Canadian public opinion about racism and discrimination

The killing of George Floyd, an African-American, by white police officers in Minneapolis earlier this year sparked anti-racism protests across the United States and around the world, along with a wider public discussion of anti-Black racism and systemic racism. In Canada, this movement energized ongoing efforts to condemn and counter racism within society and recurring instances of police brutality against racial minorities. These events have had a clear impact on the Canadian public’s awareness of the reality of racism in this country.

Over the past year, there has been a dramatic decline in the proportion of Canadians who say that discrimination against either Black people or Chinese people is no longer a problem in Canada. In each case, only half as many take this view in 2020 compared to 2019. Notably, the views of both those who identify as white and those who are racialized have shifted in the same direction. While the growing awareness of the reality of racism faced by Black Canadians can be linked to the focus on anti-black racism and instances of policy brutality against racialized persons in Canada, the parallel shift in view of discrimination against Chinese Canadians likely stems from publicized incidents of abusive behaviour against people of Chinese background in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that first emerged in China.

Survey Details

This survey was conducted in partnership with the Faculty of Social Sciences’ IMPACT Project at the University of Ottawa and Century Initiative. This survey is based on telephone interviews conducted (via land line and cellphones) with 2,000 Canadians between September 8 and 23, 2020. A sample of this size drawn from the population produces results accurate to within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points in 19 out of 20 samples.