings for math and for English as a second language (ESL) have been dominated by CRT, according to former teacher Chanel Pfahl, who receives many communications from teachers and parents about such things and posts them on X.

“What is your understanding of your identity and how your privilege and power shapes the way you experience the world?” a math consultant’s slide that Ms. Pfahl posted reads. An ESL training focused on “intersecting social identities” and “forms of oppression,” as shown in materials from the training.

Also at YRDSB, parents of Grade 8 students were told their children would meet with an external organization called Black Excellence 365 weekly throughout November to build an understanding of “anti-racism and anti-oppression.” A parent leaked the communication to Ms. Pfahl. In October, the board also had a speaker from the “On Canada Project” speak with students, Ms. Pfahl said. The organization’s website lists federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith as “far-right/white supremacists.”

The YRDSB didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.

In recent years, Ontario has greatly increased the number of high-level staff its schools have dedicated solely to equity.

The Peel District School Board (PDSB) and Durham District School Board (DDSB) are the two boards with the largest number of high-earning equity staff.

A Grade 5 teacher at PDSB’s Somerset Drive Public School in Brampton identified books banned in U.S. schools because they promote CRT, and read them with her class. She posted about it on X in March, along with a picture of her bulletin board, which has the words “critical race theory” in the centre. Another teacher, Amanda Long, who teaches at a DDSB school, replied to that post saying she will do the same.

Ms. Long has posted a lesson plan for one of these books, “Ghost Boys,” by Jewell Parker Rhodes, and teaching materials supporting Black Lives Matter.

A father whose daughter is in an Ottawa Carleton District School Board school told The Epoch Times about a webinar the board held last year, advertised as being for all students. He took issue with many parts of it, including its discussion of “whiteness” as the root of various issues in the world.

It said, for instance, that white British colonizers are to blame for “homophobia” in the Muslim world.

A man holds a Black Lives Matter sign as a police car burns in front of him during a protest over the death of George Floyd, outside CNN Center in Atlanta on May 29, 2020. (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

Although he didn’t actually have his kindergartner watch the seminar, he was upset it was billed as appropriate for all students. The parent wished to remain anonymous to protect his daughter’s privacy. He sent The Epoch Times his communications with school board staff. Superintendent Shannon Smith told him, “We don’t agree that the term ‘whiteness’ is harmful language.”

He said he took the matter to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which told him white people cannot be considered the target of racism.

A Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decision (in the case of Lisikh v. Ontario, 2022) states: “It is important to note in the Tribunal’s jurisprudence that an allegation of racial discrimination or discrimination on the grounds of colour is not one that can be or has been successfully claimed by persons who are white and non-racialized.”

Lindsay, a parent in Waterloo, Ont., who chose to give only her first name to protect her daughter’s privacy, said her 8-year-old came home saying she was told not to say “two plus two equals four.” Her young daughter had a hard time explaining precisely the logic behind it, but Lindsay said it sounded like it had to do with CRT’s view of Western math as colonial and oppressive. This view is called critical mathematics pedagogy.

Legislation has been introduced in Ontario in recent years to embed anti-racism into all aspects of the Ontario curriculum. Parent advocacy group Parents as First Educators raised the alarm on Bill 16 last year, saying it would also have schools’ and teachers’ performance assessments include their level of anti-racism awareness.

Prominent psychologist and author Jordan Peterson called an earlier version of the proposed legislation, Bill 67, “the most pernicious and dangerous piece of legislation that any Canadian government has ever put forward.” Bill 67 had bipartisan support, though it lapsed in June 2022 because of the Ontario provincial election. Bill 16, introduced by three NDP MPPs, has so far not been passed into law in the Legislature.

Farther east, some are pushing for CRT to take hold in schools.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, an “anti-racism coalition” is seeking to influence K–12 social studies curriculum, getting support from a local Black Lives Matter group.

The coalition sought to drum up support following an assault at a high school in Grand Falls-Windsor earlier this month. The father of the victim told CBC News that he thought the assault was racially motivated. The father of the youth accused in the assault, however, told the CBC it was not racially motivated, but rather a teenage altercation that got out of hand.

Federal, Other Institutions

Anti-racism has spread into many Canadian institutions, including other places meant for youth. Hockey Quebec requires its coaches to undergo anti-racism training that cites Mr. Kendi. Pediatric surgeons are urged to be anti-racist.

The federal government’s anti-racism strategy has driven and informed many such initiatives.

A man holds up a sign against critical race theory at a school board meeting in Temecula, Calif., on Dec. 13, 2022. (The Epoch Times)

Anti-racism is a big component now in the work of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The commission recently said Christmas is rooted in colonialism and called the celebration of Jesus’s birth “an obvious example” of “systemic religious discrimination.”

Many Canadians are internalizing the intersectional identities assigned them through CRT, with some reportedly now including “settler” in their email signatures alongside pronouns.

The issue came to the fore in July when Toronto school principal Richard Bilkszto killed himself. His family said his deteriorating mental health was caused by the fallout from a mandatory anti-racism training in which he argued with the trainer over the concept of systemic racism in Canada.

The issue of CRT’s identity politics and the CRT-derived idea of “decolonization” has also been part of anti-Israel rhetoric across Canada since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks and Israel’s counterstrikes at the group.

“Most parents still have no idea about what’s going on, even though I try to spread the word,” the B.C. parent who works in his local school board said. “They’re not familiar with all the different terms that are used. ... They sound good, but I believe they’re pretty harmful.”