CUPE Ontario calls on Ford government to declare anti-Black racism a public health crisis

One of the largest unions in the province is calling on the Ontario government to declare anti-Black racism a public health crisis.

The Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 270,000 employees in the province, said it is joining a coalition of Black community health leaders, including Alliance for Healthier Communities, the Black Health Committee, the Black Health Alliance, and the Network for Advancement of Black Communities, in calling for urgent action from the Ford government.

“Anti-Black racism has undeniably harmful effects on Black Ontarians,” Fred Hahn, the president of CUPE Ontario, said in a news release issued Wednesday.

“We need to name what happens to Black people when it comes to policing, workplace discrimination, the stress it causes, and so much more as a public health crisis requiring urgent and comprehensive action.”

CUPE Ontario said if the provincial government declares anti-Black racism a public health crisis, it would “open the door to make swift and effective action.”

“We’ve all seen the scope available, and how quickly government can act during a public health emergency,” Hahn said. “It is long past time to acknowledge that fighting anti-Black racism needs the same scale and speed.”

Protests have been held in Toronto and around the world calling for an end to anti-Black racism following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed after a Minneapolis police officer placed his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, an incident that was caught on video.

Many in Toronto and around the province have called for better mental health supports and more police accountability following the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, who fell from an apartment balcony last month minutes after officers were called to her High Park home.

CUPE is urging the province to reverse cuts to the Anti-Racism Directorate, re-start plans to boost oversight when it comes to Ontario police services, and immediately begin to collect and release race-based pandemic data.

Earlier this month, the Toronto Board of Health sent a letter to Ontario’s minister of health asking that the province begin collecting data on race, occupation, and socioeconomic information when investigating COVID-19 cases.

The chair of the board, Coun. Joe Cressy, said the province instead has suggested that Ontario’s 34 local public health units voluntarily collect that data on their own.

“This approach will not provide a complete picture of how COVID-19 is affecting Ontarians,” Cressy wrote earlier this month.

Preliminary findings by Toronto public health officials in early May suggested that COVID-19 was disproportionately affecting certain communities in the city, which prompted officials to start asking those who have tested positive about their ethnicity and socio-economic status.

After months of collecting the data, Cressy said that the link between the virus and income, housing, and race became “more apparent.”

“In Toronto, the five neighbourhoods with the lowest number of COVID-19 cases have median household incomes that are almost double the household incomes in the neighbourhoods with the most cases,” he said last month.

“At the same time, the percentage of visible minorities in the areas with the most cases is more than double that of the neighbourhoods with the fewest cases.”

Earlier this week, the Toronto Board of Health unanimously voted in favour of recognizing anti-Black racism as a public health crisis.

“The intersection of race, income, housing, and other social determinants of health have placed Black Torontonians at great risk, as we are seeing through the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities with higher percentages of visible minorities,” Cressy said in a letter to the board. “This is tragic, it is unacceptable, and it needs to change.”

Two Toronto city councillors are also bringing forward a motion at the next council meeting to defund the city’s police force by 10 per cent.

Coun. Josh Matlow, one of the councillors tabling the motion, said he would like to see that money, which totals about $122 million, go to a variety of community programs.

“It's time to defund the police budget and re-balance our use of public funds towards ensuring that our communities are supported in ways that avoid having to have the police show up to the door in the first place,” he said.