1996-01-29|"Other - Human" and "Other - Canadian" in Canada's Census
To whom it may concern
Could anyone tell me the definition of "race" and "ethnic origin"? With so many mix-ups (real, myth, out-of-wedlock, and artificial insemination), many people need an instruction manual for percentage calculation to answer such questions. Most, if not all, so-called "White" people in Europe have elements from the Mongolian and Islam invasions some centuries ago. Some of the so-called "Black" people, when mixed with a "White" spouse, produce pure white-coloured children. Do they have to answer "Black" or "White"? There must be a DNA sequence to clearly reveal someone's race!?
Is an Arab-looking person an "Anglophone" when he/she is bilingual and bicultural and eats Italian food every day? It must be "Bilingual Anglophone" who is different from "Bilingual Francophone" or "Bilingual Allophone" or "French Allophone" or "English Allophone" depending on whether his/her grandparents came from Europe or Middle East or Africa or Asia? Does "Caucasian" in the Employment Equity Act mean somebody from Caucasus who may sound and look Arabish? Who is "English Canadian" anyway when there is no such option in Canada's Census and so few people identify themselves as such??
In my opinion, this kind of categorisation with no clear definition is no better than the now-defunct Population Registration Act in South Africa during Apartheid. My answers are "Other - Human" for the race question and "Other - Canadian" for the ethnic question. Let's see if I have to go to jail for these answers...
The bottom line is: "if you cannot define race, then it is meaningless".
