{"id":267495,"date":"2019-09-10T10:30:13","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T14:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/canadian-media-lacks-nuance-depth-on-racial-issues\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:39:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:39:20","slug":"canadian-media-lacks-nuance-depth-on-racial-issues","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/09\/canadian-media-lacks-nuance-depth-on-racial-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian media lacks nuance, depth on racial issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newsrooms in Canada are disproportionately white<\/a>. This inequity means Canadian news coverage is less inclusive and therefore not truly representative of our country\u2019s racial diversity. We\u2019ve known all this for years, and still \u2014 despite the approach of the next federal election \u2014 establishment journalism organizations have not taken steps to address this worrying gap in a meaningful and systemic way. One consequence is lower voter turnout among people of colour.<\/p>\n

The media is a pillar of democracy. Numerous studies reveal how an erosion in local news weakens civic engagement. Research suggests<\/a> people who consume local news regularly are more likely to vote and participate in civic activities. But the spate of local publication closures<\/a> in nearly 200 Canadian communities over the past decade has left a vacuum for misinformation to fill, compromised journalists\u2019 ability to hold government accountable and resulted in more polarized communities where neighbours don\u2019t trust each other.<\/p>\n

These studies focus on geographic communities. But there\u2019s scant research into how news poverty impacts racialized communities or geographic communities that are majority-minority, such as Scarborough, a suburb of more than 600,000 in the Greater Toronto Area where people of colour make up 73 percent of the total population<\/a>. That\u2019s concerning.<\/p>\n

Why? According to a 2018 report<\/a> from the UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, news deserts tend to be around areas whose residents are poorer, less well-educated and older than people in other communities. News poverty impacts inner-city neighbourhoods and suburbs as well as sparsely populated rural and interior regions, the report says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a stretch to extrapolate findings from geographically focused research on news deserts and apply them to underserved racialized communities. If you don\u2019t see yourself reflected in the news, and you don\u2019t see the connection between your community and policy issues, how motivated would you be to vote? How convinced would you be that you could effect change in your country \u2014 especially if the media rarely bothers to portray your perspective?<\/p>\n

Of course, as many detractors of diversity and inclusion efforts have commonly but pointlessly argued, ethnic groups are not monolithic and have a diversity of thought, and race is just one pillar of a person\u2019s identity. But few markers of identity are visible beyond race, and systemic racism is pervasive in Canada. Members of particular ethnic groups, especially visible-minority groups, will have shared experiences by virtue of their skin colour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ethnic media doesn\u2019t even reflect citizens like me, a second-generation Canadian-born Chinese whose native language is English. To me, ethnic media is for my immigrant parents\u2019 generation, not my friends and peers who grew up here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are ethnic media outlets in Canada, but they\u2019re ghettoized<\/a> in a two-tier system, where establishment media is seen as more legitimate and also seemingly absolved of covering issues that matter to immigrant Canadians<\/a> in an in-depth way. Beyond that, ethnic media doesn\u2019t even reflect citizens like me, a second-generation Canadian-born Chinese whose native language is English. To me, ethnic media is for my immigrant parents\u2019 generation, not my friends and peers who grew up here. Unfortunately, these two audiences have been traditionally conflated, so there\u2019s a gaping hole where news coverage should be for young, diverse Canadians.<\/p>\n

Keeping this lack of relevant media presence and Canada\u2019s long history of excluding people of colour from voting<\/a> in mind, it\u2019s no wonder eligible voters from some non-European communities have voted at lower rates than members of European communities, according to a 2007 Elections Canada study<\/a>. Citing data from the Ethnic Diversity Survey of Statistics Canada<\/a>, Elections Canada also reports that rates of voter participation are higher among foreign-born than Canadian-born people of colour.<\/p>\n

Low voter turnout among people of colour will become a bigger problem for Canada if we don\u2019t address it soon. StatsCan reports<\/a> that among the country\u2019s working-age population (ages 15 to 64), 20 percent identified themselves as \u201cvisible minority\u201d in 2011 \u2014 a number that could double to nearly 40 percent by 2036.<\/p>\n

When it comes to authentic pluralism, there’s a significant disconnect between how Canada perceives and portrays itself and what’s actually happening in this country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Canada was the first country in the world to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy, in 1971, and it\u2019s globally recognized as an arbiter of pluralism, so we tend to rest on our laurels regarding issues of race. It\u2019s why, for so long, neither government nor the media seriously grappled with the country\u2019s evolving cultural identity. Because there\u2019s a sense that we\u2019ve \u201cachieved\u201d multiculturalism in theory, Canadian political and media institutions are complacent and don\u2019t frequently entertain conversations about our evolving cultural identity \u2014 much less move them forward. When it comes to authentic pluralism, there’s a significant disconnect between how Canada perceives and portrays itself and what’s actually happening in this country.<\/p>\n

The 1971 Canadian Multiculturalism Policy and subsequent 1988 <\/a>Canadian Multiculturalism Act<\/em><\/a>, which came about after Canada became the first country in the world to pass a national multiculturalism law, were significant milestones. But they\u2019ve had the sanitizing effect of falsely casting us as a perfect multicultural haven and as a foil to our unstable neighbour, America, with its unmanageable race problems.<\/p>\n

In fact, contrary to popular belief, we’re far behind the United States in our discussions of race in the public sphere. Despite the extreme polarization in America, there’s an institutional and public willingness to talk about these issues that opens up dialogue and breaks down barriers. In Canada, we ignore the problem, so silos persist. In addition, this false sense that Canada is post-racial often has the effect of gaslighting people from racialized communities who continue to face discrimination today.<\/p>\n

Given our British colonial past, Canada has a long history of defining its identity in terms of how un-American we are, so we resist embracing our neighbour\u2019s practices for fear of surrendering to American cultural hegemony. But what is<\/em> Canadian culture? Before the Second World War, it was synonymous with British and French culture, but that perception failed to take into account the tens of thousands of years of Indigenous cultures that predated Canada\u2019s colonization. In fact, we didn\u2019t have a clear, unified national identity of our own until after the war \u2014 and even now, it’s not one that all Canadians have embraced.<\/p>\n

When it comes to filling in gaps in coverage for racialized communities in Canada, outlets here would be wise to follow in American media\u2019s footsteps. Resistance to including these other narratives will only push Canadians into the arms of US publications \u2014 which have much more robust coverage of people of colour \u2014 and, ironically, put Canada on a path toward greater American cultural influence. We must evolve.<\/p>\n

With Canada facing a rising populist tide and the incendiary language that tends to come with it, October\u2019s election is an opportunity for all Canadian media to call things as they are. For example, journalists shouldn\u2019t use \u201cracially charged\u201d or similar euphemisms when \u201cracist\u201d is more appropriate. The values underpinning multiculturalism are enshrined in our Constitution under section 27, so rather than seeking \u201cbalance,\u201d the media must hold our leaders to account by challenging views and policies that are unconstitutional. The world, including Canada, is experiencing a historic moment that necessitates adversarial watchdog journalism.<\/p>\n

The media should also move beyond reactive coverage of race that stokes outrage for outrage\u2019s sake. Instead of a \u201che said, she said\u201d style of reporting, journalists should provide context that breaks down Canada\u2019s history of systemic racism and analyze how party policies will affect specific racialized communities (for example, they should examine why Indigenous communities are particularly vulnerable to climate change<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Outside of the election, the media should strive to capture the lived experiences of Canadians of colour (which, it\u2019s important to note, are quite different from the experiences of Americans of colour). They should also keep up their recent increase in coverage of reconciliation and Canada\u2019s Black Lives Matter movement. But I don\u2019t want to see only stories of outrage \u2014 they paint a limited, black-and-white picture of racialized communities.\u00a0I also want to see the nuanced spaces in between, where most people of colour live their lives: an intersectional take on climate change in Canada through a racial justice lens; a look at the historical contributions of Canadians of colour and how they impact us today; a deep dive into how second-generation Canadians are preserving their ancestors\u2019 dying languages.<\/p>\n

The media here must stop talking about Canada as if it\u2019s an Anglo monoculture and start reflecting the multiculturalism that we proudly lay claim to but seldom live up to.<\/p>\n

This article is part of\u00a0The media and Canadian elections<\/a>\u00a0special feature.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0Maryam Sadat Montajabi, centre, and her daughter Romina Khaksar, right, 15, who both moved to Canada from Iran in 2015, wait to have their photo taken with dignitaries after becoming Canadian citizens during a special Canada Day citizenship ceremony, in West Vancouver on, July 1, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Darryl Dyck<\/span><\/p>\n

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Newsrooms in Canada are disproportionately white. This inequity means Canadian news coverage is less inclusive and therefore not truly representative of our country\u2019s racial diversity. We\u2019ve known all this for years, and still \u2014 despite the approach of the next federal election \u2014 establishment journalism organizations have not taken steps to address this worrying gap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":276244,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-10-08T02:39:22Z","apple_news_api_id":"122a023e-0cd3-4354-9d6b-2ede2ee7aed7","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-10-08T02:39:23Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AEioCPgzTQ1Sday7eLueu1w","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[9385,9358,9372],"tags":[8478,9256],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[4250,4295],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[7136],"class_list":["post-267495","issues","type-issues","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medias-et-culture","category-politique","category-recent-stories-fr","tag-canadian-elections-fr","tag-elections-provinciales","irpp-category-democratie","irpp-category-politique","irpp-tag-medias-et-culture"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nCanadian media lacks nuance, depth on racial issues<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/09\/canadian-media-lacks-nuance-depth-on-racial-issues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Canadian media lacks nuance, depth on racial issues\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Newsrooms in Canada are disproportionately white. 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