Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The
University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]
It is no consolation to those who experience racism, exclusion, and inequities today that since the Second World War Canada has pursued an erratic path to increasing social justice. It is nonetheless important to recognize the changes that have occurred and understand the factors that have led to those changes.
While there were, no doubt, pre-war antecedents, the effort to unite Canadians of different ethno-linguistic backgrounds for the purpose of pursuing WWII was significant. For without sufficient harmony, Canada’s contribution to the Allied victory would not have occurred. The War made clear that no group was exempt from the possibility of state generated genocide and gave rise to such legislation as Ontario’s Racial Discrimination Act (1944), Saskatchewan’s Bill of Rights Act (1947), and the Ontario Human Rights code (1962).
Greater equality and inclusion were evident in the changed relationships between French and English Canada. Among the changes were simultaneous translation in Parliamentary proceedings (1959), the issuance of Government of Canada cheques in French (1962), the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-1969), and the Official Languages Act (1969).
Immigration reform during the period 1967-1978 was tacit acknowledgement of Canada’s explicitly racist treatment of non-European origin immigrants first by exclusion and later by means of rules stacked against non-whites. In the late 1940s the franchise was extended to persons of Chinese, Japanese, and Indian ancestry. Canadians did not achieve universal franchise until 1960 when "treaty Indians" and Inuit were permitted to vote.
In 1971, Canada formally proclaimed a state policy of "multiculturalism within a bilingual framework." In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was added to Canada's constitution. The addition significantly strengthened democratic citizenship and social cohesion by declaring that the Charter “shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians and enshrining minority language educational rights.
My UBC colleague, Jason Ellis, traces the changes in educational equity in Canada that were concurrent with the ones I mentioned above. He calls attention to two post-war periods. He calls the period between 1950-1970 “getting everyone to the schoolhouse door.” During that period public education was expanded to include unserved or under-served groups. The unserved included Indigenous children in the separate federal “Indian” day and residential schools and children with IQs lower than 50 who were legally excluded from schools. The under-served includes rural children, Black children in segregated schools in Ontario and Nova Scotia, children in institutions, and others.
The second period (roughly 1970 to the present) Ellis describes as “making the schoolhouse welcoming to all.” During this period curricula were broadened to be respectful of and welcoming to difference. Notable changes include tolerating additional instructional languages (a form of multiculturalism), gender-sensitive curricula, the ending of Christian opening exercises and Christian religious instruction.
Don’t get me wrong, the development of social justice in Canada has not been an inexorable, progressive march. Anything but. Examining the changes that have occurred may help us understand the factors that help to contribute to improved equity, inclusion, and diversity.
Beginning during the Second World War policy makers recognized that apparent differences among groups would weaken the social fabric. In response, they promulgated legislation and regulation that required people to behave in conformity with the norms expressed. Furthermore, although it took painfully long, policy makers came to recognize that reconciliation among groups required formal acknowledgement of the harms inflected and admission for responsibility for those harms.
Furthering
equity, diversity, and inclusion in education requires that we examine whether the
legal and regulatory framework affecting education is consistent with those
values. For example, would these values be enhanced with provincial codes of
conduct for trustees, staff, and students specifying their obligations to avoid
harassment and discrimination on prohibited grounds? How might practices be
brought into line with those values? For example, should there be a common
investigatory protocol for complaints of discrimination and harassment, and a
database of cases in which harassment and discrimination were proven?