THUNDER BAY -- Anti-racism initiatives seem to be having little to no impact on the community, says a frustrated councillor Rebecca Johnson.
The long-time city councillor has been working on issues like diversity and racism since the early 90s. Some days, like on Tuesday when the Toronto Star published a story on the extent of racism in this city, she feels like none of the initiatives have made any progress.
"What am I doing? I seem to be going backwards now and I'm concerned about that," Johnson, who helped found the city's anti-racism committee in 2009 said.
For locals, The Star article doesn’t present anything new. It does, however, serve as a grim reminder that the city needs to seriously ask itself whether or not it wants to be a welcoming community that treats all its citizens with respect.
Asking the federal and provincial governments for help to tackle social issues like poverty and addictions may seem like a step in the right direction, Johnson says the city itself still needs to own up to its racism and fix it.
"We have to take ownership for this. The fact is that we have racism. City council identified that a few year ago so what are we going to do about it?" she asked.
"You can't tell me that Trudeau is going to stand up and say there's going to be no more racism, that's not going to happen. Wynne is not going to do that either but this community has to decide. We have racism and what kind of a community do we want."
For Johnson, education is the key, day after day, one person at a time.
"You cannot have a program tomorrow or a workshop tomorrow and then we're going to get rid of racism, that's never going to happen," she said.
There are initiatives within the city itself from the Thunder Bay Police Service's Zone Watch to the Crime Prevention Council that are trying to make a difference.
Johnson said she was surprised that the article really only touched on a recent group, the Guardian Angels, as the only organization addressing the city's problems.
"It sounds as though they are doing everything that can be done but where are all the other organizations that are working on this?"
