The colonization of Canada began with the arrival of the first Europeans from Britain and France in the early 1600s. Anti-Indigenous Racismīefore 1497, before the arrival of Europeans, the northern part of Turtle Island, Footnote 14 known today as Canada, was home to First Nations Peoples. The Panel believes that insight into the history of prejudice in Canada and within the Defence Team is necessary context for the remainder of this report. Footnote 13 Nevertheless, the Advisory Panel wanted to provide a snapshot of how racism and discrimination in Canada influenced the Defence Team culture to become what it is today. It certainly does not cover all the forms of racism and discrimination faced by all racialized identities in Canada.
It was, of course, an impossible task as this limited overview of systemic inequality can hardly do justice to the libraries filled with books and stories of Canada's troubled past when it comes to its relationship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis, Black and other racialized and ethnic groups, the LGBTQ2+ communities, women, and persons with disabilities. Improving the future often requires understanding the past and, in this case, that means grappling with Defence Team culture from the much larger perspective of Canadian history.Īnd so, at the Advisory Panel's request, the Anti-Racism Secretariat summarized the history that led to the current state of racism and discrimination in the Defence Team in these short paragraphs.
But it is unlikely that the trajectory of the Defence Team's culture will veer in the right direction unless its leaders comprehend how and why they and many DND/CAF members were programmed for the current course in the first place. It was tempting to simply add this section on the origins of racism and discrimination in the Defence Team as an annex given the focus of this report is on how the Defence Team can correct its course rather than on how it came to have its present character. Systemic Racism and Discrimination in Canada