e-6484 (Social affairs and equality)

The Government of Canada would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns.

The Government of Canada remains committed to supporting the full inclusion of Black communities across the country through concrete measures that not only recognize their heritage and contribution to shaping the country's identity but also address the systemic barriers and inequalities that Black people in Canada continue to face.

In 2018, Canada recognized the first International Decade for People of African Descent (2015–2024), and in 2024, Canada co-sponsored the UN resolution to launch the second International Decade for People of African Descent (2025–2034). The Decades affirm that people of African descent form a distinct community whose human rights must be promoted and protected. Since 2018, the Government has made significant investments in Black-focused and Black-led initiatives to empower Black communities, combat anti-Black racism, and dismantle systemic barriers nationwide.

The Government of Canada has taken important steps to formally acknowledge and honour the legacy of the vital contributions of people of African descent to Canada’s history, beginning with the first documented African Nova Scotian who arrived in the early 17th century. This includes designating more than 40 people, places, and events of national historic significance that reflect the importance of Black communities to Canada’s shared heritage. These designations—including Africville, and figures such as Richard Pierpoint and Mary Ann Shadd—recognize past tragedies and injustices while celebrating the perseverance, resistance, resilience, and strength of Black Canadians.

Notably, the House of Commons voted unanimously in March 2021 to officially designate August 1 as Emancipation Day. It marks the actual day in 1834 that the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came into effect across the British Empire and laid a pathway for the liberation of over 800,000 enslaved Africans and their descendants in parts of the Caribbean, Africa, South America, and Canada. The Celebrations of Emancipation Day were recognized as National Historic Events in 2022. Additionally, in July 2022, the Government of Canada issued a formal apology to members of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, for the anti-Black hate and systemic racism they faced that denied them dignity in life and in death.

The Government of Canada has also initiated key measures to confront rising incidents of anti-Black hate and hate crimes targeting Canadian communities, including Black and Afro-descendant communities. In 2024, the Government renewed Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy and launched the Action Plan on Combatting Hate. Together, these frameworks will empower communities to respond to racism and hate, expand research and data gathering on hate crimes, including systemic anti-Black racism and anti-Black hate, and forge a whole-of-government coordination to prevent, detect, and respond to racism and hate incidents.

In September 2025, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada introduced the Combatting Hate Act, which would amend the Criminal Code to:

1. Make it a crime to intimidate or obstruct people from accessing places of worship, schools, community centres, and other spaces primarily used by an identifiable group.
2. Establish hate-motivated crime as a distinct offence, ensuring clearer denunciation and accountability.
3. Criminalize the willful public promotion of hatred against an identifiable group by displaying certain terrorism or hate symbols.

These proposed offences apply to federal crimes motivated by hatred based on protected grounds such as race, religion, sexual orientation, and sex. Penalties will be calibrated to reflect the harm caused, with higher maximum sentences for more serious conduct.

In addition, the Government has implemented several measures to tackle systemic anti-Black racism, advance the social and economic inclusion and improve the well-being of Black people in Canada.  These commitments include:

• The Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative (SBCCI) which aims to build capacity in Black communities in Canada by providing funding to Black-led and Black-serving not-for-profit organizations. Over 3,000 projects have been funded to grow charities and non-profit organizations, for Black Canadians, by Black Canadians.  As part of SBCCI, the Government established the Canadian Institute for People of African Ancestry in August 2024, as a national institute that will support Canada’s efforts to tackle racism and systemic discrimination by serving as a centre for research, knowledge, and community engagement.

• Canada’s Black Justice Strategy which aims to help address the systemic discrimination and anti-Black racism that has resulted in the overrepresentation of Black individuals in Canada’s criminal justice system, including as victims of crime. In February 2025, the Government released an Implementation Plan which announced a 10-year framework to advance the Strategy’s objectives.

• The Black-led Philanthropic Endowment Fund which is a sustainable source of funding dedicated to supporting the efforts Black-led, Black-focused, and Black-serving (B3) charities and social purpose organizations in fighting anti-Black racism and improving social and economic outcomes in Black communities. The Fund has invested in 268 B3 organizations across Canada.     

• The Black Entrepreneurship Program, which supports Black Canadian business owners and entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and empower them to succeed by increasing their access to capital. Nearly 16,000 businesses have been supported nationally.

• The Mental Health of Black Canadians Fund, which supports the mental health of Black individuals and communities, with the aim of supporting more culturally focused knowledge, capacity, and programs that address mental health and its determinants for Black people in Canada.

• The National Housing Co-Investment Fund which will assist Black Canadians facing housing needs by supporting Black-led organizations to build housing, as well as more affordable housing for Black renter households in Canada.

• Supporting Black post-secondary student researchers and postdoctoral researchers, by increasing financial support at the undergraduate, Master’s, Doctoral and Postdoctoral levels. Administered by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council addresses the disproportionate underfunding of Black scholars at all stages of their careers and contributes to a more equitable, diverse and inclusive research ecosystem.

• Investing in legacy projects such as the former Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children, for which funding was provided to renovate and transform this major historical site into an accessible community hub for the African-Nova Scotian community. In May 2024, the Government provided funding to the Montreal Afro-Canadian Cultural Centre (MACC), which will enable it to pursue its mission of becoming a focal point and gathering place for the city's Black communities, as well as a space for intercultural exchange for the general public in Montreal, Quebec and Canada. 

The Government also supports measures not exclusively dedicated to Black communities, which have positive impacts for Black communities including:

• The Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat, which leads a whole-of-government approach to working with federal organizations, other orders of government and civil society, to identify systemic racial barriers and gaps, develop new initiatives, and consider the impacts of new and existing policies, services and programs on racialized communities.

• The Local Food Infrastructure Fund to support projects that strengthen community food security and increase the availability and accessibility of local, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food through food production-focused activities for equity-deserving groups, particularly Indigenous and Black communities.

• The Disaggregated Data Action Plan which is a whole-of- government approach to strengthen the government’s efforts to address systemic racism and gender gaps, leading to better and more equitable decision-making for all Canadians. 

The Government of Canada is committed to building a stronger future, where everyone can reach their full potential, and will continue its progress in implementing targeted measures to support Black communities throughout the second International Decade for People of African descent. To do this well, the Government will engage with partners and communities across the country to ensure that federal programs and services reflect the realities and needs of Black Canadians.

The Government of Canada recognizes the unique challenges that Black Canadian communities face and understands the importance of combatting racism, including anti-Black racism, systemic discrimination, and hate in all of its forms.?The Government of Canada continues to take actions in combatting racism and discrimination in Canada so that all Canadians, including Canadians of African descent, benefit from equitable access to and participation in Canada’s economic, cultural, social, and political life. 

Combatting Anti-Black Racism 

In 2024, the Department of Canadian Heritage led the launch of the Government of Canada’s renewed anti-racism strategy, Changing Systems, Transforming Lives: Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy 2024-2028, which aims to address systemic racism and improve the quality of life of people facing racism in Canada. Through the Strategy, the Government is investing $110.4 million to drive action in employment, justice and law enforcement, housing, health care, and immigration. To strengthen the effectiveness of the Strategy, the Department of Canadian Heritage will also establish a Ministerial Advisory Committee comprised of experts, community members, and grassroots organizations to advise the Minister on emerging and evolving anti-racism and anti-hate issues. This Committee will ensure that Black communities have representation at the table and that priorities for Black Canadians are heard at the highest levels of government.  

Combatting Hate 

Canada's commitment to addressing hate is formalized in Canada’s Action Plan on Combatting Hate. Data on hate crimes shows that Black Canadians are among the most disproportionately targeted communities. Led by the Department of Canadian Heritage, the launch of the Action Plan has been pivotal in coordinating a whole-of-government response. This Action Plan has strategically allocated crucial funding to various federal organizations, including Women and Gender Equality Canada, Statistics Canada, Public Safety Canada, and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. These investments of $273.6 million over six years, and $29.3 million ongoing, are supporting essential programs that help track hate crime statistics, assist and provide resources for victims of hate-motivated crimes across the country, and make community gathering places safer for at-risk communities. Investments from the Action Plan also supported the launch of the new Changing Narratives Fund at the Department of Canadian Heritage, which will further break down systemic barriers, empower diverse voices in the cultural and media sectors, and build understanding between communities. This funding program supports the greater participation of diverse communities in the media and cultural industries, so that the stories, experiences, and perspectives of Indigenous, Black, racialized, ethnoreligious minority, and 2SLGBTQI+ people, and persons with disabilities will be better represented. 

The Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program 

The Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program at the Department of Canadian Heritage provides funding to initiatives that promote diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism. Through Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy 2024-2028, the Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program has received an additional investment of $70 million in grants and contributions that communities can access to launch events and projects or build capacity in organizations that are already doing the work of combatting racism and building intercultural and interfaith understanding. 

The Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program has invested significantly in Black-focussed initiatives that honour the history, culture, accomplishments, contributions, and future of Black Canadians and their communities, including: 

• The Community Support for Black Canadian Youth initiative, which allocated $8.1 million in funding over four years to support 57 projects that empowered Black youth through the development of leadership skills; the promotion of Black history, culture, and identity; and civic engagement; 

• The “Say it Loud” National Anti-Black Racism Education and Awareness Campaign; which engaged over 10,000 Black youth nationwide, and received $430,000; 

• Funding support totalling $8 million for over 300 Black History Month events between 2018 and 2024; 

• Funding support totalling $224,850 for Emancipation Day events between 2021 and 2025; 

• Prioritizing the allocation of the Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program funding for events that marked the start of the second United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent. 

Recognition and Celebration 

Since February 1996, the Government of Canada’s Black History Month campaign has highlighted the crucial contributions of Black Canadians to the settlement, growth, and development of Canada, the diversity of Black communities in Canada, and their importance to the history of this country. More recently, on March 24, 2021, the House of Commons voted unanimously to designate August 1?as?Emancipation Day?in Canada.?It marks the day in 1834 when the?Slavery Abolition Act of 1833?came into effect across the British Empire. 

Every year, the Department of Canadian Heritage?organizes major events and leads work for the Government of Canada’s celebration of Black History Month by highlighting the Black Canadians who have helped shape Canada's heritage and identity and who have made and continue to make a significant contribution to the prosperity of our country. Each year, organizations across the country draw inspiration from the Government of Canada's Black History Month campaign to encourage learning, diversity, and inclusion. 

Following the 2017 United Nations report urging Canada to address the overrepresentation of Black people in the justice system, the Government of Canada began developing Canada’s Black Justice Strategy in collaboration with federal, provincial, territorial, and community partners. To guide this work, an external Steering Group of nine experts and leaders from Black communities was established in 2023 to provide strategic advice on the development of the Strategy.

Their 2024 report, A Roadmap for Transformative Change, traced the roots of systemic anti-Black racism in Canada and made 114 recommendations for legislative and policy reform. In response, the Government released Toward Transformative Change: An Implementation Plan for Canada’s Black Justice Strategy in February 2025, acknowledging that anti-Black racism remains embedded in Canadian institutions and committing to a 10-year plan to eliminate it.

This government remains firmly committed to implementing Canada’s Black Justice Strategy. The Steering Group’s recommendations are under review, including those related to legislative reform and institutional accountability. As part of this commitment, the Minister of Justice introduced Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, on September 19, 2025, to strengthen protections against hate-motivated crimes—recognizing that Black Canadians continue to be the most frequently targeted group for race-based hate in Canada