This article on CBC.ca today caught my attention, as I am often responsible for selection and scheduling interviews of applicants for my workplace. This article talks of the difficulties job seekers with foreign-sounding names may have in obtaining interviews in the Canadian job market.

Depressing, but hardly surprising. All one has to do in order to find evidence of rampant racism in Canada is read through the comments on any given article on that (or any other) news website involving an immigrant or person of visible minority.

I read one recently in which three teenagers beat a woman in her 50s at a bus stop in Montreal. The comments therein were overwhelmingly of a racist/anti-immigration nature, in spite of the fact that said article never once mentioned the race or ethnic group of the perpetrators.

(Interestingly enough, the perpetrators turned out to be three white boys, but I'm sure the racist commenters will blame the "bad influence" of their immigrant neighbors. If you read through the comments, you'll see that this bit of info was edited out later from the article, so that people could continue assuming the assailants were black kids.)

But, I digress. Let's get back to discussing the UBC findings.

Hopefully, further studies will discover that much of the discrimination based on names is unintentional. Perhaps awareness will cut down on some of it, as employers conscientiously become more inclusive. In spite of all the evidence of racism I see, I continue to believe that with every decade Canada becomes more inclusive and that the conscious efforts of anyone who fights to be more accepting makes a difference.

In the meantime, folks applying for jobs via Monster and other job hunting sites can always use the "keep contact information confidential" option, in which employers cannot see names or contact information until they have decided they're interested in contacting the individual for an interview. That option might turn out to be a great equalizer in the job market.

The article also states: "The study also found employers preferred Canadian work experience over Canadian education.

For resumés with foreign names and education, call backs nearly doubled when the applicant had held one previous job in Canada."

This is something I understand, and may be not as related to race as one might initially think when reading this article. After all, I see plenty of resumés from people in English-speaking countries as well as those not. Verifying work experience in other countries can be a serious obstacle. Checking references from overseas employers can be expensive and awkward, as overseas telephone rates are costly and most people don't have a good working knowledge of what time it might be in Wales if it's 1pm in Toronto.

So what do we do, as employers, when we have a great applicant whose interview has gone well, but whose references will be difficult to check because they're on the other side of the world? Doesn't everyone deserve a chance? How can a new immigrant in Canada get a job without having had a job in Canada?

As much as I am a fan of diligently checking applicant's references, it's far smarter to base your acceptance or rejection of an applicant based on the interview than a reference. If you've ever called a lot of references, you'll know that you'd be hard pressed to find someone using an individual who will say anything negative about the applicant's work history as a reference. References are useful to verify details, but your experience and impressions of the individual are a far more important criteria to make a hiring decision on than anything a reference might say.

I will accept letters of reference from other countries, provided I can contact the writer of said letter via email and ask a few pertinent questions. I've also found that many employers from larger companies in other countries are happy to call you, if the cost of the call is of a concern and a time can be scheduled to talk. Live chat with previous employers over internet is also an unconventional, but useful, option.

We have a responsibility to do our part, as employers, to make it possible for a committed individual to get that first job in Canada. If you're an employer, and your applicant really seems the right person for the job, it's up to you to work with that person and find a way to make it possible. It's worth it to work a little harder to have the right employee, and it feels fantastic to know you've helped someone get a start here.

Turnabout is Fair Play

According to this article in the Toronto Star, Shin Bet claims that spies are being recruited via facebook by Hamas and other organizations.

"Arabs are trying to recruit spies on the popular social networking site", writes the Associated Press, "The Shin Bet security agency warned Israelis against answering unsolicited messages or sharing telephone numbers and other sensitive information over the Internet. It said there have been numerous incidents recently in which violent groups tried to recruit Israelis through Facebook and other networking sites."

The irony of this article isn't lost on me.

Shin Bet has long come under fire for continuing to torture captives in spite of having been ordered to stop by the Israeli Supreme Court, killing prisoners without trial (the Kav 300 affair), committing assassinations, and deporting peaceful speakers who criticize Israel's policies (Norman Finkelstein, for example).

Shin Bet has been using this slick website, complete with blog, to solicit talent worldwide since 2006.

Apparently it's okay for an organization with a long history of torture and violent assassinations to recruit via the internet, as long as it's an Israeli organization.

Victory!

A small one, perhaps, but a victory nonetheless.
CBC.ca took down the racist remark I found so objectionable, after I emailed them my objections. In its place is "This comment has been removed by a moderator."

Score one for the rabbit girl.

Racism in Canada is Alive and Well

I've been pondering the idea of starting a blog to expand and explore my political ideals for a while... but the thing that finally gave me the impetus to sit down and do it was a comment made in this article about the response of local Tamil protesters to the LTTE's recent surrender in Sri Lanka.
The remark in question went as follows:

Another solution is the FINAL solution. Either learn to get along and get on with your lives or go away - forever.

My response to this, which I more than half expect the CBC will not publish, was as follows:

This remark essentially says "conform or submit to ethnic cleansing, Nazi-Style". And a disproportionate number of "agrees". How depressing. Racism appears to be alive and well in Canada.

No matter how angry you are at the local Tamil community for disrupting your roadways, no matter how little you want to get involved in a foreign civil war, it is never okay to make a blatantly racist remark like this.

I'm shocked that this remark made it through on a moderated board where they pre-screen comments. Am I supposed to believe that someone working for the CBC doesn't actually know what the Final Solution is?

It's the last sentence that I think will disallow its posting on the site; CBC does not like to be criticized. Still, I think it is important to make criticisms when appropriate, whether anyone sees it or not.

I believe in people's right to have an opinion, and I believe in free speech. However, the rules for posting on that site clearly state that racist remarks will not be allowed, and freedom of speech does not equal a license to spout hatred. I wouldn't object to these people posting their hatred on their own damn sites, but if they've agreed to abide by the rule of not posting racism, it becomes the moderator's job to ensure it doesn't go up.

There are many other racist remarks posted every single day; indeed, racist remarks go up every hour of every day on the CBC. Now, I know that the disclaimer says the CBC doesn't endorse any of these opinions, but I'm troubled by the fact that they allow so many of them to go up when it's a violation of the terms of service every registered member has to agree to before posting comments.

Read some of the remarks in this article. The University of Saskatchewan refused the donation of a scholarship because it deemed the terms of the scholarship to violate the Human Rights Code- in other words, stipulating that the scholarship could go to anyone except an aboriginal was racist.

Most of these comments are not blatantly racist enough to make me feel that the CBC would be obligated to remove them, but the nasty odour of racial intolerance still hovers around most of the remarks, as if someone has silently passed gas in a crowded elevator. In spite of the posters' claims that the university's decision is "reverse racism", you know that the real reason they're protesting the decision just stinks.

A scholarship meant to help a disadvantaged group of people hurts nobody, but a scholarship intended for the sole purpose of excluding another hurts everyone.

Those are but two examples; but there are hundreds more. Several dozen every day. I won't even start about some of the things I read in the articles about Omar Khadr, and as much as I think it's very likely that Ruby Dhalla is guilty of mistreating her employees, far too many people are assuming her guilt on the basis of her heritage. A lot of the comments in the articles about her are misdirected towards her appearance in a Bollywood film or coming from a country with a caste system, rather than actual evidence of wrongdoing.

CBC is irresponsible for allowing the worst of the racist comments on their site to be posted (like my first example above), but we can't forget that the comments themselves were made by the Canadian public. Nor can we excuse the number of "agreed" votes on each of them.

When did it become socially acceptable in Canada to be a racist, so long as you were hating on Natives, Arabs or South Asians?