Senator Donald Oliver says: 'It is clear to me that Canada's multicultural garden is a mess -- choked with weeks, parched by a lack of water and ruined through sheer neglect.'

CREDIT: Bruno Schlumberger, the Ottawa Citizen

Canada's public service is racist and the Martin government should appoint a commissioner, similar to the one enforcing the Official Languages Act, to make sure more visible minorities are hired, a black Conservative senator charges.

In a blunt speech in the Senate recently, Senator Donald Oliver said there are major hurdles in the public service preventing the advancement of "Canadians of colour."

"Systemic racism in the public service of Canada has reached an all-time high. Morale among visible minorities is at an all-time low. There is little, if any, hope of advancement or of being treated equally with others."

He said the Martin government is ignoring the problem, despite missing several government targets set in 2000.

"Because of this systemic racism, the progress of visible minorities in making a substantive and valuable contribution to Canada's public service has come to a virtual standstill. There is no upward mobility and, more important, there is no inclination on the part of the government, the governor in council or the prime minister to do anything about it," he said.

A lawyer from Wolfville, N.S., Mr. Oliver was appointed by former prime minister Brian Mulroney in 1990.

Mr. Oliver was a Progressive Conservative and has recently joined the new Conservative party. He says he has discussed the issue and election strategy with his new leader, Stephen Harper.

In past elections, the Liberal party accused the Reform party (in 1993 and 1997) and the Canadian Alliance (in 2000) of having racist elements -- something Mr. Oliver says the governing party will have far greater difficulty doing in the upcoming election.

"When I attend our caucus meetings, I look around the room and I feel quite comfortable. There are several members in our caucus who belong to a visible minority," noted Mr. Oliver in an interview yesterday.

Mr. Oliver pointed out that visible minorities now make up 13.4 per cent of the Canadian population, while only 7.4 per cent of the federal public service workforce. He added the percentage of new hires from visible minority groups actually declined this year.

He said the targets set for visible minorities in 2000 have been clearly missed, while those for women, the disabled and aboriginals have all made significant inroads in meeting their targets.

"Of all these four groups, three of them have made great progress, but visible minorities are still at the very bottom of the heap," said Mr. Oliver.

The government's targets were to ensure that, by 2003, one in five of all new hires, or 20 per cent of those hired from outside the public service, would be members of a visible minority.

As well, by next year, one in five, or 20 per cent, of all new appointments to the senior executive groups were to be members of a visible minority, but Mr. Oliver says it is quite unlikely it will come close to the target.

"It is clear to me that Canada's multicultural garden is a mess -- choked with weeds, parched by a lack of water and ruined through sheer neglect. It is time to shed some sunlight on the issues," said Mr. Oliver.

"My message is that systemic racism in the federal public service continues to impede the progress of visible minorities. Yet, the government simply does not recognize or acknowledge that there is a crisis," he says.

He cites an ethnic diversity study recently released by Statistics Canada that found almost one third of black Canadians said they had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment in the past five years.

Mr. Oliver said the report also showed that Canadian-born and foreign-born blacks aged 25 to 54 years earned about $6,000 less, on average, than other Canadians in 2000. In addition, the jobless rate for blacks was at least 1.9 percentage points higher than for the rest of the population in 2001.

"That is deplorable, and the situation is no better in the federal public service," he said. "We continue to hear stories about immigrant computer scientists flipping burgers or doctors driving taxis. What a waste of talent, knowledge and skills. This waste costs the Canadian economy between $2 billion and $3 billion each and every year."