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Jamie Sarkonak: Bird conservation — the latest field to take up race-based hiring

A Quebec human rights case over job posting excluding white applicants dismissed as 'ideological'

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In Quebec, government-sponsored racial discrimination is totally OK — as long as it’s directed at white people.  

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That’s the conclusion of the province’s human rights tribunal last week, having examined the case of a bird conservation non-profit, QuébecOiseaux, which refused to consider applications from white people for a temporary position in 2021. 

Jamie Sarkonak: Bird conservation — the latest field to take up race-based hiring Back to video

QuébecOiseaux did not act alone in this. The race-restricted job was supported by a federal wage subsidy (via the Liberal “Youth Employment and Skills Strategy”) from Parks Canada with an emphasis on non-white workers, which was in turn distributed by the non-profit Nature Canada to smaller partner organizations.  

Parks Canada had required that at least 40 per cent of the youth hired with the funds be part of a diversity group, identifying as either non-white, immigrant, disabled, idle (not employed or in school), LGBT, still in high school, or an official language minority. When Nature Canada passed the funds along, it tightened the eligibility criteria,........

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