Michaëlle Jean Foundation publishes Halifax Declaration - a collective, unified roadmap for real change

OTTAWA, ON, May 16, 2023 /CNW/ - Today, Canada's Black community has embarked on a historic moment - the publication of the Halifax Declaration for the Eradication of Racial Discrimination.

The Halifax Declaration is the first collective, grassroots record of the state of being a Black Canadian today and the solutions needed across policy, legislation, research and investment to achieve real change that not only benefits the Black community but every Canadian. 

Canada has an historic opportunity to heal the wounds of history and this Declaration is itself historic, marking the coming together of Canada's Black community to raise our collective voice and demand change. The Declaration collates the realities and the tangible, practical solutions that Canada's Black voices have already identified, requested and demanded, in many cases for a long time now. We will not stop this important work to see these solutions realized.

? The Right Honourable, Michaëlle Jean

The Declaration is being issued to mark the United Nations' International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) and is rooted in the same three themes: recognition, justice and development.

The Black population in Canada is projected to more than double to over 3 million people by 2040. From all around the globe, to Black Canadians born and rooted here for generations, we enrich the fabric of this country. From STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to the arts, from sports to business, in boardrooms and classrooms, from government to the grassroots, Black leaders are rising up. Our demands for recognition, justice and development ring out in unity, determined and strong. Our moment is now. The future of Canada is also Black.

? El Jones, poet, professor and activist

Contributions for the Declaration were gathered over six years through in-person and virtual National Black Canadians Summits convened by the Michaëlle Jean Foundation and validated through a national survey conducted with support from the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities and the Black Opportunity Fund. The Declaration is named after the last National Black Canadians Summit hosted in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2022.

As a first step towards achieving the demands set out in the Declaration, the Michaëlle Jean Foundation will be launching a youth-empowerment initiative in the weeks ahead.

The next National Black Canadians Summit will be hosted in Montreal in 2024 to mark the end of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent.

The Michaëlle Jean Foundation was born out of the actions taken to focus specifically on youth-led civic initiatives across Canada by the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean throughout her mandate as the 27th Governor-General of Canada in collaboration with the unwavering commitment of her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, philosopher-filmmaker and writer. The Foundation, created in 2011, is a national charitable organization that uses a unique model of intervention, based on social change, dialogue, innovation, education, creative and social entrepreneurship, to empower young Canadians across the country who are experiencing exclusion.

1. On Recognition

• "In 2021, 1.5 million people in Canada reported being Black. The Black population now accounts for 4.3% of Canada's total population and 16.1% of the racialized population."¹

2. On Justice

• "Black people are overrepresented in Canadian jails, making up about 8% of those in prison despite making up less than four percent of the overall population."²
• "According to data from the 2020 General Social Survey on Social Identity, 58% of Black people aged 15 years or older reported that they had experienced discrimination in the five years before the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost 50% of Black people reported experiencing discrimination because of their race or colour and 27% due to their ethnicity or culture."³
• "In 2018, police in Canada reported 283 criminal incidents motivated by hatred against the Black population. This represented 36% of all hate crimes targeting race or ethnicity, and 16% of all hate crimes in 2018."²

 2.1. Justice and Education

• "Research suggests that Black students in Canada also face multiple challenges within school systems that are ill-equipped to meet their educational, emotional and developmental needs. Black students are more likely to be inappropriately streamed into non-university-track programs, to be subjected to unjust disciplinary practices, and to drop (or be pushed) out of school."⁴
• "Educational barriers combined with structural and institutional forms of discrimination produce inequalities in Canada's employment sector for Black people. Data from Canada's 2016 Census show that unemployment rates for Black people were approximately twice those for the rest of the population (Do, 2020). This gap remained even when considering levels of education; among those with a postsecondary education, the unemployment rate for the Black population was much higher than that of the rest of the Canadian population (9.2% and 5.3%, respectively) (Do, 2020)."⁵

 2.2. Justice and Employment

• "In 2021, Black female workers were mostly concentrated in the health care and social assistance industry, as 33.8% of them had a job in this industry ?11.3 percentage points more than the rest of the employed female population (22.5%). Among immigrant women, this gap was even wider, as 37.9% of Black immigrant women worked in the health care and social assistance industry, compared with 21.6% of other immigrant women."⁶

2.3. Justice and housing

• "In 2021, just under one-third, representing 25.9% or 400 240 individuals of the Black population, lived in unsuitable housing, meaning that their dwellings had too few bedrooms for the size and composition of their households according to the requirements of the National Occupancy Standard. In comparison, the number of the total Canadian population living in unsuitable housing was 9.7% in 2021."⁷
• "In 2018, the core housing need for the Black population was higher (15.1%) than that of the total Canadian population (9.0%). As a result, approximately 200,000 (197,500) Black individuals were in core housing need. When the housing of a household falls below at least one of the adequacy, affordability, or suitability standards and the household would have to spend 30% or more of its total before-tax income to pay the median rent of alternative local housing that is acceptable (meeting all three housing standards), the household is said to be in core housing need."⁸

3. Development

 3.1. Development, political and democratic engagement

• "Racialized persons represent 10.4% of board directors in Canada, ranging from 4.5% in the corporate sector to 14.6% for universities and colleges, along with highlighting the deep underrepresentation of Black individuals on corporate boards."⁹
• "A comparable share of employed Black and non-visible minority men worked as tradesmen, or transport or equipment operators (27.5% compared with 27.4%), and in natural and applied sciences (12.0% compared with 11.9%). Black men were about 40% less likely to work in management occupations than non-visible minority men (6.3% compared with 11.3%)."¹⁰
• "Employed Black women were also underrepresented in management occupations (4.3%) compared with non-visible minority women (6.9%)."¹¹
• "Some population groups face greater barriers to self-employment and entrepreneurship than others, or are more concentrated in industries or occupations where this type of work is less common. Employed Black Canadians (9.1%) were less likely to be self-employed than non-visible minority Canadians (13.6%) overall in January 2021. At the same time, the self-employment rate among Black men (12.0%) was nearly twice as high as the rate for Black women (6.1%)."¹²
• Among Black Canadians, 81% reported that they voted in the federal election, compared to 87% of Canadians overall. The proportions of their participation in provincial and municipal elections were even lower: 71% compared to 85% participation in provincial elections and 58% compared to 71% in municipal elections.¹³
• Black populations are underrepresented in the House of Commons. There are currently 9 Black MP's which amounts to only 2.6% of seats, while Black people represent 4.3% of the population.¹⁴

SOURCE Fondation Michaëlle Jean Foundation