Quote:
Originally Posted by lio45
Religious affiliations, maybe (because as a society we tend to insist on secularism and laws priming over religion)... the rest, not really.
Does Alberta have black provincial MPs? Muslim provincial MPs? A black provincial Minister? We do, so that's not an obstacle to election, or having your limo after you're elected.
Amos, QC (one the larger towns in Abitibi... but you don't really get any more Rural Quebec than that) has had a black mayor for over a decade, and he's been a city councillor since the early 1990s... that's rural Quebec. Do Fort MacLeod, Taber, have ever had black mayors? Or any such place? (Not sure how apples-to-apples that is, but I'm trying.)
You can find racism absolutely everywhere on this planet, but that's, as you say, anecdotal. And there might be more to the story that I (or you) don't know about. You say he's a born and raised Calgarian... did he speak our language fluently? All things considered I would think that a white who doesn't (in everyday life) is likely to get frowned upon more than anyone 'brown' who does.
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We can all bring up anecdotal examples of assumed tolerance or intolerance.
For example, the first black person elected as a a mayor in North America was elected by the French Canadian lumber town of Mattawa, Ontario on the Quebec border in 1964: Firmin Monplaisir.
In 1973 the 99.99% francophone and white Quebec town of Gagnon (now a ghost town) elected Haitian immigrant René Coicou as mayor and he remained mayor for many years.
And my own provincial riding here in Gatineau elected Haitian immigrant Jean Alfred as its rep at the National Assembly in 1976. Alfred, who was a member of the PQ, may have been the only non-white resident of the riding at the time.