Here is a thoughtful article by Mr. Mario Dumont. Entitled “Clientelist drift” [La dérive clientéliste], it was published yesterday in the Journal de Montréal:
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/09/11/la-derive-clienteliste
Below is a quick translation for you. This post will end with an earlier post by Bambi on the same topic.
“Justin Trudeau has just announced a support program for black entrepreneurs. I put aside my general impatience for the Prime Minister to hand out borrowed money wholeheartedly. We are now talking about a deficit for the year that could reach $500 billion. Stunning.
Instead, I want to question the merits of an approach based on ethnic origin to dealing with entrepreneurship. Starting a business in Canada is open to everyone. Establishing a racial criterion to qualify or not an individual for financial assistance brings us on a slippery slope [for Bambi, this slippery slope is more dangerous than corruption… imagine when they collude one day, like in Beirut ☹].
Let us not deny that discrimination exists. Mr. Trudeau said yesterday that people from black communities have more difficulty than others when obtaining a loan. This is a serious problem.
Real problem
I will strongly support a government that gets to the bottom of it to understand why a visible minority person would encounter such obstacles. A black person who presents a solid project should never be said no because of their colour. Unacceptable for applying for a loan in a bank, unacceptable for seeking aid in a state program.
But would it be more acceptable to give public money to a void project because of the colour of the promoter? I do not believe so.
The response of the Trudeau government is not to get to the root of the problem of discrimination. Rather, we prefer to get around the situation by creating a specific program for blacks. Without realizing it, the government comforts those who discriminate against blacks, who will think that they now have their own agenda anyway.
Obviously, we recognize in Justin Trudeau’s announcement a deep political patronage. When you target an action so clearly on a group, you hope that community members will remember the generosity of government [Bambi will allow herself to add the following: this is how exponential levels of clientelism must have first started in Lebanon… about 100 years ago. Do we want Canada to look like Lebanon in 100 years from now?]. But this patronage drawn from politics and then transplanted into government action does not bode well.
Criteria
I seriously wonder about the handling by state officers of this racial criterion. Who is black in 2020? More and more young people likely to become entrepreneurs are the children of couples where the two parents are not of the same origin. Many members of the Haitian community in Quebec do not marry a Haitian spouse.
With the randomness of genetics, their children can have a more or less black . More or less curly hair. What if the next generation gives us beautiful children with an Asian or Latino spouse, is the loan seeker still black enough? Does anyone really want to enter the ethnic eligibility tests? Ouf!
Once engaged in this approach based on ethnic belonging, what will be the response to Pakistanis, Arabs, Asians or indigenous Peruvians who will also claim to be victims of discrimination? An economic program for each ethnic group?
Real problem, bad solution.”
