Officials must address racism head on in light of Statistics Canada numbers projecting Greater Vancouver’s visible minority population would double to more than 2 million by 2031, said the director of a province-wide diversity study.
Of the 2 million visible minorities who would make up 60 per cent of the region’s population, according to the study, one-in-three would be Canadian born.
“How are we going to help this second generation to be true equitable members of our society,” asked Miu Chung Yan with Metropolis British Columbia. “That’s the challenge that I don’t think Canadian policy makers are paying attention to.”
The Chinese Canadian community is projected to remain the largest ethnic group with population of 809,000 by 2031.
Though cases of overt racism have declined in Vancouver over decades prejudice still exists in the job market and the political system, Yan added.
“If young people don’t see a model in organizations what is it telling them,” Yan posed. “It’s up to organizations not only treat visible minorities as customers but … to make themselves culturally attractive to minority communities.”
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Sketch
- Reporter
- Dharm Makwana currently serves as a web editor at The Province, British Columbia's best read daily newspaper. For more than four years he wrote on issues affecting the Lower Mainland for the province's third largest daily newspaper Vancouver 24 hours. Before arriving in Vancouver in January 2007, Dharm won the John Lott Scholarship for outstanding journalism at Centennial College. Since then Dharm has developed an interest in municipal and provincial politics, crime and policing and social issues including immigration, prostitution and trafficking. He is currently working on a series of stories involving Vancouver's sex workers.
Wisdom
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-Bill Murray
-Bill Murray