From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Haitians/Daniel Gay
The Haitian community in Canada has a number of political assets: there is a fairly strong concentration of citizens of Haitian origin in the Montreal region, and some highly qualified long-time members of the community. Nevertheless, there has never been a party leader or cabinet minister of Haitian origin, and there has been only one elected legislator: Jean Alfred, a Parti Québécois member who represented the Papineau riding in Quebec’s National Assembly between 1976 and 1980 and was Quebec’s first black MNA. More recently, there has also been a Haitian deputy minister in the Quebec government.
This democratic deficit likely represents the cumulative effect of a number of factors: the complexity of the internal operation of political parties, the nature of political transactions between parties and civil society, the inadequacy of relevant political skills among possible candidates for elected positions and their lack of integration or popularity in their own community, the insufficiency of advance political and financial support, and in some cases a kind of xenophobia based on the myth of “the foreigner who is not representative of society.” At the municipal level, a citizen of Haitian origin served as mayor of Sept-Îles for some twenty or thirty years between 1920 and 1960. In the former Gagnon, north of Sept-Îles, Carl Kouakou, former trade union leader and head of the local New Democratic Party, was twice elected mayor between 1972 and 1980.
While they have not made much headway within the formal political system, many Haitian immigrants participate effectively in informal but no less significant dimensions of political life: citizens’ committees, raising awareness, ad hoc efforts to establish alternative power bases, and protecting and promoting the interests of immigrants in Canada. In the context of Montreal’s November 1994 municipal election, an artist of Haitian origin, Carl Zéphyr, campaigned for the position of “first alternative mayor of Montreal.” He and his supporters maintained that they were seeking not only to protest against the municipal status quo but also to find a way outside the political system of representing dissatisfied citizens who were unlikely to vote.
A number of factors affect the frequency, nature, and intensity of the relations that Haitian Canadians maintain with their local power structure and with other ethnic groups. These include the extent to which they belong to a particular social stratum, the length of time they have lived in Canada, and memories of their experiences in Haiti.
Many immigrants with high occupational status sometimes get the cold shoulder from professional associations. But it is people in lower, more insecure socioeconomic situations who are most vulnerable to discriminatory attitudes and behaviour on the part of employers, landlords, and the police. In 1980 Quebec’s human rights commission indicated that 60 percent of the complaints of racism or bad treatment came from the Haitian community, while Haitians constituted only 25 percent of the 100,000 black people living in Montreal. There have been a number of high-profile incidents and situations, from the conflict between police and soccer players in June 1979 through the confrontation between police and a group of taxi drivers at Dorval Airport in September 1979, and the intensification of the crisis of black taxi drivers in 1980–82 to the “accidental” murder of Marcellus François by a Montreal Urban Community (MUC) police officer in 1991.
In terms of job discrimination, none of the 4,203 police officers employed in 1988 by Quebec’s provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec, came from a visible minority. In 1992 only thirty-one of the MUC’s 4,517 police officers came from visible minorities, and there were only twelve blacks in the MUC police in 1993.
At the same time, some Haitians have good professional or business relations with sovereignist circles, federalist circles, or both. And there is often sharing of employment information and mutual assistance in getting jobs among Haitian, Italian, and Greek workers, especially in the needle trades, maintenance, and the restaurant industry.
Like other ethnic groups, Haitians are severely underrepresented in public life and in many semi-public institutions. However, there have been a few promising breakthroughs in some specific fields. Néfertari Bélizaire, formerly of Sainte-Foy, is an actor who has appeared in supporting roles both in live theatre and on television, in comedies, educational programs, series, and documentaries. Nicole Faucher won a Gemini award in 1993 for her performance in Équipe des 100 watts on Radio-Québec. Wildemir Normil appears occasionally in the highly popular drama series Marilyn and more regularly in Radio-Canada’s L’Arche de Zoé, while Ruddy Eloi has a regular role in another Radio-Canada program, Watatatow.
The most successful Canadian athlete of Haitian origin has been Bruny Surin, a top-ranked sprinter who won several world championships between 1993 and 1995. Frantz-Eric Élysée is an outstanding college basketball player who won the Canadian scoring championship as a member of Laval University’s Rouge et Or.
Meeting in Montreal in 1989–90, heads of Quebec’s major advertising firms refused to include blacks, aboriginals, and Latin Americans in their television commercials on grounds that these groups are not “representative of Quebec society.” This statement caused an uproar at the time, but tensions have begun to ease. Georges Gay has appeared in Tanguay Électronique commercials on Radio-Canada. Television viewers also sometimes see young Haitian women modelling Quebec creations, such as those of the Bof collection.
In journalism, Charles David wrote a political column for many years for the Montreal daily La Presse, and there are a number of Haitian reporters, anchors, and hosts on television news programs. Marie-Ange Barbancourt is a reporter with Radio-Canada’s Le Point, while the French-language sports network, RDS, also has a Haitian reporter. Michaëlle Jean has become a celebrity, initially as a reporter and host of special programs on Radio-Canada and now in her role as reader of international news from a Canadian perspective on the French-language all-news network, RDI. On the Télévision Quatre-Saisons network, Dany Laferrière was weather reporter in 1993–94, to the displeasure of some people who expressed their opinions on open-line shows. These examples indicate that there is a degree of openness and some awareness of the contribution of Haitian immigrants to the cultural heritage of Canada and especially of Quebec.
Little is known about the exact nature of relations between French-speaking and English-speaking black Canadians. The two groups are separated primarily by language as a means of communication but also by cultural characteristics. Since 1970, however, a number of organizations have made efforts to bring the two groups together. Among such organizations are No Island Differences; Harambee, a Canada-wide organization that has sponsored conferences on relevant topics; and the black community newspaper Contrast (Toronto, 1969–85). There have also been major events that have helped establish solidarity among Jamaicans, Haitians, Trinidadians, and African Americans. These have ranged from the violent deaths of two blacks at the hands of the police in 1990 to joint participation in charismatic movements and other, less dramatic community activities.
