If there were ever a time to deploy fiscal and political power against racism in Canada, it’s right now.

U.S. President Donald Trump and the new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have set a new standard for the scope of political conversation that echoes around the world, including here.

With their openly racist comments sending a signal that it’s OK to target people of colour, they have mortified many Canadians. But they’ve also emboldened others — an effect compounded by the new secular law in Quebec that prohibits some civil servants from wearing religious symbols at work.

None of that is lost on the federal government, which like many concerned Canadians, has seen it coming and earmarked millions for anti-racism efforts over the past two budgets. But the money and policy behind it have lurched in fits and starts, beset by controversy and timidity, and now slowed by a fuzzy path forward.

In 2018, the feds budgeted $42 million over five years to “strengthening multiculturalism” and addressing challenges faced by Black Canadians. The government explained that it saw a rise of racist movements around the world, and saw a need to enhance inclusion and diversity here in Canada. The money was meant to drive cross-country consultations about new ways to collaborate in the fight against racism.

The budget also put another $45 million over five years toward collecting better data on gender and race.

A year later, the government added another $45 million to develop and implement an anti-racism strategy.

“Around the world, ultranationalist movements have emerged. In Canada, those groups are unfairly targeting new Canadians, racialized individuals and religious minorities — threatening the peace, security and civility of the communities we call home,” Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in his 2019 budget speech.

Avvy Go, the director of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic in Toronto, is deeply familiar with the manifestations of racism — and its politics — in daily Canadian life. She sees the different treatment people receive in the justice system, in the health system, in the workplace and in everyday interactions simply walking down the street.

Through an umbrella organization called Colour of Poverty — Colour of Change, she has helped advise the provincial government, the United Nations and the federal government on how Canada can deal in practical terms with racialized poverty.

If she were overseeing that federal money, there are a few basic steps she would take to make it effective. First, she would determine the extent of the problem. Then she would subdivide the problem into issues. She would carve out some money to target those key issues, and send it directly to those working on the problems. And she would follow up with a look at results.

That all sounds logical, but for the federal government, just defining the problem was an excruciating process.

The controversy dates back to December 2016, when a Liberal backbencher tabled a motion asking parliamentarians to condemn Islamophobia. Many conservatives opposed the motion for fear it would limit free speech or promote special treatment for Islam. After months of outcry, it eventually passed and led to a committee recommending consultations on systemic racism in Canada.

Last fall, the government did indeed undertake those community consultations — but quietly, so as not to provoke disruptions. And in the midst of the hearings, the minister overseeing the process — Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez — said he didn’t really believe systemic racism existed in Canada. He sort of retracted that later.

By the time the public consultations ended in March, only 600 people had been included in the various hearings, which led to the publication of a national anti-racism strategy last month.

So far, the 2018 money on multiculturalism and Black communities is now in the process of being spent on local projects, as intended.

But the broader anti-racism strategy is still a far cry from an actual plan to take action, notes Go. It sets out principles and definitions, and it vaguely scopes out the extent of racism in Canada. It sets up a secretariat. It also claims to be building on billions of dollars set aside for other strategies, such as the national housing strategy and the national poverty strategy.

Good intentions, many aspirations, lots of recycling and careful wording.

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In the meantime, data released this week from Statistics Canada shows police-reported hate crimes in Canada were only down in 2018 compared to a large spike in 2017; other than that, the number was higher than any year since 2009 and they’re on an upward trend.

On Tuesday afternoon in Montreal, a man confronted a mother and her two-year-old as they left a daycare, taunting the pair with racial insults and sexual threats after he heard the mother speak to her daughter in Arabic. Another woman leaving the daycare caught it all on video, police are investigating and the public is outraged.

What would make that man do that in broad daylight? And do we have an actual plan to deal with it?

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