{"id":12799,"date":"2020-06-04T18:20:28","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T22:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=12799"},"modified":"2020-06-12T15:20:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T19:20:42","slug":"ontario-health-leaders-call-on-province-to-declare-anti-black-racism-public-health-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/ontario-health-leaders-call-on-province-to-declare-anti-black-racism-public-health-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario health leaders call on province to declare anti-Black racism public health crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

(June 3, 2020)<\/p>\n

By: Nick Westoll, Global News<\/p>\n

A coalition of Black community health leaders and organizations is calling on the\u00a0Ontario government<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to declare\u00a0anti-Black racism<\/a><\/span>\u00a0a public health crisis as protests continue across North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur communities are grieving. This moment is unprecedented, yet in many ways we have been here before,\u201d a recent joint statement issued by the Alliance for Healthier Communities, the Black Health Committee, the Black Health Alliance and the Network for Advancement of Black Communities said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot be silent in the face of the ongoing horror Black people are experiencing in Ontario, across Canada, and in the United States. We stand in solidarity with Black people everywhere in calling for justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the statement, the group called for several actions to be taken to \u201cmeaningfully confront white supremacy and address anti-Black racism.\u201d The main recommendations called for included:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Declaring Anti-Black racism to be a public health crisis.
\n\u2013 Strengthened accountability measures to \u201caddress police brutality, police violence and harms to Black communities.\u201d
\n\u2013 Increased resources and a \u201cclearly articulated, targeted, and systemic\u201d anti-Black racism strategy.
\n\u2013 Provincial backing of allocating \u201cprotected funds to provide culturally appropriate health and wellbeing support within Black communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

San\u00e9 Dube, the policy and government relations lead for the Alliance for Healthier Communities and a signatory on the statement, said the time has come to formally acknowledge what members of Ontario\u2019s Black community have been raising on an ongoing basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat declaring a public health crisis does makes it visible, right. It says this is an issue,\u201d she said, adding resources are dedicated and systems to support change would be put in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Black people don\u2019t need are empty declarations of \u2018We stand with you\u2019 but then nothing is done to actually address the concerns Black folks are raising.<\/p>\n

\u201cA public health crisis is something that also has systemic roots and it is allowed to continue because it is built into a system that is allowing it to flourish, so if you address that you\u2019re dealing with the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

While citing the death of\u00a0George Floyd<\/a><\/span>\u00a0while in police custody, Dube also highlighted several examples in Ontario of Black residents with mental health issues who have died following interactions with police.<\/p>\n

Thousands rallied in Toronto on Saturday days after\u00a0Regis Korchinski-Paquet\u2019s<\/a><\/span> death. She died after falling from her 24th-floor apartment shortly following the arrival of police, who were called by her mother for assistance in a dispute.<\/p>\n

In April,\u00a026-year-old D\u2019Andre Campbell was fatally shot after Peel Regional Police<\/a><\/span>\u00a0were called to his Brampton home with a request for assistance.<\/p>\n

The circumstances of both situations are still being investigated by Ontario\u2019s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).<\/p>\n

Dube also cited the deaths of\u00a0Andrew Loku<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in Toronto in 2015 and\u00a0Abdirahman Abdi<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in Ottawa in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are cases that are still really fresh in our memory, and so for Black people we understand that for us living with mental health and needing help actually puts us at more harm than it does for other people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A\u00a02018 Ontario Human Rights Commission report<\/a><\/span>\u00a0found that even though 8.8 per cent of Toronto residents are Black, SIU data showed \u201cBlack people were overrepresented in use-of-force cases (28.8 per cent), shootings (36 per cent), deadly encounters (61.5 per cent) and fatal shootings (70 per cent).\u201d<\/p>\n

Dube said by addressing anti-Black racism in a formalized way under a public health crisis declaration, \u201cstructural issues\u201d that make life \u201cunlivable\u201d for many in Ontario\u2019s Black community can hopefully be addressed in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that anti-Black racism frames so much of the Black experience. It\u2019s not just that things like this where you\u2019re facing police violence, but anti-Blackness is also in things like our children being streamed to certain streams through school or failing to achieve higher educational attainment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur children are disproportionately represented in the child and family services. We are disproportionately represented in the corrections system \u2014 so people who are in prisons and detention centres \u2014 and also even in health care, our health care access as inequitable compared to other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Global News contacted the Ontario cabinet minister responsible for the province\u2019s Anti-Racism Directorate (ARD), Solicitor General Sylvia Jones, to ask about the call for a public health crisis declaration. A spokesperson didn\u2019t respond directly to the question when asked for comment.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cOur government supports the ARD\u2019s work, which includes providing anti-racism advice and expertise across the government,\u201d Stephen Warner said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur government has shown its determination to put an end to hate in our communities, but we know there is more to do before everyone in our province can be safe and feel as safe as they should. We will continue to work with partners and communities to ensure everyone who calls Ontario home can feel at home no matter their background, race, language or religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warner said most recently the ARD has worked to advance Ontario\u2019s three-year anti-racism strategy, helped draft unspecified regulations under recent police legislation, developed an applied learning program for Ontario\u2019s public service to provide anti-racism knowledge and skills, provided guidance to multiple sectors on creating systems to collect race-based data and worked \u201cto identify and address racial barriers\u201d in recruiting corrections officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to eliminate systemic racism and advance racial equity in Ontario for Black, Indigenous and racialized populations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The directorate\u2019s budget to carry out anti-racism initiatives for the 2020-2021 budgetary year is $4.92 million. In 2019,\u00a0opposition party members raised concerns about the budget<\/a><\/span>\u00a0being given to the ARD.<\/p>\n

Click here for original article<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(June 3, 2020) By: Nick Westoll, Global News A coalition of Black community health leaders and organizations is calling on the\u00a0Ontario government\u00a0to declare\u00a0anti-Black racism\u00a0a public health crisis as protests continue across North America. \u201cOur communities are grieving. This moment is unprecedented, yet in many ways we have been here before,\u201d a recent joint statement issued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOntario health leaders call on province to declare anti-Black racism public health crisis - Ontario Health Coalition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(June 3, 2020) By: Nick Westoll, Global News A coalition of Black community health leaders and organizations is calling on the\u00a0Ontario government\u00a0to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/ontario-health-leaders-call-on-province-to-declare-anti-black-racism-public-health-crisis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ontario health leaders call on province to declare anti-Black racism public health crisis - 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