Black People Outsourcing
On April 11th, 2025, I witnessed firsthand what division within the black community can do. Because of the lack of support within the black community in Canada, far more than in any other country, the black community had to outsource a local MPP who is not a member of the black community to submit a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, lobbying the provincial government to pass legislation against anti-Black racism the same way there are legislative measures against antisemitism, homophobia, and Islamophobia.
I'll be brief about the centuries of ongoing anti-Black racism in Canada that's existed since the inception of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Anti-Black racism has been neatly woven into the fabric of Canada so much that it seems that without it, the fabric would unravel.
In Canada, it is as permissible to go when the traffic lights turn green at any intersection.
On a societal level, Canada is compartmentalized into six primary social sectors:The Civil SocietyThis sector comprises independent, non-government groups that are designed to drive social change and community support.The Cultural, Arts, and Heritage SectorThis sector is supposed to shape shared identity, storytelling, and cultural expression of Canadians. This sector is broken into three sub-sectors.Media and BroadcastingArts and HeritageLanguage and Multicultural SocietiesThe Public Services Sector (Social Infrastructure)Publicly funded systems managed by federal, provincial, or municipal governments designed to support the welfare of citizens (including black citizens!)The Indigenous Sector (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis)A distinct social, political, and cultural framework central to Canada's foundational identity, operating on unique legal, governance, and communal structures.The Religious & Faith-Based SectorFaith communities represent a massive network of social interaction and community support across Canada.The Labour & Professional SectorThis sector organizes individuals based on their economic roles, protecting social rights and workplace standards.
Black people in Canada are impacted by anti-Black racism in every sector daily!
1. The Civil Society Sector: Black-led organizations often face limited funding, exclusion from decision-making, and barriers to accessing resources, partnerships, and institutional support needed to serve their communities.
2. The Cultural, Arts, and Heritage Sector: Black stories, history, and contributions are often underrepresented or misrepresented, while Black artists, media professionals, and cultural organizations face barriers to funding, recognition, and equal representation.
Media and Broadcasting: Black people may face negative stereotypes, limited representation, and unequal opportunities in journalism and broadcasting.
Arts and Heritage: Black Canadian history and cultural contributions are often overlooked, with Black artists and heritage organizations facing limited funding and recognition.
Language and Multicultural Societies: Black communities may experience cultural exclusion, discrimination, and inadequate recognition of their diverse languages, histories, and identities.
3. The Public Services Sector: Black Canadians may experience systemic discrimination in education, healthcare, housing, policing, child welfare, and social assistance, resulting in unequal access, treatment, and outcomes.
4. The Indigenous Sector: Black Canadians and people of African descent may experience exclusion from broader conversations about racial justice and equity, while Black Indigenous people may face overlapping anti-Black racism and anti-Indigenous discrimination.
5. The Religious and Faith-Based Sector: Black people may experience racial exclusion, limited leadership opportunities, discrimination within congregations, and insufficient recognition of Black cultural experiences and contributions.
6. The Labour and Professional Sector: Black workers and professionals face hiring discrimination, unequal pay, workplace harassment, limited career advancement, underrepresentation in leadership, and barriers to professional recognition.
These inequalities demonstrate how anti-Black racism can operate across interconnected sectors of Canadian society, limiting Black people's participation, representation, access to resources, and opportunities for equitable treatment.
This continues in Canada because we, as a people, chose to accept this and fail to work as one community to rally and petition the government using social justice strategies we're taught in schools and the history of how impactful social justice strategies have proven to be!
Black People United For Change Inc., and other black organizations formed a national coalition to abolish anti-black racism in Canada.
There was not one black local MPP in Ontario who was willing to stand with their own community to sponsor the provincial petition and table it in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
As always, we had to outsource to Krystin Wong-Tam to represent our community in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
Our voices were silenced when the petition was read in the presence of black local MPP Andrea Hazel, who promised that she would support this initiative and never attended the demonstration on April 11, 2025.
Seeing the poorly attended demonstration by the black community in Toronto, Krystin Wong-Tam politely described the black community as fractured! I say this was a polite term used to describe a diaspora filled with so many unconcerned black people in Canada who not only know how much we're ostracized in Canadian society but live it daily!
Not many have the time to support an endeavour for a people who demonstrate that they don't desire a change in society when it comes to their own social status and well-being.
This leads me to share that on July 23rd, 2025, a Zoom meeting took place with Black People United For Change Inc., and other members of black organizations, where a plan was drafted to file a motion.
This would be the last time Krystin Wong-Tam would ever show any interest in supporting the black community in bringing forth legislative change that would put a stop to permissible anti-Black racism.
Please see the minutes that were taken at that Zoom meeting on July 23rd, 2025 just below:
Black People United for Change Meeting - 2025-07-23
Attending:
Vanessa St. Louis
Emma Ansah
Sam St. Aubin Callender
Emma Beattie
MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam
September 18 - Federal demonstration still planned, but it may not go forward.
Currently,BPUFC’s focus is on getting their national petition into the House of Commons.Struggling to get folks in their community to commit to attending the demonstration, hence whythey might cancel it.
Their petition has 457 signatures right now. They have spent $600 of their own money to boostthe petition.
Some potential signers are concerned about information privacy, especially with sharing theiraddress.K asks: Does the Federal petition need to be electronic? Yes, they chose electronic, and you can’t do both.
If they had chosen paper, they would have only needed five signatures.
Vanessa will come to Taste of Regent Park tonight to collect signatures at our table.
We will hosther and display her QR code.Options:- Motion for the government to:
set up a Black Community Advisory Committee- Or to set up an anti-hate strategy to tackle anti-Black racism, or to:
Reinstate the Anti-Racism Directorate in Ontario- Draft this motion- Draw from the petition for multiple motions, show them the draft, and then workshopfrom thatTimeline:
- Draft motions by next week- A week finalizing drafts- Work backwards on the communications plan -
September 2nd?- Table motions when the house resumes in late OctoberEmancipation Month - August - coincides with back to school - maybe we could use the monthas a soft launch and then launch just after Labour Day (September 2nd?)
One would think that the MPP we outsourced to support us neglected to stand on her promises made in that Zoom meeting, but the community demonstrated they were not interested in change.
How much more can the Canadian black diaspora take?
All of the things we say we fear to address have already happened. Our children are murdered by the hands of Canadian law enforcement; our children are unsafe in public schools; the Toronto Transit Commission has employees who hang nooses to drive a message to every black commuter on their buses and trains; our black children are placed into the foster care system, where they die within the walls of the very institutions designed to protect children, black youth both male and female; yet, this concerning fact persists despite missing youth who have been located dead, ignored by law enforcement whose disappearances do not make it to the 6 o'clock news!
There is nothing more that can happen to black people in Canada, and yet, the black community exists divided and refusing to get together and get it together!
It can only stop when we say it should stop. It will continue because there are no laws that say that it can't!
The whole world knows that it was legal in North America to capture BLACK human beings and place chains around their wrists and shackles on their feet to keep them bound like animals.
Once upon a time, one would question themselves that anti-Black racism lives in every sector of not only Canadian society; however, in North America as a whole!
Anti-Black racism is not divided! Those who perpetuate it do not separate the black community when they engage in anti-Black hate, speech, exclusion, cruelty, or unfair and unusual punishment. Only we as a people remain standing in division while the rest of Canada views us and the way we deserve to be treated from ONE lense.
It seems that the black people in Canada whose eyes are open to the fact that we urgently need to take strategic unified action are the mothers whose black sons lie in the cemetery, or the mothers whose children have been abused in foster care systems, men who cannot provide for their families unjustly fired from their jobs, women who continually face brutalization in malls and public spaces!!!
It takes experiencing these lived experiences to open the eyes of those who are impacted by a divided community that refuses to stand up unless it concerns them!!
It is only we as the people who do so! I end by asking a very relevant question: where has the division ever gotten us?
Don't care where you come fromAs long as you're a black man, you're an AfricanNo mind your nationalityYou have got the identity of an African
~Peter Tosh~
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