Wednesday, November 4, 2009

1176...Black Coffee

Black Coffee is a newsletter that I subscribe to. Targeted to African Canadians it is pretty cool at times and this is one of these times.

What I am doing is referencing it referencing the CBC's The National in a cut and paste way.

CBC News asks the quesiton [sic], 1 year after Obama is elected.

Will we ever have a black prime minister?

On the anniversary of Barack Obama's election, Wendy Mesley posed the above question on the National tonight. The segment isn't separately online yet, but can be seen at the 35 minute mark of the National here. Mesley acknowledges it's not an entirely fair comparison-demographics are different here than in the United States-but the discussion that follows is likely relevant nonetheless.

By the Public Policy Forum's last check, Parliament was 92.2% white. The examples of non-white politicians even running for the leadership of a federal party are few and far between (Hedy Fry was briefly in the Liberal race in 2006, the last black politician to pursue national leadership might be Howard McCurdy for the NDP in 1989). For argument's sake, Noah Richler posited a year ago that Canada's Barack Obama moment won't come until Canada elects an Aboriginal prime minister.

Of course, you could set race aside and wonder when the Canadian public will elect its first female prime minister vote sufficiently for the candidates of a party led by a woman so that that woman becomes prime minister.

web: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/Latest_Broadcast/ID=1318328288
Nov 3, 2009/ duration 48 minutes.
The National - The National for November 03, 2009
Available until Nov 5th only.


One could and should ask similar questions about Aboriginals. Will there be a break through Native or African Canadian politician in this country? We Canadians like to think we are way ahead of the Americans in that realm but they have had prominent elected pols of non Euro ancestry for generations.

WFDS

1 comment:

  1. Of course there won't be! They can't even elect white women, who are much higher on the totem pole than blacks or aboriginals. that first Indian PM is at least 50 years away.

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