OTTAWA—Even before images of Canada’s 23rd prime minister in brown- and blackface ricocheted through the national media and around the world, race and racism loomed over the federal election campaign.If only we weren’t missing the big picture. That’s how Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto, perceives the national discussion when he surveys the past few weeks in Canadian politics: “isolated incidents” where racism flares up as an issue, but no overarching concern with what to actually do about it.“Race is increasingly emerging as a feature in this election,” Owusu-Bempah told the Star by phone on Thursday, just before he went off to teach a seminar on racism in Toronto. “Unfortunately, it’s doing so in isolated incidents… and not in the context of a discussion of how race influences life outcomes for Canadians, and how the leaders of the various political parties would address the issue of racism in Canada,” he said. Frances Henry, a retired anthropology professor from York University who has written extensively on the politics of race and racism in Canada, agreed that discussions of race have caught the media’s attention to a degree that she can’t recall seeing before — especially in the wake of the political bombshell surrounding Trudeau in brown- and blackface. It is the first election featuring the People’s party, a right-wing populist movement started by Maxime Bernier after he narrowly lost the Conservative leadership. He is now denouncing what he calls Canada’s “cult of diversity” and pledges to dramatically restrict the number of immigrants admitted each year.In Quebec, federal party leaders have been repeatedly asked about a provincial law that bars religious minorities from working as teachers, Crown lawyers or other roles in the public service, if they wear symbols of their faith like turbans or hijabs. A ...
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