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FIRST READING: How race-based hiring is coming to define Canada

Everyone from soldiers to food inspectors to cancer researchers to immigrant screeners are now hired because of their skin colour

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FIRST READING: How race-based hiring is coming to define Canada Back to video

At the time of writing, the University of Toronto is listing two separate job openings that are explicitly barred for white men. The school is hiring a researcher that must be “Black-identifying.”

And they are hiring an assistant professor of computational biology that must be either non-white, disabled or identifying “at the current time” as one of the following: Women, trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit or gender fluid.

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Not long ago, it was extremely rare to find anything like this in Canada. Just 13 years ago, in 2013, it became a scandal when a casting agency working for CBC advertised a hosting job for “any race except Caucasian.”

The description would be rescinded and the agency would issue an apology.

But now, postings for government and academic jobs often openly state that straight white men will be sent to the back of the line.

An active job posting for a National Research Council robotics specialist, for instance, states right at the top that priority will be given to “Indigenous Peoples … persons with disabilities and racialized persons.”

The listing for an HR job at Jasper National Park tells applicants that special consideration will be given to applicants who are “Indigenous, visible minorities,........

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