Ontario premier says it’s time the province started analyzing policies through a ‘race lens’

nationalpost.com
Nov. 26, 2015
By Ashley Csanady

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says it’s past time the province has a mechanism through which to consider its policies through a “race lens.”

The premier made the comments Wednesday at a breakfast hosted by Equal Voice - an organization that seeks to get more women of all backgrounds involved in politics - and she pointed to recent events to highlight the fact equity issues in government and policy-making go beyond gender.

The recent focus on policing and black youth - especially men - in Toronto and across the province first got Wynne thinking about this issue. Then the recent attacks on Muslim women wearing the hijab - one of which occurred outside a school in her riding when a mother was picking her kids up from school - put a renewed focus on it.

“I understand we haven’t used that lens, we haven’t used that race lens, we haven’t talked about explicitly, and I think we need to start,” Wynne said at Queen’s Park. “I believe that what we need to do is figure out what is a structure… that is going to allow us to filter the policies we put in place, to create new policies, to put protections in place.”

There is an established equity framework for education, but not across government, and that should change, she said.

Wynne has yet to discuss the idea formally with cabinet, but her office said an equity-based initiatives could take a number of forms: it could be a standalone mini-ministry like the women’s secretariat or a cabinet committee, similar to the one on “diversity and inclusion” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just created. And there is precedent in Ontario - the NDP government set up an equity taskforce - though it was focused specifically on employment.

“I think the moment may be right once again to introduce a more formal structure to say that, you know, this hasn’t gone away and we need to signal, not just internally in government, but externally that there is more work to be done on equity,” Wynne said.

She also spoke of the benefit of having more women involved in politics and praised Trudeau’s decision to craft a gender-equal cabinet. Wynne cited many examples from Ontario as to how the province has benefited from women’s ideas at the cabinet table: the provincial poverty reduction strategy, which focused on children, helped create the Ontario Child Benefit and lifted thousands of kids out of poverty.

“The most recent example of a discussion that would not have happened if we hadn’t had a critical mass of women in the room is the one on sexual assault,” Wynne said. She said the It’s Never Okay strategy to combat sexual violence and the accompanying government ads that have been shared around the world likely wouldn’t have happened without women at the table.

“And, quite frankly, I think that the whole discussion around missing and murdered indigenous women has come about because...there were six of the 13 premiers who were women” when the Council of the Federation first backed the call in 2013, she said.