Statistics Canada says the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified existing inequities in Canadian society. In a recent crowdsourcing survey of over 35 thousand people, over a quarter of the participants reported experiencing discrimination or being treated unfairly over the course of the pandemic. The agency says several groups were much more likely to experience this including Chinese, Korean, Southeast Asian, black participants, and Indigenous women. Research has shown that certain visible minorities, such as Chinese, Korean and Southeast Asian people are more likely than others to have perceived an increase in the frequency of harassment or attacks based on race, ethnicity, or skin colour since the beginning of the pandemic.
Participants who did not report their gender as exclusively male or female were almost three times more likely that males to report experiencing discrimination during the pandemic. Women were also slightly more likely than men to report experiencing discrimination.
People aged 15 to 24 were twice as likely as seniors to report such experiences over the course of the pandemic.
People who immigrated to Canada within the last 10 years were also more likely to report discrimination than established immigrants or people who were born here.
Sexual minority participants were more likely than heterosexuals to report experiencing discrimination; the same for people with a disability.
36 per cent of those reporting discrimination say it happened in a store, bank or restaurant. A third said it was in parks and on sidewalks. Nearly a third say it was online. Slightly more than a third said it happened in the workplace.
Statistics Canada says previous research has shown that people who experience discrimination are less likely to trust institutions such as police, courts, or governments; and have a weaker sense of belonging to the community.
In a crowdsourcing survey, the finding cannot be generalized to the overall Canadian population. The information is released to provide a picture of the experiences of the participants.
