Hooray for the census

The Mirror has traditionally been an alternative and progressive voice for the disadvantaged and social justice advocates in Quebec. It is therefore regrettable to see that one of its key columnists, Kristian Gravenor, called for a boycott of the census, especially where the question of ethnicity is concerned [Kristian Perspective, May 10].

Gravenor did a great disservice to your readership by trivializing the Census' attempt to take a snapshot of our country's racial and ethnic composition. Such data are essential for economic and social planning and the determination of the status of racial minorities, among others, in Canadian society.

Thanks to data from the 1996 mini-Census, social scientists and organizations like ours have been able to quantify and qualify the existence of widespread racial discrimination in the labour market--mostly of a systemic nature--in terms of employment, occupational distribution and earning differences. Those very race-based data enable us to support the need for stronger laws to combat racism in the workforce and to ensure employment equity.

Opponents of equality in the U.S. and Canada have often cloaked their attacks on employment equity by advocating a ban on the collection of data based on race and ethnicity, using the same arguments as Mr. Gravenor's. This is exactly what Mike Harris did in 1995, upon being elected in Ontario and what many Republicans in state houses and in the U.S. Congress have done.

As the federal government is currently revising the Employment Equity Act under much opposition from both the neo-conservative and the Left, arguments put forward by Gravenor not only distort the real problem of racial profiling, but they also serve as a building block toward the unfair assault on equality--racial or otherwise--in our country.

Rather than calling for an outright boycott of the Census and questions related to race and ethnicity, Gravenor should propose (with more progressive thinking) ways and means to curtail the abuse or misuse of this data. To suggest that the collection of race-based data violates privacy or equality rights is to assume that Canadian society is race-neutral or that race is not used by the white majority to discriminate against minorities (racial profiling is a typical example).

We hope that you will allow us to air this view to counter any negative effect of Gravenor's column on the Census.

-- Fo Niemi, executive director, Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations