The Pursuit of Division: Race, Gender, and Preferential Hiring in CanadaLoney takes issue with popular attitudes toward race and gender, whereby to be born a woman or a member of a visible minority is to enter life at a disadvantage and therefore be entitled to compensatory provision. Arguing that social class not group membership determines life chances, he refutes the claims of those who detect systemic prejudice and discrimination and reap considerable public subsidy in return. From the release of the Abella report to the present, Loney sets the growth of federal involvement in preferential hiring in the context of a growing industry whose success depends on the constant affirmation of group grievance based on gender or race. He argues that preferential hiring policies and a muddled multiculturalism leads to the continual assertion of the primacy of race even as the government officially opposes racial thinking. Loney discusses many up-to-date and high profile examples, including Bob Rae's preoccupation with skin and gender politics, Brian Mulroney's attempts to strengthen the Conservative Party's ethnic constituency by funding ethnic groups and maintaining high levels of immigration, and former defence minister David Colinette's extensive use of public funds to court ethnic voters in his Toronto constituency. The Pursuit of Division will be essential reading for anyone concerned about where government-mandated policies on equity and multiculturalism may be taking us and about the implications of emphasizing the politics of difference over that of shared community. |
Contents
The New Orthodoxy Race Gender and the Politics of Grievance | 3 |
Orthodoxy Asserting Race and Gender Inequality | 22 |
Canadian Feminists and the Cultivation of Racial Grievance | 50 |
Beyond Orthodoxy Canadian Race Relations in International and Historical Perspective | 78 |
Rebutting Orthodoxy The Myth of Racial Discrimination in the Canadian Labour Market | 107 |
Government by Race and Gender | 129 |
Endorsing Orthodoxy The Abella Report and Federal Employment Equity Legislation | 160 |
Lies Damn Lies and Federal Employment Equity Data | 182 |
Other editions - View all
Pursuit of Division: Race, Gender and Preferential Hiring in Canada Martin Loney Limited preview - 1998 |
Pursuit of Division: Race, Gender and Preferential Hiring in Canada Martin Loney Limited preview - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
Abella able-bodied white males aboriginal agenda appear appointment black Canadians Board bureaucrats Canadian Heritage candidates CBC Radio census cent Chinese Chinese Canadian CHRC Citizenship claim Committee contemporary Council cultural demands disadvantage earnings economic employees employment equity equality ethnic groups evidence experience faculty failed favour federal female feminist full-time funding Globe and Mail graduates grievance group membership historic Human Rights Commission ibid identity politics immigrants income issues Judy Rebick labour force labour market large number levels ment merit multicultural NAC's offered Ontario Women's Directorate organizations orthodoxy Ottawa Citizen population positions preferential hiring advocates professor promotion public service qualification racial minorities racism Rebick recruitment refugee response result Show Boat social society Statistics Canada status suggested Sunera Thobani target Thobani tion Toronto University University of Toronto victims visible minority women women of colour workers