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Black History Month should be an occasion to celebrate some positive
happenings in and to our community. This month I wish to point out some
fruits that have been born as a consequence of increasing diversity in
positions of power and influence in Canadian society. These developments
point out the obvious: the need to continue to encourage the power brokers
to consider appointing members of diverse communities to positions of power
and influence. We have been reminded that MP Jean Augustine is the one who sponsored the
adoption of February as a Black History Month in the House of Commons
several years ago. There was no dissent as the House of Commons recognized
February as a Black History Month throughout Canada. You would not have
expected Stephen Harper to have sponsored such a move. It takes your own to recognize your own. Without Jean Augustine as an MP, Black History Month
may not have been recognized as such at the time this happened several
years ago. Note that I have not said that it would never have happened, I
have said it may not have happened. Perhaps the most important fruit of diversity is the recent decision by
Judge Juanita Westmoreland-Traore of the Court of Quebec. For the first
time ever in Quebec, Judge Westmoreland-Traore found that the arrest and
charging of a black man by the Montreal police was due to racial profiling
and not due to any reasonable and probable grounds that that black man had
committed a criminal offence. As a consequence of this finding, the small
amount of marihuana that was found on the accused black man, was excluded
as evidence. The accused was acquitted. This is one of very few times in
Canadian history that the finding that racial profiling has occurred led to
the advantage of the accused black person. This decision is a milestone in
criminal law. Judge Westmoreland-Traore is African-Canadian, was once
Employment Equity Commissioner for Ontario and Dean of the Faculty of Law
at Windsor. Westmoreland-Traore is just one of two black judges ever
appointed to the judiciary in Quebec.

Would a lily-white judge have even recognized that racial profiling was
involved in that case? Maybe.

It is my thesis that without racial profiling by the police and judges,
there would be less minorities going through the Canadian criminal justice
system. I am not saying that there aren't criminal elements in minority
communities. There are plenty. But no more than in white communities. The
overrepresentation of minorities in the criminal justice system is due to
racial profiling. The recognition of this phenomenon by the judiciary as
did Judge Westmoreland-Traore in R. V. ALEXER CAMPBELL (January 27th, 2005)

hopefully, will go a long way in cautioning police officers against
discriminatory conduct.
Note also that the first major case that recognized racial profiling was
decided by a Black judge in Nova Scotia ( the case of R. V. RDS). In that
case, all principal participants, except crown witnesses, were black. That
case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and it stood for the
importance of the principle of contextualized judging rather than racial
profiling. The concept of racial profiling was a long way in the future
though black lawyers and others had been raising that issue long before
that, but without success.

Ontario has adumbrated a number of cases dealing with racial profiling in
the recent past. However, this is not as a result of sudden insight by the
judges, it is due to the fact of constant pounding of this issue by defence
lawyers.

It is important that decision-makers from diverse backgrounds be there to
anchor these positive developments of "justice for all".

Supreme Court Election Decision (May, 2005) In the last issue of African Affairs, Dr. Sikaneta criticized my earlier article on the delay in prosecuting the election controversy in Zambia through the courts. My article had been written well before the Supreme Court of Zambia delivered its lengthy judgment. My article had also been published in The Post and elicited numerous positive e-mails to myself. Because other critics of the delay had been published in The Post and other forums, the Supreme Court took care to answer to the charge of unreasonable delay. In fact the first part of the judgment deals with the reasons for the delay. None of the reasons given by the Supreme Court for the delay agree with the excuses mounted by Dr. Sikaneta. It appears Dr. Sikaneta never even read the judgment and his article appears to be geared towards political apology for the Mwanawasa government. This is also evidenced by his statement that I accused the government of political interference in the decision when I never made such a statement. What I stated was that because Mwanawasa had been a long time lawyer in Zambia, he anticipated through experience that that case would take a long time to prosecute. That is different from stating that because of my correct observation on Mwanawasa's statement, I was therefore accusing the government of political interference. Read my article again. I gave the examples of how the US, the Ukraine and Madagascar solved their election controversies. Dr. Sikaneta states that the US and the Ukraine solved theirs quickly because the countries had money. That is in fact not the reason. The reason is that these countries have provisions in their constitutions to resolve election controversies with speed. You save money by speedy decisions rather than by prolonged agony. Delays cost more money. Then Dr. Sikaneta in a twist of disingenuity states that the example of Madagascar has to be left to those more knowledgeable about that country. His lack of knowledge about Madagascar is no excuse for him not researching that country and confront my analysis about why it solved its election controversy in a matter of months rather than years like Zambia did. The Supreme Court placed much of the delay in the lack of due diligence by the petitioners in not conforming to the deadlines for filing papers. Election controversies by their very nature should be dealt with with deliberate speed so that some one is not governing by default. In the very end, the very lack of diligence cost the petitioners the case. The delay had nothing to do with the reasons given by Dr. Sikaneta. Imagine if we gave those same excuses for every malaise of the third world!

The treatment of most recently arrived professional immigrants can only be mildly described as professionally disgraceful to them. Most of us have heard or read about professional immigrants like engineers, doctors, lawyers, nurses and others who end up as tax drivers, guards at various institutions, security guards, interpreters, unemployed, underemployed and so on because the responsible professional bodies, government regulatory agencies or other obstacles have prevented these individuals from joining in their professional designations. These are individuals who applied and qualified to come to Canada on the basis of their professional qualifications and ability to find jobs in their fields in Canada. Most if not all of them were never told that there will be professional obstacles in getting jobs in their fields.

If a person was an engineer, lawyer, doctor, nurse etc in their home country and probably worked at least 10 or more years there, the chance is that that person will likely be over thirty years old, married and with children. He or she will likely bring the family here.

Suppose then that that person cannot immediately get a job, a lot of people will be affected by his or her newly found professional destituteness.

We have heard or read about how governments and professional organizations will relax and or fast track these new immigrants into their professional designations in order to prevent the now over-studied professional despair of these individuals. We hear more of this empty promise at or near election time. But nothing has been done at all.

Some of us have personally dealt with people who were professionals in their countries and who start out here desperately trying to find their nitch. It is a most frustrating and lonely experience for these individuals and their families. Some eventually break through but some do not. I will only give you four examples of people I have assisted in establishing themselves here. I use their real names. Because I am a lawyer,

Delano Europa was a Judge in the Philipines for many years. His father had been a prominent lawyer. When he came to Canada he was told that he would have to start from scratch. He had more or less to redo his law studies. The man had been a lawyer and judge in his home land, for God's sake. He had a family to feed. Delano Europa nearly gave up. But he did not. He found a job as a parking lot attendant in the underground garage at 2 Sheppard Avenue east in Toronto. From Judge to Underground parking lot attendant! Could a similarly positioned Canadian Judge descend like that if he or she went to South Africa, Zambia etc. Not in your life time. There these people start at the top.

Delano Europe started studying law part-time at the university of Toronto Law School and completed it at tremendous cost to himself and to his family. I offered him an articling position. He finished and is now a Justice of the Peace in Toronto. But he lost many many years of comfort.

Victor Mubili is an engineer who trained in England. He worked as an engineer in Zambia, US and Saudi Arabia. When he came here on the basis of his professional background, the Professional Organization of Engineers (POE) wanted him to start more or less from the beginning to qualify to be an engineer here, while engineers from England who went to the same engineering school as him were exempted. Victor smelt a rat. Victor hired me to take the Professional Engineers Association to the Ontario Human Rights Commission where we alleged that he was discriminated against, contrary to the Human Rights Code. We went through mediation and the Professional Engineers Association relented and exempted Victor from going through the whole nine yards to qualify to be an engineer in Canada. Victor is now licensed as an Engineer in Canada.

Suvendu Goswami was a successful lawyer in India. He met similar professional roadblocks as Delano Europa. After much struggling and effort, he articled for me at 2 Sheppard Avenue East. He is now a successful lawyer practicing out of his office in Scarborough. Many years were unnecessarily wasted trying to relaunch himself in Canada.

I am now trying to work on and with Bedawi Tago, who was a lawyer in Sudan for about 10 years. The Law Society of Upper Canada told him to redo his entire law school training here. He did that at the University of Windsor. But they did not exempt him from the Bar Admissions program or the law articles. I think it is a disgrace. Tago has a family. He is like a professional nomad. But I can see light at the end of the day, albeit that ruins of his former professional training and self lie scattered all over the place.

Quite a lot of professionals including former bank managers are working as bank tellers, professional office cleaners, tax drivers and so on and they are hurting in every way.

It is no longer enough to talk about bringing people into Canada. We must also talk about what we do with these people once they enter Canada. This is as much a political as it is a legal question.

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