Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to today's episode of Red Eye. I'm Jane Williams. Over the summer, o we're bringing you some of the highlights of our 2025-26 season, which wrapped up in mid-May.
Speaker: We're going to be back with our brand new fall season in September. Our first live radio broadcast will be on September 19th on Vancouver Cooperative Radio CFRO 100.5 FM and streaming live at coopradio.org slash red eye.
Speaker: Podcasts of interviews from that show will be posted the following week. In this episode, Laurentism speaks with Les Jacobs about the harms of racial profiling in advance of a BC Human Rights Tribunal hearing into discrimination against two Heiltsuk members.
Speaker: A new expert report examines the pervasive yet under-recognized phenomenon of consumer racial profiling against Indigenous peoples in Canada. The report says it's likely that consumer racial profiling is the most pervasive and frequent experience of racism experienced by Indigenous communities.
Speaker: The HealthSick Nation released the report as part of filings for a BC Human Rights Tribunal complaint that will be coming up in October. The report was co-authored by Dr. Lorne Foster and Dr. Leslie Jacobs.
Speaker: Leslie Jacobs is a professor and the Vice President of Research and Innovation at Ontario Tech University, and he's here with me now. Hello, Les. Hi, good morning.
Speaker: Great to talk to you today. Can you describe what consumer racial profiling typically looks like? ah So it it really is a phenomena.
Speaker: It's a little bit diverse in the sense that you sort of know it when you see it, in the sense that ah an Indigenous person or somebody who's perceived to be Indigenous comes into a shop or a store and they are treated differently.
Speaker: differently They're treated with typically a level of suspicion or scrutinized in a way that isn't typical. And the thought is that it's tied to their identity, and or at least their perceived identity.
Speaker: So um it might be that they have their their knapsack situation. check or that when they go to pay things at the cashier, they're scrutinized whether they've included everything going through the till.
Speaker: That sort of phenomena. And like I said, it's it's not necessarily aggressive in the sense that most of us are used to, say, a phenomena of racial profiling involving police officers.
Speaker: traffic stops or police street checks, these kinds of things. Whereas this is really, on the surface, relatively minor invasions. But we really think that the phenomena is so common and every day. And it sort of adds up to sort of a thousand cuts kind of metaphor.
Speaker: It's not limited just to stores or or retail operations. Where else does it happen? ah So, for example, for sure it can happen in banks. It can happen in other venues where really the the person is a consumer engaged in some kind of transaction, commercial transaction.
Speaker: They might be buying a service. They might be ah inquiring about a service. They may be looking for an opportunity to invest or a wide range of kinds of opportunities that, broadly speaking, we characterize this consumer or commercial activity.
Speaker: Now, Les, in your report, you say that retail racial profiling is a deceptive and particularly damaging type of racial discrimination. Draw that out for us. Sure. I mean, they one one aspect of it is that It really has this everyday aspect to it in the sense that people's interactions, say, with the police are typically not multi-times a day.
Speaker: Whereas as consumers, we often have consumer interactions all the time. So from that point of view, it's quite pervasive. ah Secondly, it really often ends up that people People who are subject to that kind of level of scrutiny wonder whether they've done something wrong, whether they've somehow...
Speaker: prompted the extra scrutiny. Were they dressed properly? Did they look like they were drunk or something of that sort? Did they look unusually poor? or Those kinds of features. So it creates a lot of self-doubt and really undermines people's confidence in the interactions.
Speaker: I have to say it was painful, heartbreaking to to read the report and to realize the pervasiveness of it. And the report talks about the cumulative effects of microaggressions when shopping while indigenous. How can this repetitive discriminatory treatment impact racialized peoples and communities?
Speaker: Well, one very important feature, I think, of in distinctive, or not unique, but distinctive of indigenous communities is that these interactions, these painful interactions, are typically felt not only by individuals, but by the community on the whole. And so in that sense, they are aggressions against the community. And that's that's something for some of us, but with those of us who aren't from Indigenous communities, can often struggle a bit about.
Speaker: But that that's an aspect, an important aspect, we think about what differentiates it. Most of us, since especially truth and reconciliation has sort of come to the forefront, many of us appreciate now that residential schools were attacked not only on particular individuals, but were aggressions, violations of entire communities. And to a certain extent, that's what we are also pointing to in the case of consumer racial profiling.
Speaker: that's That's certainly a a key part of what we characterize as the traumatic impacts. And for for individuals who are part of those communities, they also suffer ah mental and physical health effects from it.
Speaker: Yes, the evidence is quite clear. and British Columbia in particular has had pioneering research about the mental health impacts in Indigenous communities, about the range of behaviour So it it is a relatively well-documented phenomena that there are these health effects. And most of us also appreciate that mental health impacts are closely tied also to other physical health impacts.
Speaker: Les, how do you hope your expert report can assist in the human rights hearing of the Heltzik couple, Don and Richard Wilson, in the complaint that they've brought against Canadian Tire and others?
Speaker: Well, an important piece of our report is to say that there's been surprisingly little research on this phenomena. In fact, our report is the first significant report done in Canada. So it it is an area that's been heavily neglected by researchers, surprising given its sort of pervasiveness.
Speaker: But probably crucially, we see our report as doing two things. One is to situate their experience, to say that it wasn't an isolated phenomenon, wasn't an unusual experience. What is really quite unusual is that the complainants brought the case to the Human Rights Tribunal.
Speaker: that That's the piece that's unusual. Often in particular in Indigenous communities, they don't turn to our former human rights system. And so that that's an important piece of it and that it's not an isolated phenomenon. But secondly, we also want to provide an account that helps the tribunal to better understand where it fits into the phenomena of consumer racial profiling.
Speaker: ah Again, the Research that's been done, and it's largely not Canadian research, has been, for example, about Black consumer racial profiling, whereas very little has been connected to Indigenous peoples. and But we also want to highlight that given the long history of trauma in Indigenous communities, that this is another piece of that phenomenon.
Speaker: So you're drawing these connections between this everyday kind of flying under the radar experience for indigenous people with the larger issues of of colonization and racism. Am I correct in saying that?
Speaker: Yeah. And it's also important to think about how... to the best of my knowledge, there's not a single Canadian tire on a on of First Nations reserve across the country. There's typically no banks that I know of. There may be credit unions, but no banks.
Speaker: Part of the phenomenon of being a consumer and living on a First Nations reserve is that you actually have to go off reserve for most your consumer interactions.
Speaker: There is a point that ties into the significance of land and land acknowledgments. There are lots of pieces that we allude to in the report that we really are trying to say that
Speaker: connections that really should be thought through. And historically, When I think about it the way in which residential school litigation was a bit like ah an onion where you sort of peeled it back over a space of 25, 30 years, and people began to see things and in different perspectives that really get at how complex this relatively simple phenomena is. And that that is part of what our report is doing. We're not saying it's simple. We're not being glib about it.
Speaker: We're saying it is a really serious human rights issue that's been neglected. And there's really a need to better understand it.
Speaker: What are some of the recommendations you make that could help ameliorate the impacts of of racial profiling on Indigenous peoples and communities in particular? but Certainly one of our recommendations is that there really is a ripe opportunity for more more research. But more constructively, we do highlight that this is an area where there are real opportunities to do constructive research engagement with First Nations communities. The the examples that we give in the report about how organizations, large companies like Canadian Tire, but also banks and other consumer or retail companies can really
Speaker: attempt to engage with communities to move people forward. It's it's not about punishing. It's not about blaming.
Speaker: It's really about trying to think about how what the future looks like. And from our perspective, I always say that the Canadian human rights system is relatively unique and maybe not fully appreciated within the country that it's always forward-looking, not backward-looking. Our criminal justice system, for example, is very much a backward-looking system.
Speaker: Our human rights system is forward-looking. And likewise, the opportunities for just responses, they really are trying to figure out what can be done, how people can within banks, within retailers, really rethink what they're doing. And it's significant, too, that there are often handbooks that companies will have about not discriminating based on Indigenous identity. But moving those statements to actually practices is very tricky. And and we we highlight, too, that often the experiences are what sometimes are called intersectional. So they're not only about
Speaker: indigenous identity, but they might be tied to how someone is dressed or whether they project that they have addiction problems or disabilities or these kinds of things. And it's very challenging in organizations to move your principle of not discriminating to making at it a a conscious practice. And that is, from our point of view, best done by really engaging communities. And the wonderful thing about the particular First Nations community at the the the heart of this complaint is that they really do practice what we're recommending, that they really do try to move forward and heal and cleanse
Speaker: It's been really great talking with you and I thank you very much for your report. It's very, very thought provoking. Okay. Thank you very much. I've been speaking with Dr. Les Jacobs. He co-authored the report, Indigenous Consumer Racial Profiling in Canada, a Neglected Human Rights Issue. Les Jacobs is a professor and the vice president of research and innovation at Ontario Tech University.
Speaker: You've been listening to the Red Eye Podcast, produced by an independent media collective based in Vancouver. If you enjoyed this episode, it would be great if you left a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people to find us.
Speaker: Also, please consider sharing this episode with a friend or telling someone about our podcast. To keep up with the show, you can subscribe to Red Eye wherever you listen to your podcasts. And you can follow us on Blue Sky at Red Eye Radio.
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. Thanks for listening.
