Human Rights Commission Accused of ‘Anti-Black Racism’ by Senate Committee

The Canadian flag flies near the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 17, 2020. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

A Senate committee says there is a culture of “anti-black racism” at the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

The Senate’s Standing Committee on Human Rights’ probe, which began in May, was prompted by a set of grievances filed against the CHRC by nine of its employees.

Written and in-person witness testimonies before the committee said the commission has a “toxic” workplace culture rife with “systemic discrimination,” the Senate said in its recently released report, adding that the allegations “demonstrated a crisis of confidence” in the country’s human rights system.

“Canada’s human rights watchdog discriminated against populations that it’s responsible for protecting,” said Sen. Wanda Thomas Bernard, deputy chair of the committee. “Workplace discrimination can have catastrophic, profound and lasting effects on employees and their families.”

News of the alleged racism issues at the commission comes just two months after the human rights watchdog released its own report calling Christmas and other Christian celebrations like Easter discriminatory holidays rooted in “colonialism.”

The Oct. 23 report from the CHRC called Canada’s celebration of Jesus’s birth “an obvious example” of “systemic religious discrimination,” adding that Canada’s “identity as a settler colonial state” was a chief reason for its “religious intolerance.”

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“No one is free until we are all free,” the CHRC report states. “Many societies including our own have been constructed in a way that places value on certain traits or identities to the exclusion of others, for example white, male, Christian, English-speaking, thin or fit, not having a disability, heterosexual and gender conforming. Because of this many people are facing various forms of discrimination.”

Senate Investigation

The most recent allegations of racism at the CHRC date back to June 2020 when an employee resigned, saying there were “deeply entrenched biases against racialized complainants” within the CHRC. The resignation prompted nine employees to file grievances through their unions citing “systemic anti-black racism, sexism and systemic discrimination” as issues.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Association of Justice Counsel, and the Canadian Association of Professional Employees followed suit, also filing grievances against the CHRC.

The grievances led to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat reporting in March that the CHRC had breached the “no discrimination” clauses in three collective agreements.

The Senate committee’s investigation, which was launched two months later, found that the “seeming inability” of the commission to deal with allegations of anti-black racism dates as far back as the 1980s.

The senators, in their report, said they were “particularly concerned” about the CHRC’s capacity for dealing with race-based complaints fairly. To illustrate that point, the report points to data that shows only 6 percent of race-based cases in 2018 were considered credible enough to appear before a tribunal.

They pointed to a letter penned by the employee who resigned, which described “countless meetings within the complaints branch where racist comments” were made about black, indigenous, and Muslim people.

The Senate report also noted the concerns of the nine employees who wrote a letter to the chief commissioner saying that many racialized persons had left the CHRC because of racial discrimination, micro-aggressions, and “adverse differential treatment in promotion opportunities and assignment of projects and files.”

In its testimony before the committee, the CHRC acknowledged “there were situations in our Complaints Services Branch in which employees responded in unprofessional and disrespectful ways to the contributions their black and racialized colleagues made at work.”

Senate Recommendations

The Senate committee is calling on Ottawa to authorize an independent review of the conditions CHRC employees from diverse backgrounds face, with a special focus on the experience of black, indigenous, and racialized employees. It is just one of the 11 recommendations laid out in the report.

Other notable recommendations include hiring an independent expert to review workplace conditions of CHRC’s black, indigenous, and racialized employees, commissioning a review of Canada’s human rights laws, and appointing a black equity commissioner. The committee also suggested the CHRC provide legal and psychological support for complainants and their families.

The Association of Justice Counsel, the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada—the three unions representing workers at the CHRC—called the “damning” Senate report ​​a substantiation of their members’ sentiments.

“The Senate report re-affirms and recognizes that discrimination and systemic anti-Black racism occurred at the CHRC,” the statement reads. “This report further strengthens our resolve to eliminate racial discrimination in the workplace by pushing for fundamental systemic change at the CHRC, and by taking active steps to advocate for the elimination of systemic barriers in every workplace our members are present.”

The CHRC, which is currently involved in mediation with the unions to resolve the discrimination grievances, declined a request for an interview, saying it was “limiting” its comments on the matter “out of respect for that process.”

“The Commission is studying the Committee’s recommendations and supports any changes that will advance human rights justice and address systemic anti-Black racism in Canada,” the CHRC said in a statement.

“We remain committed to doing what is necessary to ensure that everyone in Canada can trust in the Commission to conduct its work with integrity and accountability.”