My experience of minorites in Canada, based on the experiences of ONE family:
One ex-uncle in law's experiences in Victoria:
He'd responded to a job add one day, and they'd said the post was filled already. he was suspicious, so he asked a white friend to check, and sure enough, the job was still available. Later, this uncle got a job in the government and bought a nice car. Whenever he wore a baseball cap while driving, he could almost guarantee that a cop would pull him over. Regular occurrence.
An ex-brother-in-law's experience:
In Victoria:
He'd get stopped and questioned by the same cop over and over again. Finally one day when the cop stopped him, he'd addressed the cop by name and asked for the cops ID number. Only then did the cop stop harassing him.
In Montreal:
He was looking for an apartment, and they said none available. He knew one was available, so he sent me in to check. Sure enough, it was available, I've got white skin.
Another ex-brother-in-law in Kitchener-Waterloo:
He'd decided to start growing dreadlockes one day. A week later he was attracting cops like bears to honey!
My ex-wife in Victoria along with the first brother mentioned above:
They were accused by the refugee board of having lied about how long they'd been in Canada. Reason: Their English was too good to have been in Canada such a short time! They'd explained that Ethiopia has... just wait for this... quality schools! Their lawyer helped overturn it on the grounds that it was racist. So what di the boear do? They'd decided to cancel the whole process and start the whole process again from scratch! Another year of interviews because of a bunch of old biggots in government.
My personal experiences:
At a high school in Quebec, one of my colleagues, a geography teacher, casually referred to the First Nations as 'savages'. And two other retired teachers from the same school openly talked of Jews as being stingy and talking disparagingly of foreigners. One student said that I might have mulatto kids in the future.
Once I'd married, my wife had lost many of her black friends and even received anonymous threats to her safety!
Yes, and that's just in Canada, and the experiences of but one family. If this is the experience of but one family (and I can't imagine that it's this particular family would somehow just be so unlucky as to attract a disproportiaonal amount of racism), then I must assume that this experience is normal for black people across Canada. These were accumulated experiences of this one family in Victoria, Montreal, Kitchener-Waterloo, and La Malbaie-Pointe-aux-Pic, Charlevoix. I think that ought to be a fair representation of the Canadian mindset.
I hate to say it, but the vast majority of my compatriots are biggots, even among the educated classes. And it's reflected at the ballot box too.