The law has played a significant role in society by ensuring people live in harmony with one another, which despite taking effect, has not been sufficiently redressed, i.e., the past and recent efforts to dismantle the inequality structures to achieve inclusivity and equality through the law require further input. While the link between race and space seems obvious, the law as the mediator shifts the gear to the definition that it has been used as a historical instrument to shape how people are distributed in various physical spaces based on their racial identities. The historical record of the law’s mediation role has seen the designated segregation of a certain group of people based on their race. For instance, North America had segregation laws enforced in various parts of individual countries to force racial minorities into living in certain neighborhoods and schools and receive services from particular locations for the better part of the 20th century. The difference between the abolition of such laws and the contemporaries is the history of the emotional pain these laws caused and the unerasable legacy with regard to the spatial distribution of various groups and access to community and national resources. Therefore, the law has been central to the link between race and ethnicity and space in Canada, symbolized by the historical redlining practices, racial segregation, zoning laws, racial profiling, immigration policies, general practice policies, and the Indigenous land claims legislation.
Immigration policies make one of the significant laws that were linked to race such that it defined groups of people allowed entry into the country in the past. Most studies have found that Canada was among the North American countries that set immigration policies that favored one group over the other. This favoritism led to the concentration of particular ethnic and racial communities in particular geographic areas of the country. For instance, the Canadian Immigration Act of 1910 granted the Cabinet the power to prohibit immigrants belonging to any race (Matas, 1985). This is one instance of how the then-Canadian laws contributed to racial stereotyping advancing from the 19th Century of Irish and Chinese immigrants to Japanese and Indian arrivals. Matas (1985) described the immigration policy of the country back in the day as racism paraded as policies. Despite the wording changing from time to time between 1910 to 1978, the power to choose who to let into the country remained the same. Immigrants of any race were deemed undesirable because of their habits, customs, way of life, and property ownership styles. These policies blocked the entry of German, Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, or Turkish immigrants unless the Minister of Immigration permitted such (Matas, 1985). This March 14, 1919 order is strictly racial and cannot be argued. In another instance, Chinese immigrants were subjected to head tax and other exclusionary policies that led to the formation of Chinatowns across the Canadian provinces.
There is no doubt that the Indigenous communities have fought for their position in society despite being the original owners of their land, which is evidenced by the Indigenous land claims legislation. According to the Ontario Human Rights Commission (2005), policies and practices pertaining to Aboriginal persons have been historically based on assumptions that they were often regarded as inferior to govern these people. Moreover, the people themselves were considered backward, especially their culture. Therefore, the new government would make laws that would define who is considered indigenous, what practices have to be upheld (like forcing education upon them to abandon their culture), which places to live, and what they can own (Reece, 2020). Sovereignty and self-governance were not heard of at the time, as the Indigenous communities had to be under the law provided. Therefore, the law was used as an instrument to assimilate, displace, and segregate the Indigenous peoples as a race. For instance, the Indian Act of 1876 gave power to the federal government to control the Indian political structures, resources, and economic development, especially landholding patterns. This form of control’s focus on Indians was racist because of the racist features held within. Besides, the Act directly showed targeting because it blocked land ownership, choosing leaders, barring the people from voting, prohibited movement out of the reserves, and halted all cultural celebrations.
Redlining is another practice that dates back to the 1930s when institutions declined to make mortgage loans in specified areas. Harris and Forrester (2003) attribute this practice to the federal agencies’ involvement in encouraging lenders to rate neighborhoods for mortgage risk. Redlining operated as a law that drew lines where institutions could give mortgages. As literal lines on a map, redlining restricted loans, becoming a highly racialized practice that affected Black people and some parts of minorities. Canada is known for being a tightly woven state comprising of a socio-political network that Berkeley Underground Scholars (2020) describes as a state relying on exercising physical, emotional, spatial, economic, and political violence, both sanctioned by the state to preserve its interests. The result of the latter description is a network that benefits one group while disadvantaging the other. For instance, there are private prison contracts, courts, law enforcement, and other state faction that benefits either financially or politically from the convict lease system, predatory racial profiling, and the gradual unequal incarceration of the Black and Indigenous people. These bodies usually rely on the power manifested upon them by the law to ensure order, which they divert to their own version. In other words, there exists intersectionality of the Canadian carceral systems with regard to the legal enterprises built upon white supremacy. The above description mostly leans on carceral redlining, which is slightly different from the basis the concept of redlining was formed. Regardless, redlining and the ultimate carceral redlining showcase the intersection between race and the law dating back to the 1930s and extending to modern policy practices.
Redlining was a constituent of racial segregation that saw the separation of people or a group of people based on their race. Canadian history captures these moments when black people were segregated and denied equal opportunities and resources like housing, employment, transportation, and commercial success. Most studies record evidence of this racial segregation while attributing it to the law, i.e., the segregation of Black people was enforced through the courts and laws such that it spread to become a social norm. For instance, the law allowed Nova Scotia and Ontario to set up segregated schools where black students would be separated from white students. It was either the black students attended at a different time or went to a different school. Land grants were another concept supported by the law that Black Canadians did not have access to land grants because of their race. The lots they were allocated were of poor quality and small, found in areas like New Brunswick away from white settlers. For instance, one of the 1928 Vancouver real estate deeds clauses stated, “That the Grantee or his heirs, administrators, executor, successors or assigns will not sell to, agree to sell to, rent to, lease to, or permit or allow to occupy, the said lands and premises, or any part thereof, any person of the Chinese, Japanese or other Asiatic race or to any Indian or Negro” (Bell, 2015). Bains (2014) explains that this was racially motivated, given that the clause clearly stated who should be excluded from purchasing and owning land.
Zoning laws mostly led to housing discrimination and spatial segregation in Canada. Gray (2022) describes the zoning laws as apartheid by another name. Back in the day, communities weaponized zoning, which spills to today to keep themselves together while alienating the poor from suburbs where there is better access to jobs and education. In the colonial sense, the residential schools mentioned earlier in this paper were also an example of the link between race and space facilitated by the law. The logic of eliminating the indigenous communities from their land to make them meet the criteria to be allocated land was rather dispossessing what the people had treasured for a long time. The settlers set requirements for the acquisition of land and resources, which evolved into violence that characterized the settlers across the world (Dorries, 2017). Dorries (2017) discusses Harris’s discussion of white supremacy, which he centers on in his analysis to show how racial identity and property claims were co-produced in law. Through this discussion, whiteness emerges as a form of property through the concept of racial formation, where racial categories are formulated, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed. Therefore, the formation of race is institutionalized so that the social, economic, and political lines intermingle to constitute racial projects that lead to the distribution of resources depending on race. Subsequently, the American slave law was a product of zoning that transformed the white race into a treasured property that had to be served and protected, which was also legally acknowledged with a bundle of rights ad privileges that were untransferable.
On the other hand, racial profiling is a product of all concepts described above, from immigration policies, zoning laws, redlining, etc. These laws created the basics for racial profiling in Canada back in the day, such that black people, indigenous communities, and other minorities were profiled as inferior. For instance, disregarding the Indigenous peoples’ culture and way of life as being primitive and labeling them as inferior was one way of profiling, which led to their general profile as backward people. Simultaneously, black people as slaves suffered the most from the laws that encouraged profiling. From the color coding in 1901 as white, red, black, and yellow during the census to name calling, Canada had such a history in the books. The racial classification, which served as a hand-servant, necessitated the disparate groups to explain their entitlement to inequitable power, status, and resources over their counterparts. Besides, it is the description of race using colors that aided the black slavery institution that has been passed down to profile the race as the group that has to have continued run-ins with the government. According to Backhouse (1999), the concept of race is central to Canada’s history because it led to racial distinctions, assumptions, activities, and laws topics subject to racist ideology and practice. As years went by, the racialized society would embrace systemic racial exploitation through the justice system and access to resources. Therefore, it would be fair to conclude that race classification led to the omnipresence of racism through profiling, segregation, and inequitable access to resources and services.
Lastly, the general practice policies were linked to the profession the minorities were allowed to be part of. For instance, black people were not allowed to practice medicine. And if they did, they were under maximum supervision and had to be among the loyalist group. Women who desired to be nurses had their dreams shut down because the nursing schools did not allow people of their kind. Such practices extended to access to healthcare where systemic racism had leaked over to the overt depiction of ‘whiteness’ and ‘blackness’ in the justice system, morality reforms, communities, etc., in other words, the judges, community advocates, lawyers, litigants, legislators, and other commentators were only described by their race. Backhouse (1999) notes that racism became customary and increased in its virtual invisibility to contemporaries that credits to the hard work and input were only dependent on race or ethnicity. Perhaps, the depiction of race as a scientific fact both in philosophy, law, and other versions created hindrances to seeing or realizing non-racist views, and the racism victims internalized the oppressive ideology due to the racist worldview with regard to language and even conceptual thinking. To say the least, Backhouse (1999) supports that the economic, cultural, legal, racial, intellectual, and political history of Canada was far more complicated in its infancy and served as one reason for the multitextured and complex society. The thought of normalizing racism did not improve situations as practice, supported by the laws that made some races subordinate. The impact of the past history of racism in Canada gradually led to opposition to the racism ideology to only struggle against the racist policies in practice and dispositions.
In conclusion, the law has historically linked race and space in Canada through zoning laws, racial profiling, redlining practices, racial segregation, immigration policies, general practice policies, and Indigenous land claims legislation. Despite the issues surrounding race and space being influenced by law and policy, the human element was also involved, as discussed herein. For instance, the zoning laws determining who lived where and how they lived impacted the neighborhoods, especially on their access to resources. The same applied to redlining, profiling, and segregation as intermingling concepts. The immigration laws were no different as the results of the law’s involvement in the link between race and space. They led to certain groups of people getting denied of entry into Canada and also shaped the distribution of people according to racial backgrounds. As such link spills over to modern-day Canada, there is a need for reconciliation practices to ensure that the resultant effects of the law and policies on the affected groups are addressed such that racial groups do not form the basis for the definition of the type and amount of access a group of people has to resources.
References
Backhouse, C. (1999). Colour-coded: A legal history of racism in Canada, 1900-1950. University of Toronto Press. https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/101779/1/Colour_Coded_UTP_9781487527860.pdf
Bains, M. (2014). Vancouver real estate titles reveal city’s racist history. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-real-estate-titles-reveal-city-s-racist-history-1.2747924
Bell, R. (2015). Opinion: Racial Discrimination in BC Real Estate. Rew. https://www.rew.ca/news/opinion-racial-discrimination-in-bc-real-estate-1.1998798
Dorries, H. (2017). Planning as property: Uncovering the hidden racial logic of a municipal nuisance by-law.” Journal of Law and Social Policy, 27 , 72. https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/jlsp/vol27/iss1/5?utm_source=digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca%2Fjlsp%2Fvol27%2Fiss1%2F5&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages
Gray, M. N. (2022). Apartheid by Another Name: How Zoning Regulations Perpetuate Segregation. Next City. https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/apartheid-by-another-name-how-zoning-regulations-perpetuate-segregation
Harris, R., & Forrester, D. (2003). The suburban origins of redlining: A Canadian case study, 1935-54. Urban Studies, 40(13), 2661-2686. https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098032000146830
Matas, D. (1985). Racism in Canadian immigration policy. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 5(2), 8-9. https://refuge.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/refuge/article/view/21485
Ontario Human Rights Commission. (2005). Policy and guidelines on racism and racial discrimination. Ontario Human Rights Commission. https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-and-guidelines-racism-and-racial-discrimination/part-1-%E2%80%93-setting-context-understanding-race-racism-and-racial-discrimination
Reece, R. (2020). Carceral redlining: White supremacy is a weapon of mass incarceration for Indigenous and Black peoples in Canada. Brief published by Yellowhead Institute, June, 25, 2020. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/carceral-redlining-r-reece-yellowhead-institute-brief.pdf
write