BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

The Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, which acts as a minority advocacy group among other functions, came down hard upon the significance of data released recently by the Quebec Treasury Board about the number of visible minority and anglophone employees in the province's civil service, which is only 4.1 per cent out of a total of 84,706 employees.

"The doors are shut (to ethnic minorities,)" said the organization's executive director Fo Niemi. "They want to hire people who they feel comfortable with," he added.

This is despite a provincial government policy that has been in place since 1981 to hire more ethnic minorities, said Niemi.

According to him, part of the reason is that there is not enough external pressure on the government to make good on its promise. "When was the last time you saw the opposition parties push this government for more ethnic minority hires?" Asked Niemi. He added the opposition just does not seem to be interested in raising this issue.

Niemi said that minorities have made strides in getting hired in other areas like the private sector. "In most professions, they are in the high numbers," he added.

As for contentions that members of minorities may simply not have the qualifications to work in civil service, Niemi dismissed them as irrelevant. "After 25 years of government policy and discourses you can't say that members of minorities do not have the qualifications for these jobs," he said.

Dollard des Ormeaux resident Veronica Johnson, who works as a vice-principal at Verdun's Beurling Academy high school, said the issue is a bit of a double-edged sword. "A lot of our young people are too satisfied," she said, referring to Montreal's black community. She added they need to do more to boost up their performance. "We have to break barriers down, make sure that people learn that we're here."

However, Johnson said she has also noticed there is a problem here when compared to Ontario right next door. "When you walk into any (government) ministries there," she said, you notice the difference right away in terms of visible minorities that are present.

She added immigrants from different cultural minorities tend to be a lot more highly educated in Quebec these days than they used to be, and yet the representation on the job sector was still not there.

Minister of Immigration and Cultural Communities and Nelligan riding MNA Yolande James did not return calls for comment as of press time for this story.