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An Institute ‘for Us, by Us and About Us’? Not So Fast

A coalition is aiming to colour in the lives of Black people in Canada. It’s hit a roadblock.

Dannielle Piper 7 Oct 2021TheTyee.ca

Dannielle A. Piper is a freelance journalist and a graduate of the UBC School of Journalism. Born and raised in Jamaica and now living in Vancouver, she covers identity politics, social justice and pop culture criticism.

Clayton Greaves was 12 when he immigrated to Canada from Jamaica. His family moved into Toronto’s Rexdale neighbourhood and quickly began to settle into their new home.

But Greaves soon realized that he and his family weren’t like everyone else. One day, as he and his little brother were playing outside, several kids decided to pick a fight. They pushed his brother, called him the n-word, and told them to “go back to Africa.”

“That was the first time for myself that I rationalized that my skin colour meant something to somebody else,” Greaves said. “Growing up in Jamaica, we know that there are issues of light skin and dark skin in how some people and some folk are treated with opportunity. But this was different.”

Today, Greaves is the director of services at Family and Children’s Services in Kitchener. He’s been involved in the Black community for years in both Nunavut and Ontario.

His experiences haven’t changed in the decades since that first disillusioning event, he said. If anything, he’s more acutely aware of how his presence and even his existence can elicit certain rhetoric, emotions and assumptions from acquaintances and strangers alike.

In his adolescence, Greaves was frequently stopped by police for questioning (a process commonly referred to as “carding” in Ontario). As he neared high school graduation, his guidance counsellor refused to see him as college material, but he went anyway. As an adult, he’s been passed over for jobs that have been handed to those with fewer credentials and less experience.

So, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government would officially recognize the International Decade for People of African Descent in 2018 — four years after the United Nations had declared the decade in 2014 — it felt like validation.

“We, as Black Canadians or as Black people living in Canada, have made significant positive contributions to the development and establishment of Canada,” Greaves said. “And our contribution came in the face of oppression or racism.

“Hopefully now, people will finally see us.”

The government pledged $10 million to support Black communities and mental health initiatives. Funded recipients include the African Diaspora Association of the Maritimes, Council for Advancement of African Canadians, the Black Health Alliance and many others.

The government also pledged $9 million for programs that support Black Canadian youth, and a further $25 million in 2019 to Employment and Social Development Canada for projects that “share knowledge and build capacities” in Black communities throughout Canada.

Long before Canada began to take these steps, however, Black-led organizations had been discussing the development of what they envisioned as a Canadian Institute for People of African Descent.

The institute would address systemic barriers Black people face in Canada and provide solutions through research, data analysis and policy development.

But executing their vision would prove more difficult than any of these organizations imagined.

The ‘Meeting of the Minds’

“Advocacy has been part of my life’s work before it became the sexy thing to do,” joked Floydeen Charles-Fridal, executive director of Caribbean African Canadian Social Services.

CAFCAN, along with the Delmore “Buddy” Daye Learning Institute, Africans in Partnership Against AIDS and the Women’s Multicultural Resource and Counselling Centre, have been key players in the development of the institute.

They often participate in a “Meeting of the Minds” where a national network of Black educators, scholars and community leaders come together to develop solutions benefiting Black communities.

During one meeting, Charles-Fridal said, “the idea of an institute — for us, by us and about us — surfaced again.”

Not long after the federal budget for the decade was announced in 2018, the groups submitted an unsolicited draft concept proposal to the government regarding the institute.

“Next thing you know I got a phone call saying: ‘Oh, they really liked this idea,’” Charles-Fridal said.

CAFCAN quickly entered into a $350,000 contribution agreement with the government to do a feasibility study on what was needed to make the institute a reality.

At first this seemed doable, but then the pandemic hit.

The groups designed the initial study to engage Black people in their respective communities. Suddenly, they had to rethink how to gather viewpoints from communities across Canada on racism, education, employment and other social determinants of health, while still making the government’s submission deadline.

If the groups waited for things to get back to normal, they wouldn’t have made the deadline, said Rudi Quammie Williams, former director of culture for the City of Barrie and project manager for the institute’s feasibility study.

Williams and his team researched, gathered data and collected viewpoints via virtual interviews, online surveys and focus groups across the country.

At the time of the study, Williams knew Graeves was living in Nunavut. Having been involved with the Black community over the years, Graeves was asked to be the co-ordinator for the focus group in the region.

The results showed that Black people were experiencing similar issues across Canada, but with varying outcomes.

“One of the things that was surprising to me was the disparity that exists, even between Nova Scotian Blacks and even other Black people in the country,” Williams said.

Through data provided by African Nova Scotian Affairs, the team found, for example, that the unemployment rate for Black Nova Scotians was higher than that of the general population and higher than that of Black Canadians as a whole.

Meanwhile, in the Nunavut focus group, Greaves noted that Black people emphasized a lack of access to cultural goods and the high cost of living for basic goods in the North.

Those focus groups also highlighted the lack of Black history in Canada and in the North, which contributes to Black Canadians being perpetually seen as “new arrivals” despite history demonstrating the contrary. This devalues the historical contributions of the Black diaspora, says the study.

Ultimately, the study’s participants supported the establishment of an institute that would gather data, influence policy, build capacity, preserve history, engage the community and advocate for change.

CAFCAN submitted the study results on Sept. 30, 2020.

On Aug. 13, nearly a year later, they finally received a response.

The response

“I am pleased to announce that we have launched a Call for Proposals to establish the National Institute for People of African Descent,” wrote Monika Bertrand, director-general for Employment and Social Development Canada, in an email to CAFCAN.

Accompanying the email was a letter thanking the organization for its work on the feasibility study and a link to a page detailing a call for proposals posted two days prior to the response.

Proposals would need to align with the recommendations outlined by CAFCAN following the feasibility study, and these recommendations would be provided to applicants to help prepare their application, the letter said. Those wanting to partner with other organizations were welcome to collaborate with government departments or even post-secondary institutions, it said.

This did not sit well with the group.

“The communities across Canada stated very clearly that they wanted an institute that would stay in the community,” Charles-Fridal said, “so that we can feel a sense of ownership and engage with academic institutions in the ways that it makes sense for us.”

There was a fear that larger and more established institutions would take over and turn the institute into something unrecognizable.

“It wasn’t that [the institute] wouldn’t have a relationship with the academia, but we will decide how that would be,” she added.

Williams said his team spent months interviewing various people across Canada who all shared a firm distrust in post-secondary institutions.

“People felt greatly that academic institutions have not really focused on our community at all, even when there were opportunities to do so,” Williams said. He further emphasized the institutions’ long history of perpetuating systemic racism against Black communities.

“The community expressed: ‘Look, we don’t have any faith that any institution in Canada is truly going to put us first. And we want to have an institute that will have the ability to research on behalf of our community, without having to play into the funding for universities and that whole dynamic that goes on in academia.’”

The government’s call for proposals also renamed the project, calling it the National Institute for People of African Descent.

“We wanted to make sure that there [was] a tie between the word ‘Canadian’ and ‘People of African Descent,’” Williams said. “I believe that it takes away from the acknowledgement that the people of African descent are, in fact, Canadian people of African descent.”

In an email, the ESDC said CAFCAN’s feasibility study “indicated strong community support for an institute focused on people of African descent, and that the stated objectives and priorities represent concrete actions supporting Canada’s commitment to address anti-Black racism.”

Its call for proposals, the ESDC added, was informed by the recommendations outlined in the feasibility report.

Last month, the Meeting of the Minds submitted an open letter to the federal minister of families, children and social development expressing disappointment with the government’s failure to uphold its commitments.

The network has called for Black communities and organizations and their allies to reject the proposal. They also demanded the government rescind its call for proposals and re-enter a collaborative process to ensure what they see as the appropriate implementation of the institute.

The ESDC has yet to respond to the open letter. The Oct. 6 deadline has passed, and the groups will now have to think about their next response.

At this point, the creation of an institute for Black people and by Black people and supported by the ESDC still seems likely. But its consultation process with the Black community on the institute’s creation belies their sincerity in truly listening to Black voices. “They treated the [Black] community, in my mind, with tremendous disrespect,” said Williams. “I don’t understand that.”  [Tyee]

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