A perversion of equality

Last week I told you about the discriminatory hiring practices at the federal government level. Shockingly, two years after it was exposed that the feds were stopping people from even applying for certain jobs based on their race and their sex, it’s still happening.

The feds have promised change in this and every few months when I raise the subject they get all excited, promise change and then do nothing. Now we’ve proven that they have a recommendation to change the law and stop this from one of their top bureaucrats.

Will they act? I’m not sure. On Friday I told you that it was up to you to make it happen, up to you to write and call your MP and the prime minister to tell them that you don’t think race or sex should be used to discriminate. I’ve heard from some MPs that they back this and are pushing for it. We need more of them to act but they need to know that you are on their side.

So write to them and tell them that you side with John Diefenbaker.

“I have an intensive hatred for discrimination based on colour.” John Diefenbaker, March 1958.

I don’t care who you are, what colour you are, what sex you are, what religion you are  - the job should go to the best person qualified.

Since Friday morning I’ve heard from you about other shocking examples of discrimination by government or government-backed bodies in hiring and contracting.

The worst has to be the Pan Am Games, which will be held in Toronto in 2015.

I shouldn’t be shocked that an event in Toronto would act like this but I am. Check out this part of their website on businesses that want contracts.

Under supplier diversity they have this, they actually ask companies to tally up the race and gender of their staff.

Aboriginal business: 51% owned, operated and controlled by Canadian Aboriginal people, and at least one third of the firm’s employees, if it has six or more full-time staff, are Aboriginal.

Women-owned business: 51% owned, operated and controlled by Canadian citizens who are female.

Visible minority-owned business: 51% owned, operated and controlled by Canadian citizens who are non-white in colour/race and not of Aboriginal descent.

Persons with disabilities: 51% owned, operated and controlled by Canadian person(s) who have a long-term or recurring condition or health problem which limits the kind of work which they can do because of a physical, mental or psychiatric, sensory or learning impairment.

Call me crazy but isn’t a racial purity test for contracts just a little creepy?

Obviously the people at the Pan Am Games don’t think so and so if you can check off one of these boxes you are more likely to get a contract.

This is wrong. It should be stopped.

Meanwhile over at the Ottawa Police Service they have recruiting goals for a minimum 33% female, a minimum 33% visible minority and a maximum 33% white male. So now the people that are called on to apply the law equally use discrimination in their hiring?

The point here isn’t to say we should have more white men in the police force, it is to say you don’t end racism or sexism by practicing it. You all remember the old saying two wrongs don’t make a right. You know that, why don’t the people at the top get this?

What these sorts of things do is breed resentment. They alienate people. This encourages actual racism.

I can understand a young black male, never being able to get a job. If he were turned down time and again for jobs he was well qualified for most of us would understand him becoming bitter and angry.

Well consider this, young white males are being told as part of official policy that their numbers will be limited with the police, with the federal government and increasingly if they start a job and try to get a government contract they will be told no, you aren’t good enough to bid because you don’t belong to the right groups.

We are dividing people up into little boxes and instead of treating them as individuals with inherent worth and value we are deciding their worth based on which group they belong to. We are not judging people based on the content of their character but by the colour of their skin, their sex, or who they sleep with.

This is not equality, this is a perversion of equality and it must be stopped.

And that’s the Byline.

Categories: Byline

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