Do Businesses Have the Right to Refuse Service Based on Moral/Religious Objections?

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by betenoire

The question of demographics in Canada is difficult to answer because for some reason the government does not consider Aboriginal people to be POC. (I bet there are no Inuit, for example, who consider themselves white, though. So the whole thing makes absolutely no sense.) So this means that whenever you look at demographics in Canada the breakdown always includes First Nations people in with the Caucasian group.

So I googled around and found that in 2006 3.8% of the population is Aboriginal (First Nations, Inuit, Metis)

16.20% of the total population (according to the 2006 census) is a "visible minority". If you include Native people in with that it's exactly 20%. Breakdown:

Whitey - 80.0%
South Asian - 4.0%
Aboriginal - 3.8%
Chinese - 3.7%
Black - 2.5%
Filipino - 1.3%
Latin American - 1.0%
Arab - 0.9%
Southeast Asian - 0.7%
West Asian - 0.5%
Korean - 0.4%
Japanese - 0.2%
Multiple visible minorities - 0.3%
Visible minority, n.i.e. - 0.2%

I have no idea what "Visible minority, n.i.e." is. No idea.

Anyway, I don't know how things spread out in the US but you'll also find that what Canada looks like is REALLY different between our large cities and small towns. I know Toronto is a solid 50/50 split (like 50 percent of Torontonians are POC 50 percent are white - roughly. But this depends on the neighborhood, Scarborough for example was 68% POC in 2006 ) but if you go to a smaller town like the one I live in now you're likely to fall down dead from shock if you see a person of colour (okay, slight exaggeration. I just googled and my town is 7.1% POC - 4.5% being Aboriginal. But I still felt culture shock and like I landed in white-land when I moved here.)

But I don't think you can say "Canada has less POC ergo less racial tension". And the reason that I say/know this is because where I grew up (Toronto) things were pretty smooth. I wasn't witness to people walking around scared, or angry. With the exception of my Aunt's crazy motorcycle club ex-boyfriend (hated him! why would she let him around her children?) I never heard any sort of racial slur or was witness to any crazy-ass racist behaviour.

But the town I live in now is not like that. White people say the craziest shit when they think nobody is listening, seriously. For white Canadians it seems like the less contact we have with POC the more xenophobic we get.

I presume that to be exactly the opposite of how it is in the US.

ETA - I have heard that things are pretty tense (batshit, actually) in the prairies, though. That's probably due to my "sparsely populated tiny white towns" theory. Mind you, I know NOTHING about the prairies other than that I had to drive through them to get to BC.)

Thanks- helps!

In terms of what Suebee brought up- the never ending conflict just under the surface (which I believe exists in the US), I have to think about other political structures and differences. Also, immigration issues in the US, especially in times of economic stress, lights up racial and ethnic bigotry. That would be another area that I just don't have knowledge about in relationship to Canada.

Our recent Supreme court ruling allowing corporations to in effect stuff the pockets of politicians/legislation as individuals has brought the tensions here to a new level, I think.

This brings the US "individualism" paradigm right to front lines.

Something else- do Canadians feel that their middle class is being kicked to the curb?

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

Also, immigration issues in the US, especially in times of economic stress, lights up racial and ethnic bigotry. That would be another area that I just don't have knowledge about in relationship to Canada.

What immigration issues in the US are you talking about specifically? Let me know and I'll tell you how it is in Canada re: that same coin.

ETA - I dunno how true this is but I once read that Canada has the highest immigration rate (like per capita, not in raw numbers of actual people immigrating) than any other country in the world. Our population is roughly 30,000,000 and we get on average 250,000 new immigrants to Canada every year.

Also if you are talking about undocumented immigration - I know nothing about that here. I would presume it happens in Canada (because I'm sure every country has people who immigrate without "papers") but we don't talk/bitch about it. So that's a non-issue.