Building a foundation for change : canada’s anti-racism strategy, 2019–2022

Building a foundation for change: canada's anti-racism strategy 2019-2022 invests $45 million to take immediate steps in combatting racism and discrimination. guided by a vision of canada where all canadians benefit from equal access and equitable participation to all economic, cultural, social and political spheres, it lays a foundation for longer term action by focusing on three guiding principles: demonstrating federal leadership, empowering communities, and building awareness & changing attitudes. regarding demonstrating federal leadership, the strategy created a new anti-racism secretariat at the department of canadian heritage. the secretariat is supported by existing interdepartmental committees as well new interdepartmental committees it has created, including the equity-seeking communities and covid-19 taskforce and the working group on the international decade for people of african descent. in addition to coordinating federal action and driving the overall strategy, the secretariat works with federal departments and agencies to address the effects of discrimination. regarding empowering communities, the strategy seeks to support indigenous peoples and communities on the ground who have expertise in addressing various forms of racism and discrimination must be supported. funding for projects and capacity building at the community level will recognize and enhance their expertise. it will allow them to draw on their lived experiences to tailor initiatives to their particular circumstances. for raising awareness and changing attitudes, the strategy seeks to increase awareness of the historical roots of racism and discrimination, and their impacts on our communities and indigenous peoples. this is being done through a $3.3 million investment in a national public education and awareness campaign based on regional and demographic needs that will be informed and developed with impacted communities and indigenous peoples. equally, the strategy is investing $6.2 million to increase reliable, usable and comparable data and evidence regarding racism and discrimination. this includes working with statistics canada and the centre for gender, diversity and inclusion statistics, and enhancing the collection of disaggregated data that can be broken down by meaningful categories of race and/or ethno-cultural origins, and the analysis of this data.