The Canadian Arab Institute Response to Budget 2021
By Shireen Salti, Executive Director and Jad El Tal, Director of Policy and Research
The inclusion of Arab-Canadians is vital to Canada’s post-pandemic economic recovery. Arabs are Canada’s largest newcomer population and fastest growing immigrant population. The Canadian Arab Institute thanks the federal government for listening to our community, and incorporating our feedback in Budget 2021. The budget responds to CAI’s key recommendations during pre-budget consultations, including with respect to issues such as employment, foreign policy, youth, discrimination, and integration.
Employment
Arabs have had the highest rate of unemployment among Canada’s visible minority groups during the pandemic. The Arab-Canadian unemployment rate has been as high as 17.9 %. Arab women have been even more negatively impacted, with their unemployment rate peaking at 20.3%. As CAI’s Board member Kareem El-Assal pointed out in his reaction to Budget 2021, “newcomer women sometimes face barriers to employment in Canada due to factors such as developing English or French skills, lack of Canadian experience, lack of affordable child care, and discrimination.” This is particularly true for Arab women.
For most of the summer and fall of last year, the unemployment rate declined for six of the seven largest visible minority groups. Unfortunately, Arab-Canadians were the only group that did not see their unemployment rate decline.
We are pleased to see the budget acknowledging that “in May 2016, about 1 in 7 Arab Canadian women were looking for work,” and that Arab Canadian men “also had particularly high rates.” Beyond employment, Budget 2021 recognizes that Arabs have some of the highest poverty rates, as they receive some of the lowest wages on average among visible minority groups. We look forward to working with the government to identify how we can overcome these challenges.
Given that 25% of Arab-Canadians are below the age of 18, we believe the Canada-wide Early Learning and Child Care Plan will help Arab parents integrate into Canada economically, socially, and civically, while knowing that their children are in safe, reliable, and affordable daycares. This Plan will especially be crucial in fostering the economic inclusion of Arab-Canadian women.
Foreign Policy
In early March, CAI published a policy brief on the Lebanon crisis to inform the government on how Arab-Canadians believe the federal government should respond through the Middle East Engagement Strategy. The recommendations called for increased support for minority groups (particularly youth, women, and LGBTQ+ people in Lebanon), stronger human rights training for the Lebanese Armed Forces, and a bolder diplomatic approach in engaging with corrupt political leaders.
We are encouraged to see that the Middle East Engagement Strategy has been extended for one more year, which will continue to help respond to the several crises in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. CAI is currently evaluating the entire strategy, and looks forward to working with Global Affairs Canada to help them in building the next strategy, with the inputs of the Arab-Canadian community in mind.
Youth
CAI’s Census research shows that around 60% of the Arab-Canadian population is below the age of 34. Arab youth are agents of change in our community, as they continue to advocate for rights, civic engagement, and solidarity with other racialized youth. They are also facing the brunt of the pandemic, with around 1 in 3 visible minority youth unemployed at some point in the last year.
CAI is pleased to see that Budget 2021 proposes an investment of $5.7 billion in youth over the next five years. Particularly, we welcome the expansion of the Canada Summer Jobs Program. This Program helped us employ Arab-Canadian youth last year. As well, we applaud the provision of $400 million to create a temporary Community Services Recovery Fund that will help charities and nonprofits adapt and modernize to better support the economic recovery of their communities.
Discrimination
We know that anti-Arab racism significantly impacts our community. Statistics Canada surveys show that around 1 in 4 Arabs experienced some form of discrimination because of their ethnicity, culture, race or skin colour within the last five years. We also know that almost 40% of Arabs reported having experienced discrimination during the pandemic, and Arabs are more likely to experience bias in the workplace.
Budget 2021 provides $11 million over two years to scale up efforts of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) to empower racialized Canadians and help community groups combat racism in all its forms. We welcome this announcement, and look forward to working with CRRF to ensure that this support extends to the Arab-Canadian community.
Next Steps
Given that 2021 is a Census year, one particular concern that CAI will continue to advocate for is that the categorization of visible minorities does not always include the whole Arab community, who might report being “Arab” and “French” and be excluded from the visible minority category.
This is challenging for CAI, as we cannot have a full understanding of integration issues of our community without complete data. As it stands, according to the 2016 Census, there are 1 million Arabs in Canada and only half of them are considered visible minorities. The CAI will continue to advocate for the inclusion of all Arabs in the visible minority category, as many members of our community experience forms of anti-Arab racism.
There is more work to be done, but Budget 2021 is a step towards a more resilient Canada with stronger socio-economic inclusion of Arab-Canadians.
Since completing our analysis, CBC released an article, titled The federal budget took steps toward racial justice — but activists say more must be done, highlighting the importance of race-based data collection and investing in racialized communities, including Arabs-Canadians.
Jad El Tal, Director of Policy and Research
Jad El Tal is a Lebanese-Canadian dual Master’s of Public Policy and Global Affairs candidate at SciencesPo-Paris and the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
His speciality is in management, innovation and governance in public affairs, and his passion lies in education policy. Before moving to Paris, Jad was a Legislative Intern as part of the Ontario Legislature Internship Programme (OLIP), where he worked with both government and opposition Members of Provincial Parliament at Queen's Park. He completed his Bachelor of Arts-Honours at McGill University in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies in 2018. He recently received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to conduct sensitive research on reforming the history and civic education curricula in Lebanon. Jad enjoys networking and speaking new people in English, Arabic or French. Please feel free to connect with him through LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jad-el-tal/.
Shireen Salti, Executive Director
Shireen Salti is a fluently bilingual, first-generation Palestinian woman, and the Executive Director of the Canadian Arab Institute (CAI), where her strategic leadership is amplifying the voices and policy priorities of Arab-Canadian youth.
Shireen’s own lived experience is complimented by a Masters in Public Policy, Administration and Law and a Graduate Diploma in Judicial Administration from York University. These academic pursuits have fueled her passion for meaningful reform of the systems and policies meant to support the “Arab” experience in Canada—including newcomer resettlement, social capital, education, and labour market access. Some past successes include managing Ontario Public Service programs that reduced systematic barriers to education for marginalized students; leading advocacy strategies on Indigenous, mental health, cannabis, and accessibility policies for the Council of Ontario Universities; and working across party lines to write private members' bills and learn about governance at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario’s non-partisan Internship Programme (OLIP).
In partnership with Brock University, Shireen is currently leading a first-of-its-kind, race-based national study on COVID-19. She is also consulting with the Together Project, tracking how government-assisted refugees build social capital during the pandemic and resettlement period.
When not knee-deep in research and policy, Shireen can be found reading, writing spoken-word poetry, meditating, listening to Drake, or in her kitchen, experimenting with authentic Palestinian “Qudsi” recipes from her birthplace — Jerusalem.