Anti-Racism Legislation Public Questionnaire Report
Executive Summary
The anti-racism legislation engagement builds on the recently developed Anti-Racism Data Act.
It aims to inform the provincial government’s efforts to dismantle systemic racism and address the harms experienced by Indigenous and racialized peoples in British Columbia.
One outcome of these efforts will be a set of provincial anti-racist and anti-discrimination laws.
The engagement includes this public survey and discussions led by 68 community organizations. CultureAlly, the contractor hired by the Ministry of Attorney General, has summarized those community discussions in a separate report.
This report summarizes the findings of the public survey that was available online in 15 languages, ran from June 5, 2023, to October 3, 2023, and collected a total of 2,179 responses.
No question in the survey was mandatory and it consisted of:
- 10 thematic questions
- Multiple open-ended questions to collect feedback in respondents’ own words
- 10 demographic questions with the choice “Prefer not to answer”
Based on the results of this survey, the public felt that the provincial government should prioritize anti-racism education and training for public servants to tackle systemic racism in B.C. Similarly, the top three written suggestion actions were addressing the system and structure of the public service, improving and funding community supports, and expanding K-12 anti-racism education. Throughout the survey results, there was a consistent theme of denial of systemic racism and racial trauma across all demographic groups. The content of this feedback ranged from overt racist remarks to implied racism and victimhood. Rather than addressing the theme of denialism within every question, a summary of analysis is included.
8-1-1|Healthlink BC or 7-1-1 and the BC Human Rights Tribunal were the most recognized services available to people impacted by systemic racism. Respondents also supplied a list of other community service providers, such as Friendship Centres, First Nations Health Authority and Resilience BC. Other regional services were mentioned like the South Okanagan Immigrant and Community Services. Cultural safety, relevance, confidentiality and user-friendliness were the most important features respondents expected when accessing support services.
For respondents who declared having a religious connection, coordination of services was the most important.
Just over half of respondents said they would access restorative justice programs for a racist incident. Willingness to access these programs was mostly consistent across ethnic, religious and gender backgrounds.
The top three values prompted by the word multiculturalism were: respect, diversity and acceptance. The word anti-racism prompted values of education, respect and equity. Respect and inclusion were values shared across both terms. When respondents were asked to rank the six listed values, equity and inclusion were ranked as most important.
Respondents expressed that healing from racial trauma involves community building, sharing and provision of supports for those who experience it, along with awareness and education. There was also a consistent theme of denialism focused on not believing racial trauma exists. Provision of supports was a top priority for Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC).
In addition to the consistent themes of denialism and racism, there were some other recurring themes across the survey, specifically:
- Education (especially K-12): the need to start anti-racism education from the earliest levels to graduation
- Awareness: the need to amplify anti-racism and anti-discrimination messages within public discourse
- Intersectionality: the importance of understanding how racism connects to patterns of privilege and inequalities