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But let’s not stop with race. What of ethnicity? To be truly sensitive and inclusive, perhaps “ethnic” lenses may have to be used in addition to “racial” lenses, to focus more accurately, because, of course not all members of a particular race share the same views.

A little thinking is clearly a dangerous thing, and perhaps the Premier should do a lot more thinking about this initiative.

Once Ontario’s new Ministry of Racial Profiling has been set up, it will likely take years for all existing provincial government policies, and all future policies, to be correctly filtered. A tremendous, bureaucratic make-work project.

To be fair, each and every policy would have to be considered, would it not? And why stop with government policies? Why not have the Ministry examine all existing Ontario legislation? That would be the only fair and, um, consultative, thing to do.

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The Premier has displayed a troubling fixation on matters racial recently. As Rex Murphy noted here in a recent column, former B.C. Premier and federal Liberal cabinet minister, Ujjal Dosanjh, rebuked Ms. Wynne for “her careless and presumptuous labelling of those who have criticized, or suggested modifications to, the federal government rushed refugee settlement process (it has since been modified in response to those criticisms) as ‘closet racists.’”

Apparently undeterred by Mr. Dosanjh’s critique, Ontario’s premier appears bent on continuing to peer at the province through the “lens of race,” a sadly misguided and fundamentally illiberal, unnecessary and divisive initiative.

One can only hope that intelligent, thoughtful opponents to this ill-considered proposal will find their voices, and that they do so soon, before serious damage is done to the multi-racial and multicultural fabric of Ontario.

National Post

Jim Maclean is president of Tactical Advice/Strategic Communications Inc., and is a former advisor to federal and provincial Liberal politicians.