‘Good Intentions’ that ‘Do Harm’: Canada's state multiculturalism policy in the case of Black Canadians

Abstract

This essay identifies Canada's recognition of the United Nations Declaration for People of African Descent (UNDPAD) as a multiculturalist iteration. In this scope, the essay discusses the Community Support, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Initiatives (CSMARI) program as a central element of state multiculturalism, through which Canada plans to meet commitments to Black Canadians—and by extension, the UNDPAD. Although the CSMARI program is well intended, it causes harm to Black Canadians by reinscribing stereotyped material lack and other forms of racialized scarcity. Rather than address longstanding social-economic histories that sustain racialized poverty, state multiculturalism policy inadvertently reinforces these. The CSMARI program's focus on material lack as opposed to the systemic aspects that underpin these, amplifies Canada's multicultural myth of inclusivity while leaving unquestioned the cultural barriers that block Black citizens. State multiculturalism policy maintains the status quo by commodifying and depoliticizing anti-racism, while also neutralizing the language of naming experiences of exclusion. This essay adapts an anti-Black racism feminist theory to recast state multiculturalism as, implicitly, a cause of harm. The paper questions ‘good intentions’ that ‘do harm’ as a critical reflection that speaks to the dissonance expressed by Black Canadians, despite state multiculturalism policy.