The pandemic has exposed glaring inequalities in Canadian society. Susan Delacourt writes:
For the past year, Canadians have been forced to rein in a lot of their rights — their liberty, their freedom to assemble, to name just two.
But equality, or the lack of it, has continued to elbow its way into the existential conversations taking place in a year of pandemic living.
Canada may not be a more equal nation when the pandemic is over, but we’ll know a lot more about where inequality exists. Whether we do anything about it lies at the heart of all those promises to “build back better.”
“The legacy of the lost year will be devastating inequality,” Bloomberg news announced in a headline over a recent special to mark the first anniversary of the COVID-19 crisis. This past year, it said, “amplified every structural bias that exists.”
Those inequalities can no longer be ignored:
Across North America and many other parts of the world, people stepped out of pandemic isolation to say “enough” to racism in the wake of George Floyd’s death last spring. It was almost as if the hardship of pandemic living had sharpened awareness of racial inequality and lit a fuse that still burns.
Here in Canada, Black women made serious, historic strides in two leadership contests. The Greens elected Annamie Paul to lead them into the next election, and the Conservative leadership race was energized by the unexpected surge in support for Leslyn Lewis, who will be one of the co-hosts of the party’s big convention this weekend.
Those who chose to turn a blind eye to the inequalities have paid a price:
Politicians were punished most severely when they failed to be mindful of equality with their voters — travelling over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays while others were forced to stay home, acting as though they were above the limits that are supposed to be endured universally in a pandemic. Trudeau’s most serious ethical controversy over the past year touched on whether one charity was being singled out for special treatment.
The next federal budget will tell us if any lessons have been learned over the last year.
dchas.org
