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McGill Consortium for Ethnicity and Strategic Social Planning (MCESSP) to release findings

Published: 4 February 1997

The situation of blacks in Canada

MCESSP, a McGill based institute which focuses on demographic research in partnership with Canada’s ethnic communities, will be releasing its preliminary findings regarding Black communities in Canada. Media representatives are cordially invited to attend the release of the study, entitled "Diversity, Mobility and Change: The Dynamics of Black Communities in Canada, " by Professor James Torczyner, in the presence of the Honourable Hedy Fry, Minister of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women, and the National Steering Committee of the MCESSP Black Communities Demographic Project at a press conference to be held:

Friday, February 7, 1997
at 11:00 a.m.
McGill School of Social Work
Wilson Hall
3506 University Street

Amongst its many findings, the MCESSP study reveals serious underreporting of the number of Black persons in Canada. It debunks stereotypes and myths about Black persons -- particularly in the area of education, employment and dependency on government assistance. The study also examines the impact of immigration on Black communities in Canada, and the deleterious effect of past Canadian immigration policy on the family structure of Black communities in Canada. It provides an in-depth portrait of Black husband-wife families, single-parent families, and biracial families. The data also examines employment integration of Blacks in various occupations in Canada and compares the earning capacity of Blacks with the total Canadian population. Lastly, the study examines poverty among Blacks in Canada in general, and child poverty in particular.

Two pre-eminent Black opinion makers will respond to the MCESSP study: Dean Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré and Professor Jewelle Taylor Gibbs. Head of the Quebec Commission for Cultural Communities in the 1980s, Professor Westmoreland -Traoré is currently Dean of the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. Professor Taylor Gibbs holds the Zellerbach Family Fund Chair of Social Policy at the School of Social Welfare of the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Children of Color, Race and Justice, as well as the editor of Young, Black and Male in North America: An Endangered Species.

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