HANNAFORD: Ottawa's 'ridiculous' obsession with racism costs all of us

The federal government’s obsession with racism is ‘ridiculous’ says Dr. Mark Milke, tonight’s guest on the ‘Hannaford’ show. Hannaford airs tonight at 7:00pm, on the Western Standard website.“The federal government funds a lot of universities with SSHRC grants, and advocacy groups through Heritage Canada to tell Canadians they are racist and that there's potentially an explosion of people with funny looking moustaches and wearing brown shirts, just around the corner, as if this was 1937. That this problem is there and that they foster this belief in some quarters that it's the main threat facing Canada, is just ridiculous.".To the degree that there is a disparity in outcomes for different groups says Milke — the supposed evidence for systemic racism — it can usually be traced back to completely unrelated factors."I think they (the government) would like the main issue these days to be systemic racism and not say, housing prices or lack of education for certain statistical cohorts in society right?""These situations might improve if these cohorts have a trade or university. But the argument is that every difference in outcome between cohort X or and cohort Y must be due to hate. And that argument is actually not really that defensible."Dr. Milke points out that East Asian Canadians are at the top, white people are in the middle and blacks and indigenous Canadians are at the bottom. But that's explained in part tby education levels. "In some cases, it's explained in part by how long a cohort has been in the country. Or for indigenous Canadians it might be the distance from opportunity or education. If you're in the middle of a reserve in northern Manitoba, chances are economic opportunities or less which in part explains your lower income on average.""But these things don't seem to matter to the current federal government, or to others across the country in universities. Theis preferred view is that racism explains all differences in outcomes, and it's really nothing to do with geography, education, time in the country or whether you know French or English.'Dr. Milke speaks in particular about the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a group that recently received a $640,000 grant "for research" from Heritage Canada. The group claims among other things that a Christian pro-life group is a “hate movement,” that most haters are white boys and men and that Canada's Red Ensign was a hate symbol.

HANNAFORD: Ottawa's 'ridiculous' obsession with racism costs all of us

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