“This is our country, these are our rights”: minorities and the origins of Ontario’s human rights campaigns.

ID:	HARP-144
Title:	”This is our country, these are our rights”: minorities and the origins of Ontario’s human rights campaigns.
Source:	Canadian Historical Review, v.82(1), Mr’01, pg 1-35 CBCA Fulltext: http://delos.lib.sfu.ca:8366/cgi-bin/slri/z3950.CGI/137.82.100.228.350957673/?cbca.db
Parties:
Dispute Resolution Organ:
Year:	2001
Pages:	0
Author(s):
Keywords:	anti-discrimination, Canada, discrimination, equality before the law, human rights, law, legal, legal reform, non-discrimination, racial discrimination, second world war, civil and political rights, prejudice, tolerance, minority rights, self-determination
Abstract:	During the last years of the Second World War and for several years thereafter, Canadians seemed greatly concerned with questions of prejudice, discrimination, and human rights. Saturday Night, Maclean’s, and The Canadian Forum carried articles with such titles as `No Jews Need Apply,’ `The Japanese Controversy Is Reviving Liberalism,’ `The Redman’s Burden,’ and `Jim Crow Lives in Dresden.’ The CBC and private radio stations, even in small communities such as Cochrane and Kirkland Lake, aired programs intended to promote tolerance. Journalists formed the Newspapermen and Writers’ Committee to Combat Racial Discrimination and published a pamphlet entitled I Didn’t Know It Was Loaded, which warned against writing that inflamed prejudice. Canada’s two main labour federations, the Ontario section of the Canadian Legion, the Ontario Farm Federation, and the country’s largest Protestant churches formally condemned racist discrimination and prejudice. By 1947 the concern with human rights had evolved into campaigns for legal reform. Large delegations made up of the representatives of dozens of organizations besieged municipal and provincial governments demanding the passage of anti-discrimination laws. Their efforts bore fruit. With Ontario leading the way, laws were enacted to prohibit discrimination based on `race,’ religion, ancestry, or national origin in public signs, employment practices, the provision of services and housing, and the sale of property. This discovery of prejudice and discrimination, and the steps taken to safeguard human rights, were remarkable in a country where discriminatory practices remained largely unchallenged until the war. Racist policies – such as refusing to hire members of minority groups, rent or sell houses to them, allow them into dance halls and skating rinks, cut their hair and serve them in restaurants – were deemed matters of private business in which the state had no right to intervene. The nature and meaning of this transformation call for careful analysis. Although a few scholars have explored the philosophical and political nature of the campaigns for human rights, they have, until recently, provided us with only the broadest explanations of the causes of what has been described as the `surge of egalitarian idealism’ in postwar Canada.(f.#1) These factors include the way in which the horrors of the Holocaust created a sense of urgency throughout the Western world to eradicate racism, as exemplified by the condemnation of discrimination on the grounds of `race,’ religion, language, and sex in the Charter of the United Nations and, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the influence of the United States, where first the federal, and then many state governments, introduced fair employment practices legislation; the impact of wartime labour shortages and wartime violations of civil liberties, especially the displacement and subsequent deportation of Japanese Canadians; and the growing consciousness and influence of organized labour, along with new attitudes towards the role of the state. In contrast to these broad explanations, James Walker’s recent historical analysis of several key Supreme Court cases highlights the activities of members of minority groups who used the courts to challenge discrimination in such areas as immigration policy, property rights, and the provision of public services.(f.#2) By focusing on the development of campaigns for anti-discrimination legislation in Ontario, we explore further the key role minority groups played in this shift in public opinion, for the dynamics behind `the discovery’ of prejudice and discrimination were complex.
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