The Daily UbuntuThread 06 · Economy and Inequality · September 25, 2026
What the official numbers say
Income, poverty, access to credit: official numbers show gaps, and therefore levers for action.
1 · The scene
In his car, outside the bank, an entrepreneur rehearses his pitch. He knows his numbers by heart.
He only wonders whether, this time, they will look at his numbers before his face.
Original vignette
2 · The documented case
What the official numbers say
In Quebec, according to the Institut de la statistique du Québec, visible minority people aged 25 to 64 earned an average of $43,840 in employment income in 2019, compared with $56,350 for the rest of the population: a gap of about 22%. The good news: it was 28% in 2015. The gap closes when we act.
Across Canada, Statistics Canada measured a poverty rate of 15.5% among racialized people in 2024, compared with 8.9% among non-racialized people. And according to a survey published in May 2021, 75% of Black entrepreneurs said it would be difficult for them to find $10,000 for their business; only 19% trusted their bank.
Behind the averages there are faces. On December 20, 2019, in Vancouver, Maxwell Johnson, of the Heiltsuk Nation, and his 12-year-old granddaughter were handcuffed by police while trying to open an account at the Bank of Montreal. In 2022, the Vancouver Police Board acknowledged discrimination based on Indigenous identity.
3 · The voice
“I am because we are.”
4 · The question
In your setting, who gets a second chance without having to ask for it?
Sources
- Institut de la statistique du Québec, portrait of visible minorities in the labour market, 2023 (in French). statistique.quebec.ca
- Statistics Canada, Canadian Income Survey 2024. www150.statcan.gc.ca
- Survey on Black entrepreneurship in Canada (FACE, Abacus Data), May 26, 2021. www.newswire.ca
- CBC, settlement in the Maxwell Johnson case, 2022. www.cbc.ca
Every figure on this page links to a verifiable public source.
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