最好的問候, The Chinese Canadian Collective chinesecanadianco.weebly.com
Monday May 4, 2020
Dear City Councillors and Staff,
We hope this letter finds you well. We know this is a difficult and stressful time to coordinate efforts to address COVID-19 and keep people in the city safe. We are writing to you today to talk about how racism amplified by COVID-19 is affecting people in Ottawa.
Last year, a report showed the following findings through a project partially funded by the Government of Ontario (Appendix A):
People were often racist and aggressive to Chinese and Vietnamese seniors on OC Transpo, who face additional repercussions for speaking their mother tongue. These experiences have caused depression for Chinese and Vietnamese seniors in the community
Healthcare administrators in Ottawa treat racialized clients who have accents or language barriers worst and with less respect
Black and racialized youth didn't think people could help them, and didn't want to have children so they wouldn't have to "bury them early"
We know COVID-19 amplifies these disparities with increased Anti-Asian racism and the racial profiling and overpolicing of BIPOC communities. On our website, we compiled several articles reporting incidents of Anti-Asian racism in Ottawa and across Canada. We’ve heard stories of people coughing on, yelling at, harassing, and assaulting people who appear or are perceived to be Asian. We also know that many incidents go unreported.
We support Councillor Rawlson King's inquiry, led by Ottawa’s Black community, for Ottawa Public Health to collect race-based data and analyze and create COVID-19 measures through a racialized lens.
We hope you will work to integrate anti-racism policy within measures addressing COVID-19--we know racism is affecting people now and will continue to have lasting impacts after the pandemic.
We are asking councillors to commit to, and go beyond the followings asks:
1) Address general and Anti-Asian racism and discrimination in your ward and in the city through policy and public outreach campaigns, such as social media and print, that educate people about bystander intervention and challenging racism (Appendix B).
2) Address racism in front-line services such as health care, transit, and library and recreation services provided by the City of Ottawa. For years, we have witnessed and heard stories about people being treated poorly and disrespectfully by city staff in transit, health care and recreation because of their race or language. We know this is amplified during the crisis. Let’s work to address this.
3) Address health, class, and income inequities that Black and racialized bodies face by collecting disaggregated race-based data in healthcare and using this information to address disparities. Please let us know if you and your office will be dedicated towards this cause.