“The Bank of Canada considered celebrating gay marriages, black hockey players, and turban-wearing RCMP officers on its new plastic bank notes”

By Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Feb. 11, 2013:

Whitewashed Bank of Canada $100 Bill

And so the Harper Conservative-inspired whitewashing of Canada continues.

Last summer, we learned that the Bank of Canada had nixed the image of an Asian-looking female scientist from its new $100 polymer banknote “after focus groups raised questions about her ethnicity.” Apparently, members of the “focus groups” had objected because they felt that her ethnicity wasn’t representative of Canada. Now The Canadian Press is reporting that the bank has nixed the images of non-whites and gays from it’s new series of $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 polymer bills as well.

A very ugly racist game is on here. It’s taxpayer-funded.

CLC report: Corporate Tax Freedom Day is January 30 – Big businesses hoard cash from tax giveaways, not investing in jobs 

by Canadian Labour Congress | Jan. 29, 2013

OTTAWA – A research study by the Canadian Labour Congress shows that CEOs in Canada could be dancing in their suites to celebrate Corporate Tax Freedom Day on January 30. Their companies will by then have paid their share of taxes to all levels of government for the entire year.

“Corporate income taxes amounted to only 8.3% of all government revenues in 2011, down from 8.8% in 2010 and from an average of 11% in the 1960s and 70s,” says CLC Secretary-Treasurer Hassan Yussuff. “In return for tax breaks companies are supposed to be investing their windfall to create good jobs in Canada but instead they are hoarding cash and paying fat compensation to their CEOs.”

By Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Aug. 19, 2012:

The Bank of Canada nixed the image of an Asian-looking female scientist from its new $100 polymer banknote “after focus groups raised questions about her ethnicity.” Focus groups consulted at a cost of $53,000 in Toronto, Fredericton, Calgary and Montreal “were especially critical of the choice of an Asian for the largest denomination”. One focus group respondent, an ugly Canadian from Fredericton commented: “The person on it appears to be of Asian descent which doesn’t rep(resent) Canada. It is fairly ugly.”

In response, the bank replaced the Asian with someone from a “neutral ethnicity”. A Caucasian. If there’s a better way to institutionalize racism, please let me know.

Full story from the Toronto Star:

OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada purged the image of an Asian-looking woman from its new $100 banknotes after focus groups raised questions about her ethnicity.

The original image intended for the reverse of the plastic polymer banknotes, which began circulating last November, showed an Asian-looking woman scientist peering into a microscope.

The image, alongside a bottle of insulin, was meant to celebrate Canada’s medical innovations.

But eight focus groups consulted about the proposed images for the new $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 banknote series were especially critical of the choice of an Asian for the largest denomination.

“Some have concerns that the researcher appears to be Asian,” says a 2009 report commissioned by the bank from The Strategic Counsel, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

“Some believe that it presents a stereotype of Asians excelling in technology and/or the sciences. Others feel that an Asian should not be the only ethnicity represented on the banknotes. Other ethnicities should also be shown.”

A few even said the yellow-brown colour of the $100 banknote reinforced the perception the woman was Asian, and “racialized” the note.

The bank immediately ordered the image redrawn, imposing what a spokesman called a “neutral ethnicity” for the woman scientist who, now stripped of her “Asian” features, appears on the circulating note. Her light features appear to be Caucasian.

“The original image was not designed or intended to be a person of a particular ethnic origin,” bank spokesman Jeremy Harrison said in an interview, citing policy that eschews depictions of ethnic groups on banknotes.

“But obviously when we got into focus groups, there was some thought the image appeared to represent a particular ethnic group, so modifications were made.”

Harrison declined to provide a copy of the original image, produced by a design team led by Jorge Peral of the Canadian Bank Note Co., which was a test design only and never made it into circulation.

Nor would he indicate what specific changes were made to the woman researcher’s image to give her a so-called “neutral ethnicity.” He said the images were “composites” rather than depicting any specific individual.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Canadian National Council slammed the bank on Friday for bending to racism.

“The Bank of Canada apparently took seriously … racist comments and feedback from the focus groups and withdrew the image,” said May Lui, interim executive director of the group’s Toronto chapter.

“That was upsetting simply because of the history and longevity of Chinese-Canadians in this country.”

Lui demanded the bank “acknowledge their error in caving to the racist feedback.”

Victor Wong, the group’s national executive director, called on the bank to amend its policy of not depicting visible minorities.

“You’re erasing all of us,” he said from Toronto. “Your default then is an image with Caucasian features.”

The Strategic Counsel conducted the October 2009 focus groups in Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Fredericton, at a cost of $53,000.

The Toronto groups were positive about the image of an Asian woman because “it is seen to represent diversity or multiculturalism.”

In Quebec, however, “the inclusion of an Asian without representing any other ethnicities was seen to be contentious.”

One person in Fredericton commented: “The person on it appears to be of Asian descent which doesn’t rep(resent) Canada. It is fairly ugly.”

Mu-Qing Huang, a Chinese-Canadian who has peered into microscopes for biology courses at the University of Toronto, called the bank’s decision a “huge step back.”

“The fact that an Asian woman’s features were introduced to the bill … I think itself is a huge step forward in achieving true multiculturalism in Canada,” Huang, 24, said in an interview in Ottawa.

“But the fact that the proposal was rejected represents a huge step back.”

She said the “overly sensitive” decision to remove the Asian features suggests prejudice against visible minorities persists in Canada.

“If Canada is truly multicultural and thinks that all cultural groups are equal, then any visible minority should be good enough to represent a country, including (someone with) Asian features.”

Huang, now pursuing an MA at the University of Toronto, came to Canada from China with her family at age 12, living in Toronto and Ottawa.

The 2006 census found that Canada’s population included more than five million people from visible minority groups, of which 1.2 million were Chinese and another 240,000 with ancestry from Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Laos.

The Bank of Canada introduced the new series of banknotes largely to thwart counterfeiters, though they are also expected to last much longer than the old versions. New $50 notes went into circulation in March, with $20 notes still to come in November.

By Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, May 1, 2012:

Photo: Remy Steinegger

The Harper Conservatives are fond of touting Canadian banks as more stable than other countries’ big banks. They claim all the credit for Canada’s stability during the 2008-10 global financial crisis. And, we’re often told that our banks needed no bailout during the crisis. What a big Whopper! Canada’s big banks actually received $114 billion in support from the federal government and the Bank of Canada during the crisis, according to a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

We was robbed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives during the May 2 Federal election. The truth about the Canadian economy was withheld.