{"id":770798,"date":"2026-06-30T09:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T09:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/770798\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T09:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T09:57:11","slug":"when-it-comes-to-racism-and-the-quebec-government-systemic-is-still-a-dirty-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/770798\/","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to racism and the Quebec government, ‘systemic’ is still a dirty word"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allegations<\/a> that an entire squad of police officers in Montr\u00e9al-Nord engaged in repeated racist behaviour have reignited a long-simmering debate in Quebec over systemic racism.<\/p>\n

Despite repeated calls to do so<\/a>, the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec\u00a0(CAQ) government under former premier Fran\u00e7ois\u00a0Legault steadfastly refused<\/a> to acknowledge that systemic racism exists in Quebec.<\/p>\n

Some thought with this new scandal, the new CAQ Premier Christine Fr\u00e9chette \u2014 who has shown a willingness<\/a> to break with some of Legault\u2019s ideas \u2014 may now be more willing to acknowledge the problem.<\/p>\n

Fr\u00e9chette threw cold water on that when she was asked<\/a> earlier this month about the allegations against officers in Montr\u00e9al-Nord and whether they constituted systemic racism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s not systemic racism. If it’s a small group, it’s not necessarily systemic.\u00a0For me, systemic means a larger scale,\u201d Fr\u00e9chette said in an interview with Radio-Canada’s Patrice Roy.<\/p>\n

\"peopleDemonstrators kneel outside Station 39 in Montr\u00e9al-Nord during a protest over allegations of racist conduct involving SPVM officers under investigation. (Paula Dayan-Perez\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Under Legault and Fr\u00e9chette, the CAQ has maintained that it doesn’t want to get bogged down in semantic debates and would rather focus on pracitical solutions to fight racism.<\/p>\n

For many, the ongoing refusal to utter the word \u201csystemic\u201d is frustrating.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s so obvious, right? It’s like the elephant in the room,\u201d Nakuset, executive director of the Native Women\u2019s Shelter of Montreal, told CBC.<\/p>\n

Dardia Joseph, a lawyer and assistant executive director of the Clinique juridique de Saint-Michel, said it\u2019s hard to swallow the CAQ\u2019s pledge to combat racism when the party refuses to see it in a systemic context.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It’s] like if a doctor refused to diagnose a patient, can he treat that patient? I think no,\u201d Joseph said.<\/p>\n

A debate over the meaning of \u2018systemic\u2019<\/p>\n

There are many reasons why the CAQ and some others in Quebec are reluctant to describe the problem as systemic.<\/p>\n

For one, there\u2019s a disagreement over what the term means.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Lamoureux is a professor of political science at the Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al (UQAM) who testified before a provincial government working group against racism convened by the Legault government after the death of George Floyd<\/a> at the hands of police in the U.S.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Should the provincial government acknowledge systemic racism exists in Quebec?:\"\"<\/p>\n

Why Quebec says systemic racism doesn’t exist \u2014 while other governments acknowledge it<\/p>\n

Quebec Premier Christine Fr\u00e9chette has refused to acknowledge systemic racism in the province, despite a recent scandal involving a police force in a Montreal borough. Advocates argue recognizing racism as systemic in the province is a big first step. But some analysts say the main reason Quebec\u2019s government may not like the term is because they see it as a political liability.<\/p>\n

Using the term systemic is a “mistake,\u201d he says. For Lamoureux, racism can only be defined as systemic when it\u2019s deliberately built into the framework of government.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn institutions, in laws, in procedures,\u201d Lamoureux said.<\/p>\n

But he said that\u2019s not the case in Quebec, and that situations like the scandal in Montr\u00e9al-Nord or the death of Joyce Echaquan<\/a> are isolated incidents of racism by individuals.<\/p>\n

\"ChildThe case of Joyce Echaquan, the Atikamekw woman died in 2020 in hospital in Joliette after racist treatement from staff members, was another flashpoint in the debate over systemic racism. (Ivanoh Demers\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n

Joseph said that\u2019s a gross misunderstanding of the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of people understand that racism and the way that it circulates in our society is based on things that predate us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s oftentimes subtle, non-conscious, done without malice, but the effects are palpable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nakuset said people who don\u2019t experience systemic racism often have trouble seeing it, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that when we keep telling you that there\u2019s an issue, whether it’s the Black community, the Indigenous community, or other communities that are racialized, you need to listen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Is the term considered ‘woke’?<\/p>\n

Donal Gill, a political science professor at Concordia University, said he believes the main reason the CAQ doesn\u2019t want to acknowledge systemic racism is because they see it as a political liability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concept of systemic racism is kind of in a bucket with a couple of other terms, phrases like \u2018defund the police\u2019 and \u2018critical race theory\u2019 that have been coded in a certain aspect of the political spectrum \u2014 we might call them \u2018woke,\u2019\u201d Gill said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When it comes to the term systemic racism, Gill says the government will likely never acknowledge a concept like this. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe CAQ would like to think of itself or present itself as a party that is not signed up to that agenda,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But several institutions have already acknowledged systemic racism.<\/p>\n

That includes the federal government<\/a>, most other provincial governments, the City of Montreal<\/a>, the Quebec College of Physicians<\/a>, the Quebec Human Rights Commission, major labour federations<\/a> in Quebec, and, perhaps most notably, courts.<\/p>\n

Yves Boisvert, a columnist for La Presse who often writes about the justice system, told CBC News courts have recognized systemic racism in Quebec and elsewhere many times over many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not even a matter of opinion. It is a matter of fact,\u201d Boisvert said.<\/p>\n

He said the most notable case is that of Montrealer Christopher Luamba<\/a>, currently before the Supreme Court of Canada.<\/p>\n

Luamba challenged the notion of random police traffic stops, saying it amounted to racial profiling.<\/p>\n

A judge agreed and struck down the practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you read that decision, you have pages and pages and pages of what people in the Black communities have known for years, but it seems that many people are deaf to: that you are arrested for no reason just because you are a Black person driving a car,\u201d\u00a0 Boisvert said.<\/p>\n

Gill said the fact that courts and other institutions recognize systemic racism may actually be the reason why the CAQ chooses not to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CAQ basically created this political empire running against Montreal and all that it represented: anglophones, allophones, cosmopolitanism, diversity,\u201d Gill said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gill said resisting the call to acknowledge systemic racism helps the CAQ cement that status as a defender of Quebec\u2019s uniqueness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s often a point of differentiation between ‘Quebec values’ and the Canadian multicultural mosaic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Defensiveness complicates discussion<\/p>\n

Another possible reason why some political parties in Quebec are reluctant to recognize systemic racism is that some Quebecers take it as a personal attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe debate in Quebec has been sidetracked by some commentators who pretend that to have this discussion is a way to say that Quebecers in general are racist,\u201d Boisvert said.<\/p>\n

Haroun Bouazzi, a Quebec Solidaire MNA who saw his political career sidetracked<\/a> when he tried to call out racism<\/a> in the National Assembly, said this makes honest conversations about racism in Quebec more difficult.<\/p>\n

\"AQuebec Solidaire MNA Haroun Bouazzi, pictured here at the National Assembly in 2024, said honest discussions about racism in Quebec often get sidetracked by allegations of ‘Quebec-bashing’. (Sylvain Roy Roussel\/Radio-Canada)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s very tough for us to actually talk about racism, because we have this defence mechanism that happens,\u201d Bouazzi said.<\/p>\n

He says some Quebecers are fearful of being deemed as “culturally inferior.”<\/p>\n

Dardia Joseph says that\u2019s not what it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we recognize a great nation \u2014 and I think Quebec is one \u2014 by its capacity to name its problems and solve them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaying that the nation has a problem with racism and discrimination is not an indictment of Quebec,\u201d Joseph said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt’s something that is everywhere.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allegations that an entire squad of police officers in Montr\u00e9al-Nord engaged in repeated racist behaviour have reignited a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-770798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}