Addressing Racial and Hate-Based Discrimination as Experienced by African Immigrants and Refugees in Waterloo Region, Canada*

Since the early 1990s, the demographics of Waterloo Region (Ontario, Canada) have changed dramatically. Early settlement patterns reflected “chain migrations” of Mennonite farm families moving to the region from Pennsylvania. Subsequent establishment of three urban clusters with German and British roots resulted in a predominantly White regional and Canadian population. A relaxation of Canadian immigration legislation, together with political unrest in many African countries, led to African immigrants and refugees choosing to settle in the Tri-Cities of Waterloo, Kitchener, and Cambridge. Canada has an international reputation as a welcoming country that celebrates diversity. However, the public view that multiculturalism is entrenched within Canadian society is not reflected in the experiences of African newcomers. New immigrants and refugees continue to face considerable problems and barriers in adjusting to their new country of residence. They are forced to deal with various manifestations of racism, including race-based hatred, as recurring patterns in their daily lives. Using firsthand accounts gathered over the course of two projects, this article explores the problems that African immigrants and refugees face in adjusting to life in Waterloo Region. Community activists and leaders are working together with police, the legal system, social service agencies, and schools to combat racism and hate-based discrimination. The article provides information on new African communities emerging in a predominantly White region. It discusses the challenges and the initiatives being taken by African community leaders and residents working together with institutions including the police, schools, municipal councils, social service providers, and community agencies to address racism and hate-based discrimination. The article also presents the general conclusion drawn by African community member participants within the two projects discussed herein: that “hate” is a pervasive problem, especially as experienced by African immigrant and refugee populations in Canada, and that the Criminal Code of Canada §§ 318 and


INTRODUCTION
During the 1990s, many African nations, including Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, Congo, Angola, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, experienced both natural and human-made disasters. Political unrest and civil wars forced civilians to flee and seek safe haven in other countries, whether elsewhere in Africa or other parts of the world, including Canada. Since Canada's largest city, Toronto, already had well-established African communities, many African newcomers initially moved there upon coming to Canada. However, the high cost of living led some immigrants and refugees to look for cities that were more affordable.
Many new immigrants moved to the Region of Waterloo because the mid-sized overlapping cities of Kitchener, Cambridge, and Waterloo appeared to be physically safe spaces, especially for raising children. 1 Toronto, an hour's drive by car, is easily accessible. The region's two universities, University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University, and Conestoga College were an additional attraction for those immigrants seeking to pursue postsecondary education. For those who were unable to find suitable employment, upgrading their educational qualifications was one route new immigrants and refugees chose in their efforts to adapt to life in a new country. Although many of these newcomers were already highly educated when they entered the country, they were unable to find employment in their professions; this circumstance led them to pursue other postsecondary degrees.
From the 1990s onward, the Region of Waterloo has become increasingly ethnically and religiously diverse. Prior to this era, the populations of the Tri-Cities of Waterloo, Kitchener, and Cambridge, were predominantly of European origin (German and British). With the relaxation of immigration laws and reduced migration from preferred "White" source countries, immigrants from many ethnic and religious backgrounds began to settle in  ADDRESSING RACISM AND HATRED IN WATERLOO 41 Canada in growing numbers. Today, Toronto is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. Canada also has a reputation for racial, ethnic, and religious tolerance, with a Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988) which contains equality clauses that forbid discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, and religion.
While official government policy espouses equality, multiculturalism, and ethnic diversity, this does not mean that racial discrimination has disappeared. Until the 1960s, Canada's immigration laws were racist, giving preference to White immigrants from selected countries (Kelley & Trebilcock, 2010). This article explores the experiences of African immigrants and refugees in Waterloo Region with racial discrimination and hatred. The article begins with a historical overview of the creation of a White community in Waterloo Region to illustrate that the geographical area underwent several waves of settlement, beginning with the First Nations and including an important Black settlement in the 19th century.
The Region of Waterloo has a historic legacy that foregrounds its European heritage; for example, the names of the region and the three cities of Waterloo, Cambridge, and Kitchener all derive from European geographic locations or historical figures. For this reason, it is important to provide at least some historical background on non-European settlements, especially the prior settlements of the First Nations as well as early Black settlement. The following two sections provide some of this historical detail because it provides an important backdrop to the creation of a "White" Canada and the racist legislation put in place after Confederation in 1867. The argument presented here, which is developed from applying an anti-racist perspective, is that the concepts of race and racism are interrelated and have changed over time, but have not disappeared. While official government legislation and discourse emphasize diversity and multiculturalism, African newcomers to the region paint a different picture in retelling their own experiences (and those of their children) with both racism and hatred.

I. FROM FIRST NATIONS TO MENNONITE SETTLEMENTS
First Nations in Canada claim ancestry going back 500 generations, with settlement beginning after the last Ice Age (approximately 10,000 to 13,000 years ago). 2 Although First Nations people were originally hunters and gatherers, by about one thousand years ago they began to settle in semipermanent farming communities and establish longhouse villages. They were called the Haudenosaunee, or "people of the longhouse." However, by the mid-17th century few of these people remained in the area, having 42 JOURNAL OF HATE STUDIES [Vol. 12:39 been decimated by diseases and wars (Bloomfield, 2006, p. 9). Indigenous tribes continued to use the area on a seasonal basis. Great Britain rewarded the Six Nations living in what is now upper New York State for their allegiance during the revolutionary wars of the 1770s and 1780s with a land grant comprising 674,910 acres that stretched six miles on either side of the Grand River from Lake Erie to the upper reaches of the river (Uttley, 1975, p. 7;Bloomfield, 2006, p. 19). White settlers began to pressure the First Nations to sell parts of their land to them. Blocks of land were sold and from these purchases the community that was to become the City of Kitchener emerged. The area upon which the city was built was originally called Sand Hills and the community became Ebytown, reflecting the importance of the pioneering Mennonite Eby family in settling the area. "The city was grounded on a Pennsylvania-German settlement. The pioneers were a branch of the Mennonite colonists who forsook their homelands in Europe to shun military service and gain religious freedom in Penn's Woods, Pennsylvania" (Uttley, 1975, p. 7). Following the American Revolution, the Mennonites who had settled in Pennsylvania feared further warfare and thus began to seek settlements outside the United States. Between the years 1796 and 1798, the Six Nations sold 38,000 hectares to a Loyalist, Colonel Richard Beasley, who was a land speculator. Eventually, Mennonites from Pennsylvania purchased all of his unsold land and created 160 farm tracts in the area then known as Sand Hills. Building began in 1800 and the migration continued until 1825, before coming to a close around 1835 3 (Uttley, 1975;Bloomfield, 2006).
To summarize, Bloomfield (2006, p. 53) categorizes the immigration of German-speaking populations into the area as "chain migrations," which refers both to the early re-locations of Pennsylvania Mennonites described above as well as the later immigration of European Germans over the course of the 20th century. The German heritage remains evident in the contemporary period. According to the 2011 Census, German (at three percent) is second behind English (at 76 percent) as the mother tongue spoken by Waterloo Region residents. The prevalence of German as the second mother tongue in Waterloo is "a reflection of the region's German heritage and on immigration shortly after the Second World War" (Outhit, 2012, p. A1). The 2011 Census also attests to the increasing diversity of the region, especially in the cities, reflected in the large proportion of people who speak two or more languages at home (17.5 percent), up from 14.2 percent in the 2006 Census. The majority of multilingual speakers list English alongside a "migrant" language such as Punjabi or Mandarin (Outhit, 2012, p. A2).

II. THE LEGACY OF SLAVERY AND EARLY BLACK SETTLEMENT IN THE REGION
Black settlement in what is now Canada dates back some 400 years (Cooper, 2007). 4 While there is a long history of Black settlement in the province of Ontario, the population of the region remained predominantly White until the 1990s, except for the Queen's Bush Settlement, discussed below. 5 Much of the early history of African American migration into what was then Upper Canada was connected to the practice of slavery in the American colonies.
While slavery was practiced in Canada for nearly two centuries, because the climate was not conducive to plantation style agriculture, its practice was far more limited in scope than it was in the United States (Pentland, 1981, p. 1). Both the French and the British enslaved indigenous peoples. White settlers moving to the area brought African slaves from the West Indies as well as from the American colonies. Some indigenous tribes also practiced slavery and sold slaves to the French fur traders when Canada was still the French colony known as New France. The first known slave in what is now Canada was a young African boy brought by the English in 1628 and sold to David Kirke, who baptized him the following year and named him Olivier Le Jeune. He died in 1654 and it is possible that by then he had been emancipated (Brown-Kubisch, 2004, p.1). While the governor of New France began to encourage the importation of slaves in the late 17th Century, King Louis XIV ordained that slaves be used mainly in agricultural production, which was not economically profitable in the French colony. 6 Thus, very few African slaves were imported into the territory. By 1759, approximately 3604 slaves resided in New France but only 1132 of these were Black (Brown-Kubisch, 2004, p. 3). According to Brown-Kubisch, under the Code Noir of French law, these slaves had possessed some rights that were abolished when, in 1763, the Treaty of Paris gave the British control of New France. Under British law, slaves were regarded as a form of chattel (property without any personal rights or liberties).
During the American Revolutionary War, the British offered freedom to those slaves who would desert their owners and fight on their side as Loyalists. However, "unscrupulous behaviour actually contributed to the expansion of slavery" (Brown-Kubisch, 2004, p. 4). An imperial statute in 1790 allowed White Loyalists to enter from the United States without having to pay duty on their slaves. Meanwhile, between 1780 and 1793 an estimated five to eight thousand Black Loyalists moved to Upper Canada (the area that is now the province of Ontario). "Both freed and enslaved Blacks were therefore living in the province concurrently in the late 18th 44 JOURNAL OF HATE STUDIES [Vol. 12:39 century" (Ontario Heritage Trust, n.d.). However, while Britain promised one hundred acres of free land to every Loyalist household head, Black Loyalists who had been attracted to Upper Canada with the promise of free land either received land of very poor quality or no land at all. As a result very few remained in Upper Canada and many of those "were owned by their military masters" (Black Loyalists, n.d.). Black slaves in Upper Canada at this time are known to have resisted the conditions of their enslavement. The case of Chloe Cooley represented a major event leading to the abolishment of slavery. Cooley was forcibly transported from Queenston in Upper Canada to a new slave owner across the river in the United States, which led to a protest that included a free Black veteran, Peter Martin, and a neighbor and witness, William Grisly. Together they petitioned Lieutenant Governor Simcoe who, in 1793, promulgated an act to prohibit the importation of slaves into Upper Canada. "Any slaves already living in the province at the time of this law's enactment, however, remained the property of their owners, as did their children until they reached the age of 25. This act set the stage for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade by Britain in 1807 and the outright abolition of slavery across the British Empire on August 1, 1834" (Ontario Heritage Trust, n.d.).
Another major migration of African Americans to Upper Canada occurred in the 1850s and 1860s, as approximately 30,000 people came to Canada using the "Underground Railway. . . a loosely constructed network of escape routes that originated in the southern United States, wound its way to the less restricted North and eventually stretched to Canada" (Ontario Heritage Trust, n.d.). Places of Black settlement included Amhertsburg, Chatham, London, Oro, Woolwich (in Waterloo Region), and Windsor, as well as Owen Sound and Toronto. Unfortunately, not much is known about these first Black settlers in Waterloo Region. 7 Most of these first families were poor and illiterate, since law forbid former fugitive slaves from receiving any type of formal education. For these and other reasons, this group of migrants did not leave behind legal documents like property deeds or official birth and marriage records. "A bit is known about Levi Carroll, an exslave with one leg who lived in Waterloo's first building from 1843 to about 1882. He died in what was then known as a 'poorhouse' in 1897" (Parkhill, 2012). During the same period, there is some information about Robert Sutherland, the first Black Canadian lawyer, who lived in Berlin (later Kitchener). "And yet, just outside of town, sat one of the largest settlements of Black people in Canada. Escaped slaves started the Queen's Bush Settlement in the Glen Allen, Hawksville and Wallenstein areas in the 1820s" (Parkhill, 2012).
In 1848, the Queen's Bush Settlement had a population of approxi-mately 1500 free and former slaves (Brown-Kubisch, 2004, p. 113). To provide some perspective, in 1852 the population of Berlin (later Kitchener) numbered only about 700 people. However, by 1861, only 177 African Canadians remained in the Queen's Bush and their numbers declined further in the following years (Brown-Kubisch, 2004). Most of these pioneers settled and farmed the land as "squatters" since the land had not yet been officially surveyed and allocated. When the land was surveyed, it was offered to these settlers at prices they could not afford, which forced the majority of them to leave the area. White settlers with more means purchased the rich farmland, some of which had been developed by Black families who had established farms out of wilderness. "Moving into the Queen's Bush as squatters had been a gamble, one that, in the end, most Black farmers lost" (Brown-Kubisch, 2004, p.179). It is important to note that Black settlers did not leave without a struggle; for example, a number of petitions were sent to the Governor General but without effect. "While most Canadians generally opposed slavery, they were not in favor of a massive immigration of Blacks" (Brown-Kubisch, 2004, p. 9). The press in particular aired editorials and articles that were blatantly racist towards African Americans and African Canadians. Black activists fought back, establishing their own newspapers like the Voice of the Fugitive (1851-1853) and the Provincial Freeman (1853-1857), co-founded by Mary Ann Shadd, a strong advocate for the rights of African Canadians in Upper Canada. With the end of slavery, many people returned to the United States: III. NATION-BUILDING: A WHITE CANADA From Confederation in 1867 until 1967 when major changes were made to immigration policies resulting in a new Immigration Act, the African Canadian population remained very small. 8 As immigration from preferred European nations, the United States, and White settler colonies like New Zealand and Australia decreased, immigration officers began to look to other source countries. Until 1991, most Black immigrants were born in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, 9 but the proportion of African-born immigrants began to increase from 1981 onwards. 10 Milan and Tran (2004) reported that while the overall Canadian population increased by 10 percent between 1991 and 2001, the Black population increased by 58 percent in that decade. 11 By 2001, Blacks formed the third largest visible minority group in Canada, with almost all (97 percent) living in Canada's urban areas and 47 percent alone living in the Toronto metropolitan area. The 2001 Census also reported that 45 percent of Black Canadians were born in Canada. In 2001, the City of Kitchener had a population of 7,300 Blacks (1.8 percent of the total Canadian population) and 46 percent of whom were born in Canada (Milan & Tran, 2004). In the 2006 Census, the Region of Waterloo Planning, Housing and Community Services, reported a total of 9,510 visible minority people self-identifying as "Black" living in the Region of Waterloo.
"Europe remains the home country for most immigrants in the Region due to historic immigration trends" (Region of Waterloo, 2006). Nevertheless, the most common countries of birth for immigrants to the region today are those in Asia and the Middle East. Between 2001 and 2006 there was a 50 percent increase in the number of immigrants coming from South America, Africa, and the United States compared to the preceding five-year period. Overall, the numbers of European immigrants to the region have been declining. Between 2001 and 2006, Waterloo Region was one of the top ten destinations for immigrants to Canada and one of the top five in Ontario. 12 Still, most residents of Waterloo Region (94 percent) are Canadian citizens.
Immigration patterns compiled from the 2011 Census resulted in a government publication detailing patterns that have emerged since 2006 (Chui & Flanders, 2013). In this five-year period, there was an increase in newcomers arriving from Africa to Canada (from 10.3 percent to 12.5 percent), yet the largest group of newcomers came from Asia. While Ontario remained the province with the largest share of people born outside Canada, there was a decline of newcomers coming to the province in the latest fiveyear period (43.1 percent compared to 52.3 percent in the period 2001 to 2006). The Tri-Cities (Waterloo, Kitchener, and Cambridge) also lost ground over this latest period, attracting 1.3 percent of new immigrants, including a decline in newcomers from African countries. A main reason is that the western and prairie provinces have proven to be more attractive, with more employment opportunities available for new immigrants in primary resource extraction industries like oil and potash mining. For the first time, the 2011 Census recorded that Canadian was the most frequently reported ethnic origin in Kitchener, followed by German and English (CBC News, 2013).
To summarize, the creation of a "White" Canada required conscious political planning and legislation that included preferred country status to encourage White immigration. The Region of Waterloo was no exception. Land originally granted to the First Nations was sold to enable the creation and re-settlement of Mennonites moving from Pennsylvania. The Queen's Bush Settlement, which originally included a significant population of Black farming families, became predominantly White once the land was officially surveyed and sold. The Tri-Cities still bear the imprints of a British and German heritage. This does not mean that there have not been settlements representing more diverse groups in the region, including notably a significant community of people emigrating from the Caribbean countries going back to the 1960s. However, significant immigration to the region from the African countries is a recent phenomenon, roughly dating to the early 1990s.
The theoretical argument contained in this article is that racism, as well as anti-immigrant hatred, still exists, especially when we listen to the experiences provided by African immigrants and refugees. Racism is a socially and historically created phenomenon that changes over the course of time, adapting to new economic, cultural, and political circumstances (Anderson, 1992;Miles & Brown, 2003). Racism can take on a variety of different forms, and, according to the politics of state formation in a given historical period, may or may not be encoded in legislation. One of its more insidious manifestations is "polite racism" which we can trace back to the Queen's Bush Settlement. As evident from the earlier discussion here, while Canada had a reputation for its tolerance and aversion to slavery at a time when slavery was still practiced in the United States, many African Americans found another level of intolerance once they arrived in what became the province of Ontario. Existing laws were used to push them out of lucrative employment and from the land that they had taken up and cultivated. In other words, there was dissonance between the official language of tolerance and the unofficial treatment of African Canadians that made them aware of their status as "other." This status was also reflected in immigration policies, which, while they did not technically ban immigration 48 JOURNAL OF HATE STUDIES [Vol. 12:39 from African countries, nevertheless made it very difficult for people to apply for admission and be accepted. 13 The legacies of racism and anti-immigrant intolerance persist today, although their variations have adapted to reflect contemporary political, cultural, and social conditions. For example, many African Canadians told the authors that overt forms of racism were much easier to confront than its more "polite" version. Another element in the theoretical analysis is locating the concept of "hate" (as defined in Canadian legislation) within the discourse of racism. In Canada, hate crimes legislation became law in 1970, under what was formerly § 281.2(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada, and was amended in 1985 to become what are now § § 318, 319, and 320 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Some provinces also enacted their own hate crimes legislation in the decades that followed. Canadian legislation that criminalizes and prosecutes hate crimes falls in line with developments in other Western nations, but departs specifically from the United States on the matter of criminalizing hate speech. The Supreme Court of Canada defined "hatred"" in the landmark hate propaganda case, Regina v. Keegstra (1990). In Keegstra, Chief Justice Dickson noted that " 'hatred' connotes emotion of an intense and extreme nature that is clearly associated with vilification and detestation" and that "to promote hatred is to instill detestation, enmity, ill-will and malevolence in another." Thus, Hatred is predicated on destruction, and hatred against identifiable groups therefore thrives on insensitivity, bigotry and destruction of both the target group and of the values of our society. Hatred in this sense is a most extreme emotion that belies reason; an emotion that, if exercised against members of an identifiable group, implies that those individuals are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and made subject to ill-treatment on the basis of group affiliation (1990).
Supported by this definition, the Criminal Code of Canada includes specified hate crimes (within the Hate Propaganda laws, generally) of Advocating Genocide ( § 318(1)), Public Incitement of Hatred ( § 319(1)), and Willful Promotion of Hatred ( § 319(2)), as well as provisions for the Forfeiture and Seizure of Hate Propaganda ( § § 319(4), 320, & 320(1)) (1985). During the community workshops discussed in the next section of this article, a Police Sergeant presented to the workshop participants condensed and simplified versions of Criminal Code § § 318 and 319, and an additional provision, "Hate Motivation as an Aggravating Factor," in Code § 718.2 (a)(i).

IV. "COMMUNITIES WORKING TOGETHER AGAINST HATE CRIMES" PROJECT 14
In May 2005, the Attorney General (Ontario) and the Minister of Community and Correctional Services announced that they were planning on establishing a Hate Crimes Community Working Group "whose function would be to advise the government on sensible ways of preventing, reducing and redressing hate crime and of meeting the needs of hate crime victims." The Working Group was established due to the steady rise of hate crimes and hate incidents in the 1990s "and an unprecedented increase immediately following September 11, 2001." This action came "[i]n the wake of a documented 93 percent increase in the number of hate crimes in Ontario in the past decade, (and) the Government promised support for dedicated hate crime police units across the province and strong victims' rights legislation to ensure victims have access to information and services" (Hate Crimes Community Working Group ["Working Group"], 2006, p. 7).
From January to July 2006, the Working Group heard testimony from over 600 community members and stakeholders, including representatives from Aboriginal, racialized, religious, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgendered/Two-Spirited/Intersexed (LGBTI) 15 and other marginalized communities in Ontario. The Executive Summary concludes with the following quote from an African Canadian woman living in Toronto ("Victim of racist graffiti"): When I tell the story, everyone says that I should have reported it. But to who? What effect would it have had? I just wanted to forget about it . . . I didn't know the right person to go to. The police are overworked and don't have time -I didn't think it was a 'heinous crime'. And what if I got the wrong police constable? I don't want to add to my pain and victimization. I'd rather put up with it. I'd rather protect myself. And I don't want to risk having it trivialized. This quote is followed by one from a "South Asian Male, Victim of racial harassment and assault, Toronto," who testified that he was less angry with the individuals who committed the offenses, whom he saw as acting from a basis of ignorance, than with the police and witnesses who stood by and did nothing (2006, p. 6 and Extremism Investigative Team, representing ten police services across Ontario, received $200,000 to continue its work. In their letter to the ministers, the Working Group made the following statement: The most important messages in our report are that not only are members of vulnerable communities across Ontario victimized by hate crime extensively and differently, thereby requiring enhanced victim services, but that hate crime occurs within a historical and social context of systemic bias and prejudice such that, over time, incidents of hate and hate crime are permissible (2006).
The University of Waterloo, along with World Wide Opportunities for Women ("WWOW") and African Women's Alliance of Waterloo Region ("AWA"), 16 applied for and received funding in 2008 to bring together African community leaders, interested residents, and social service providers to tackle the issue of hate crimes in Waterloo Region. An undercover investigator who was assigned to the Hate Crimes Investigation Unit of the Waterloo Regional Police Service facilitated two workshops, which included video presentations and an explanation of what constitutes a hate crime ( § 318, "Advocating Genocide," § 319 (1), "Public Incitement of Hatred," and "Hate Motivation as an Aggravating Factor," § 718.2 (a)(i)).
In 2006, Statistics Canada, the Government of Canada's national statistical agency, began collecting annual data on hate crimes. Waterloo Region had one of the highest rates of police-reported hate crimes in Canada. The majority of victims were targeted because of their race; in particular, being Black. In 2011, Statistics Canada (based on statistics from 2009), reported the following increases in the numbers of police-reported hate crimes in four large metropolitan areas: Ottawa (+83), Toronto (+79), Kitchener/Cambridge/Waterloo (+62) and Montréal (+61). Police-reported hate crimes rose by 42 percent from 2008 to 2009, with over half (54 percent) motivated by race or ethnicity, 29 percent by religion and 13 percent by sexual orientation. Since the project discussed below took place in 2008, the increase in hate crime reporting in 2009 could be partially attributed to the success of the project in encouraging African Canadian residents to come forward and to report to police what these residents perceived to be hate crimes. The number of police-reported hate crimes in Kitchener/Cambridge/Waterloo rose from 31 in 2008 to 93 in 2009. One of the chief findings from the project was the discrepancy between what African Canadians considered to be a hate crime and the prosecution of hate crimes as laid out in Criminal Code § § 318 and 319. The overwhelming consensus among the project participants was that the official definition of "hate crime" is far too narrow and that the legislation must be changed. In this sense, the legal concept of "hate" would incorporate various forms of racism more comprehensively and would match and authenticate people's daily experiences with racism. A broader definition along the lines advocated by African Canadians would also more closely match the broader definition provided by the Supreme Court of Canada provided above.
Following is a brief description of the work of the Hate Crimes Investigation Unit, whose officers confront, target, and prosecute hate crimes as these occur on the ground. In 2008, 17 the Hate Crimes Investigation Unit was heavily involved with undercover investigation of organized hate groups who attempted to infiltrate the area (for example, by recruiting high school students into hate group membership). The Hate Crime Unit monitored Hate Groups including: Canadian Heritage Alliance, Heritage Front, Tri-City Skins, Canadian Ethnic Cleansing Team, Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform ("C-Far") and Canadian Association for Free Expression ("Café") (Khanna, 1999). Kitchener-Waterloo was a hub for these groups in the province. The Unit kept track of the activities of these hate groups and tried to expel them from the region. The Police Sergeant assigned to work on the 2008 project reported that over the preceding five years in Waterloo Region, over 254 incidents took place that had a "hate" component. 18 He admitted that not one of these incidents was brought to trial using hate crime legislation. In addition, the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs (1996, p. 8) noted that while police often target organized hate groups, in Canada "most of our hate crimes are being committed by youth and by people who are not connected to the hate organized groups. . . Hate organized groups are responsible for 5 percent of the overall hate criminal activity." This conclusion was borne out by the testimony and stories told by participants in the 2008 project.
The Hate Crimes Investigation Unit also monitored over 600 internet sites and worked closely with American police agencies. Presentations made to the workshop participants, a group which included leaders and members from the region's recently established African Canadian communities, clarified how difficult it was to prosecute anyone using hate crimes legislation. The common practice was to charge individuals using other legislation; for example, with physical assault, even when it was clear that the assault was motivated by racial hatred. This practice was followed in the case of a young Sudanese man who suffers from polio, who was severely beaten with his own crutch by a group of young white men in Victoria Park in Kitchener. He made a victim impact statement at the forum that concluded the project in September 2008, and testified for the need to institute better means of prosecuting and charging offenders with hate crimes, rather than using other criminal legislation.
Breakout sessions followed the Sergeant's explanation of hate crime legislation at two workshops held in Kitchener and Cambridge. Participants were provided with scenarios like the following one, as based on an actual incident. This particular session covered the topic of "justice issues." The scenario read as follows: In my work as a Child Protection Worker, a mother once spat in my face and called me a "black bitch" because I had to remove her children from her care after unsuccessfully working with her to stop the abuse of her children by her partner. I anticipated that it was not going to be an amicable task removing the children so I went to the home with two police officers. When the officers removed the children the mother followed us into the parking lot screaming and yelling and then spat in my face. She was promptly arrested and charged by the police.
While workshop participants identified a component of racial hatred in this incident, the woman was not charged with a hate crime.
The sessions ended with the group meeting together with the Sergeant. A lively debate and heated discussion ensued because the participants disagreed with the definition of a hate crime as found in Criminal Code § § 318 and 319. The federal legislation was provided to the participants at the beginning of each workshop. Participants provided example after example, particularly in the breakout sessions, only to be told that the incidents they reported would not be considered hate crimes under the legislation. While the scenarios resonated with the African Canadian participants as mirroring their own experiences, the participants were shocked to discover that these could not be prosecuted as hate crimes. Many African Canadians participants reported that such incidents occurred within their lives on a daily basis. Because the police were reluctant and/or unable to prosecute such incidents using hate crime legislation, workshop participants acknowledged that they and their communities were reluctant to report such incidents to the police. They also expressed frustration with the legal system, which they identified as being part of the problem. Participants recounted stories of police officers assuming that African Canadian families were the guilty parties without bothering to investigate the incidents in question. 19 Workshop participants were asked to complete a short survey; 36 people completed it. Fifty-three percent of the respondents replied that they had been harassed because of their skin color, and 19 percent replied that they had been harassed because of their religious background. Many African Canadians are of Muslim faith. When asked if they knew of anyone who had been harassed, 86 percent answered in the affirmative based on skin color and 67 percent answered yes on the basis of religion. When questioned about their children's experiences, 36 percent answered that their children had suffered harassment due to the color of their skin and 14 percent were harassed because of their religion. When asked how they responded to these incidents, 28 percent replied that they had done "nothing" and only one person replied that they had contacted the police. One person answered that their response was to move to a different country.
Summarizing their firsthand experiences, African Canadian community residents reached the following conclusions. First and foremost, hate crimes are not one-time offenses. African Canadians who experience these assaults (verbal and physical) wanted to make it clear that these incidents must be seen as part of a general climate within which individual acts of hatred are enabled. Thus, much more needs to be done than simply implementing criminal legislation that treats hate crimes as individual criminal acts. The entire community needs to work together to change the overall climate within Waterloo Region to render such acts unthinkable. Second, hate crimes do not only affect the targeted individuals, but also affect their families and their communities. Hate crimes target families and communities and communicate the message to them, through violence, that they do not belong. Third, the vast majority of reported hate crimes are raced and gendered. Specifically, it is White youth and men who target Black youth and men. This is why the Victoria Park incident mentioned above resonated so forcefully for participants; the victim was left lying unconscious and taken to the hospital, and the young men were charged with assault but not under hate crime legislation.
The issues brought forward during the two workshops were developed further over the course of the summer and brought to the forum that took place in September 2008. The forum included a panel with representatives from the Hate Crimes Investigation Unit, the Waterloo Public School Board, the regional council of Waterloo Region, AWA, the African Canadian Legal Clinic (established in 1997) and an eleven-year old boy who spoke about school bullying. He began with a dictionary definition of bullying, which identified various types of bullying: physical, emotional, and cyber bullying. He then added another component to the dictionary definition-bullying motivated by hatred-which he used to speak about his brother's experiences and his own. The boy's brother became a target for bullying (physical and verbal) since they were the only two Black boys in their Montréal elementary school. When the older brother came to his younger brother's defense, a physical confrontation in the schoolyard ensued; the two brothers were the only ones who received suspensions from school. The boys' father, who was present in the audience, cited this incident as the major reason why they decided to move to Waterloo. Unfortunately, instances of bullying based in racial hatred are also occurring in the region's schools. Mothers gave examples of their children being called "monkeys" and "(n-words)," and of being told to "go back to Africa." Children, especially boys, were also beaten by groups of White boys in the 54 JOURNAL OF HATE STUDIES [Vol. 12:39 schoolyard because of their skin color. The issue of racial bullying thus became a central component of the second project begun in 2011 and is discussed below. Following the morning keynote addresses and the panel, the afternoon was devoted to breakout sessions on six topics: youth, education, media, interfaith, justice, and community issues. The breakout sessions included participation of police officers alongside community leaders and social service agency workers. In the general session that concluded the forum, African Canadian community leaders expressed much frustration and anger that so little was being done to address what African Canadian participants clearly experienced as racial hatred and discrimination.
Alongside the conclusions from the workshops, the consensus stemming from the forum was that Criminal Code § § 318 and 319 are fundamentally flawed and need to be rewritten. There was a recommendation for workshops for police where African Canadian community members could come and speak about their experiences with hate crimes. Rather than police, prominent and well-known members of the African Canadian communities (like Gassim) are the ones who tend to be called when a racist event occurs, sometimes in the middle of the night. 20 Community members do not know where else to take these complaints, since there is no organized channel to communicate with authorities.
In November 2012, a public forum was held at Kitchener City Hall to launch "Celebrating Diversity in Waterloo Region." The Chief of Police for Waterloo Region and the Mayor of Waterloo were keynote speakers. The Chief of Police noted the very high rate of hate crimes in the region, listed some years in the top four nationally, as discussed above. He said that the high incidence of hate crimes in Waterloo Region might be due to the success of the 2008 project, when participants were encouraged to come forward and report what they understood to be "hate crimes," placed in quotes here because they would define hate crimes in a broader sense than that found in the Criminal Code. Statistics Canada reported that in 2010 there was a decline of 20 percent in the rate of police-reported hate crimes motivated by race or ethnicity and a decline of 18 percent in the overall rate (2012). Blacks continued to be the most highly targeted race or ethnic group and Ontario was the province with the highest rate of police-reported hate crimes. While the Tri-Cities were listed as fourth highest in the Census metropolitan areas in the province of Ontario, Waterloo Region witnessed a decrease along with Toronto and Vancouver.

V. CELEBRATING DIVERSITY IN WATERLOO REGION
Citizenship and Immigration Canada provided project funding for "Celebrating Diversity in Waterloo Region" for three years (2011-2014) as part of its "Inter-action Multiculturalism Grants and Contributions" program designed to address gaps in communication between public government agencies and local communities. The University of Waterloo, in partnership with WWOW and AWA, continued their work with new African immigrants and refugees in the Region of Waterloo. While "Celebrating Diversity in Waterloo Region" did not focus on hate crimes, an important issue identified in the previous project which has been developed in this second project is the issue of racial bullying in schools. Mayor Brenda Halloran identified bullying as a major problem during the course of her keynote address in 2012 at the forum that introduced the project to the community as mentioned above. While the afternoon session was to be devoted to breakout sessions, it was decided to keep the group together due to the lively debate that ensued, especially around the topic of bullying. One mother provided the example of her child being denied access to the play area in her junior kindergarten class when a White child informed her that no "Brown" children were allowed. Fortunately, the teacher intervened immediately to address the problem. This was not always the case as other parents came forward to report incidents of racial bullying involving their children. The examples provided by the participants included instances of bullying from junior kindergarten all the way through university. Indeed, a university student elicited tears from participants as she recounted her own experiences with racial slurs and bullying over the course of her university career, which led her to experience feelings of isolation, low self-esteem, and poor body image.
Musyznski conducted interviews with African residents in the region during 2012 and 2013, and included a number of questions dealing with experiences with racial discrimination. A number of parents identified the issue of the racism their children experience in the schools as a major problem. For example, several parents reported that their children were called "(n-words)" by other children. Often the children did not even know what this word meant. When a child who was repeatedly called racist names finally reacted to this treatment, teachers and the principal blamed the targeted child, who was then suspended from school. As reported by several parents, part of the problem is that often the White children know how the system works and know when and how to attack children who are newcomers by isolating them so that there are no other witnesses present. As newcomers, African children often do not know who to turn to or what to do and thus become a further target for schoolteachers and principals who side with the White children. Parents who are familiar with English and who find out what is happening to their children have reacted by having their children change schools; some have even sent their children out of the 56 JOURNAL OF HATE STUDIES [Vol. 12:39 country. The problem is far worse for newcomers who do not know the language, the way the school system operates, or even what rights they as parents have. Children may also be reluctant to talk about these issues at home. Such reticence can lead to high levels of stress and even mental breakdowns. 21 One of the project outcomes was development and dissemination of a tool kit on bullying for elementary and junior high schools, including a discussion of racially based bullying. In May 2013, a toolkit launch was held to introduce "Bullying: Let's Do Something about It" to the community and to social service providers; the school boards plan to distribute a copy of the tool kit to every elementary and high school in the region. A second initiative, a series of lunch learning sessions, was introduced in 2012. The learning lessons were for new immigrants and refugees enrolled in English as a Second Language courses in two of the region's schools. This series proved so successful that it was expanded to four schools and continued into 2014. The series of eight sessions included one on "The Impacts of Bullying on Your Child," as well as "Raising Children in Two Cultures," "The Influence of Peer Relationships," "Self-Esteem and Mental Health Issues," "Parental Stress Management and Coping Techniques," and concluded with a session that provided information on community resources.
As participants in the 2008 forum expressed so eloquently, African Canadians experience hate within a context that involves racial discrimination as an ongoing phenomenon, one that affects the individual, the entire family, and the community. A focus group held in 2013 included African Canadian youth. One of the major topics that they discussed was the recruitment of African newcomers into gangs as taking place within their schools. While this is a new topic in the context of this article, it is yet another factor that must be taken into account in understanding the experiences of African immigrants and refugees. Another dimension involves inter-generational differences in the experiences of newcomer parents compared with those of their children. Children face problems at school, like racial bullying and gang recruitment, problems that may remain unknown to their parents. These issues were addressed in the aforementioned lunchtime series for ESL participants, as a response to the call from the 2008 forum for the need to make newcomers aware of available services and to offer assistance in helping them adjust to a life in a new country.

CONCLUSION: HATE OR RACISM?
The information and testimony gathered to date show a need to address the issues raised here as complex and interrelated, and as including hate crimes, racial bullying, and experiences with racial discrimination and racism on a daily basis. This article concludes with a theoretical discussion that can aid in understanding the nature of the experiences that African immigrants and refugees face, as well as possible solutions.
From the testimony provided by African Canadian community residents, it is clear that they deal with what they defined as hate crimes on a daily basis. Essed's concept of everyday racism applies in this context. Essed connects the macro dimension of racism as embedded in structures and ideology with the micro experiences of those groups of people who are its targets and who must develop what Dorothy Smith (1991) terms a "bifurcated consciousness." While African newcomers embrace the view that Canada is a multicultural society that promulgates justice and fairness, their own daily experiences contradict this principle of inclusion. From the testimony the co-authors heard, Black people are not made to feel that they are welcome. Everyday racism "links ideological dimensions of racism with daily attitudes and interprets the reproduction of racism in terms of the experience of it in everyday life" (Essed, 1991, p. 2). Henry, Tator, Mattis, and Rees (2010, p. 6) argue that the concept of democratic racism is "the most appropriate model for understanding how and why racism continues in Canada." Henry et al. define democratic racism as "the justification of the inherent conflict between the egalitarian values of liberalism, justice and fairness, and the racist ideologies reflected in the collective mass belief system as well as the racist attitudes, perceptions, and assumptions of individuals." Henry et al. also identify a number of discourses connected to the concept of democratic racism. These include the "discourse of law and order," the "discourse of multiculturalism" and the "discourse of neoliberalism and neoliberal racism." All three discourses implicate the Canadian state. For example, the "discourse of multiculturalism" includes "official" multiculturalism (as enacted under federal and provincial legislation) and, in contrast, "critical" or "radical" multiculturalism. Official multiculturalism is defined as "[a]n ideology that holds that racial, cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity is an integral, beneficial, and necessary part of Canadian society and identity. It is an official policy operating in various social institutions and levels of government, including the federal government" (Henry et al., 2010, p. 382). However, "critical (radical) multiculturalism" is defined as A form of multiculturalism that calls for a radical restructuring of the power relations between ethno-racial communities, and that challenges the hierarchical structure of society. Critical/radical multiculturalism focuses on empowering communities and transforming systems of representation, institutional and structural centres of power, and discourses. the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Ministry of the Attorney General (Ontario) or Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
15. The Working Group utilized the words "Transgendered" and "Intersexed" within its LGBTI grouping. Note that GLAAD designates "Transgender" as its term of preference and considers "Transgendered" to be "problematic" because the addition of -ed is "extraneous" and adds "unnecessary length to the word and can cause confusion and grammatical errors" (GLAAD Media Reference Guide, 2010, p.10). While GLAAD appears not to have issued a similar statement regarding the word "Intersex," it is the term that GLAAD itself uses (p.9) and similar concerns of confusion and grammatical error would likely pertain.
16. In 1994, Sadia Gassim and with three other people founded the notfor-profit organization World Wide Opportunities for Women ("WWOW"), a grassroots organization founded by and for immigrants in Waterloo Region. African Women's Alliance ("AWA") is a grass-roots organization that celebrates African culture in Waterloo Region, hosting an annual Afro Festival in Waterloo Park.
17. The Hate Crimes Investigation Unit is funded on a yearly basis. The amount of funding in any one year thus determines the scope of activities that the unit can undertake. There are frequent changes in personnel and reallocation of duties from one year to the next. For example, the Police Sergeant Detective who worked with the 2008 project was soon after assigned to other duties.
18. Only an estimated 1 percent of hate crimes in Canada are reported to the police. Out of an estimated 892 hate crimes reported, 6 out of 10 were motivated by race or ethnicity and half of racially-motivated crimes were targeted towards Black Canadians (Statistics Canada, 2008).
19. Another example highlights the nature of the problem. An African Canadian little boy was playing in the family's front yard when a group of White boys came and scratched the neighbor's expensive car. When the neighbor asked who had done this, the boys claimed it was the African Canadian boy. The police came to the boy's mother and accused her son of having done the damage, telling her she would have to pay for repairs to the car. The small child was not tall enough to have marked the car. In addition, a White neighbor who lived across the street witnessed the entire incident but refused to come forward. The mother, who had a degree in social work and knew her rights, told the police officers she needed to consult a lawyer, at which point the police officers withdrew their verbal complaint. The neighbor whose car was damaged was apparently so upset by what had transpired, and that the White boys were never charged with mischief, that he moved out of the neighborhood. 20. For example, a pregnant young mother phoned Sadia Gassim in 62 JOURNAL OF HATE STUDIES [Vol. 12:39 tears, expressing her desire to move from the region. She was waiting to cross the street with her young children when a group of boys threw a balloon filled with urine at her. Another example provided by one of the workshop participants was the story of an old man riding a bicycle, and who was pelted with eggs by a group of young men. A third example involved an irate neighbor with issues about a fence who shouted racial slurs at her neighbor. Many examples were provided. These incidents occurred in public spaces and also in neighborhoods and the workplace. In other words, these incidents become endemic and constant reminders of being "Black," different and "other." 21. One of the major issues arising from the second project is the need to address mental health issues. Many families, including children, arrive in Canada traumatized by their experiences in war-torn countries, including witnessing murder of loved ones, and separation from family members as a result of war, migration and/or placement in refugee camps. In Canada, there is often a long wait of several years before family members can be reunited. Adapting to a new country and a new climate poses further challenges. Therefore, racial bullying is an added factor that can lead to mental health problems.