Ten Years Later, the UN Comes Back to Listen

From September 28 to October 9, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Ashwini K.P., is travelling across Canada: Ottawa, Quebec City, Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto. She is meeting federal and provincial authorities, as well as members of racialized groups, community organizations and researchers. She will share her preliminary observations on October 9 in Ottawa, and present her report to the Human Rights Council in June 2027.

It is not the first time. From October 17 to 21, 2016, a UN group of experts on people of African descent visited Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax and Montreal. Its report concluded that slavery, segregation and marginalization had left Canada with a legacy of anti-Black racism. It noted that in Montreal, African Canadians had the highest poverty rates among visible minorities, and that in Toronto, children of African descent were heavily overrepresented among those in the care of the Children's Aid Society.

Steps followed. In 2018, Canada recognized the International Decade for People of African Descent, and in 2024 it welcomed the adoption of a second decade, running to 2034. In Ontario, starting in 2016, more than 800 members of the Black community helped build a practice framework, One Vision One Voice, to help children's aid societies better serve Black families.

But the recommendation to apologize and consider reparations for slavery is still waiting. And one question remains: when a family falters, do we see it as a danger, or as a family to support? Entrusting a child to a whole village rather than to suspicion alone: perhaps that is where repair begins.