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[Musique]

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Hi, My name is Maxim Fortin. I am 

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the coordinator for the

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Quebec laws and

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freedoms league

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I have a political science background.

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I have a bachelor's, Master's and

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Doctorate in the field. 

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and when it comes to political science, 

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I really interested in the area of  

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collective action, the sociology of 

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social mouvements, philantropy, 

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social policy and policy in

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education. 

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I am also interested in matters of

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anti-racism, colonialism, anti-facism and so on. 

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I would say that, personally

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I have experienced racism very young.

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So I would say that I opened my eyes

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to a world where, right away, I saw that there

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was a lot of injustice and my desire to

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get involved in different social causes

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linked to social justice I think

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it is really linked to my

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experience with racism growing up.Very early on, I realised 

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that there were a lot of injustice in the world and

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that one of those big injustices was racism and I was partially a victim to it.

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And so it's something that stuck to preoccupations. 

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stuck to preoccupations. But I would

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say that for the past few years

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since 2015, we can feel a rise

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of a racism that we'll call organized, of

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a xenophobia that is politically

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profitable. We feel the rise of

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what we could call organized intolerance and politically, I would 

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say that is also politcally organized.

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So that made me want to be more

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involved in anti-racism 

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and my job with the laws and freedoms league allows me to go towards that path.  

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It's really important to recognize the

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necessity of prioritizing the organisation

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of racialised people and I think

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that it is also very important that

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we recognize that it is even more

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difficult in the context of Covid-19.

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To kind of paint a picture of the situation,

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there are three project, three instances, three places where

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Covid-19 impacted the actions of

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the league and the actors and actrices of anti-racism in the city of Quebec. .

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Obviously there is the ''Femmes d'ici et d'ailleurs'' committee that had an awful lot of 

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difficulty gathering its members and

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maintaining activities in the area (of Quebec City) worthy of a committee that is active. There's the project creation

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of the defense of racialised people in the Quebec were put on hold for a while

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because it was nearly impossible to bring people together.

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And there is also the coordination of anti-racist action in Quebec (city) that was already attempting to revive... that was struggling a bit to get momentum

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it was even worse with the Covid situation. In regards to the necessity of

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organization, if I speak from the Quebec (city) perspective, 

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Quebec is a city where diveristy is relatively new there as always been people

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as always been people of different ethnicities in Quebec (city) but

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I would say, that

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immigration and seeing the 

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diversity in the city is something that is

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more recent and ethnic communties

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or racialised communities,still don't hold

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still don't hold a lot of space 


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and, in terms of numbers, 

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are still very few. So, 

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it, sometimes, becomes difficult to

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beget organisational spaces which

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 will, in turn, mean that when those

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communities are threatened by different

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upcoming law project, programs, policy or regulations 

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they won't be able to quickly respond.

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So, in Quebec (province) in different fields

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there is an array of groups that are doing militating,

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that are defending the rights of indivuals. 

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And when we talk about ethnic communities,[or]

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racialised people, there are

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still very few actors or actrices are present.

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There are some

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in Montreal, but in Quebec (city) it is

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something that still needs to be worked on and

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developped and in rural areas it 

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it basically non-existent. 

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I think that there are

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les reflections that we must have and

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there are conclusions that we must draw.

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One of those conclusion, that I think

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that we must draw is to recognize

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the limits of education and 

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awareness and the need for

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taking action and organization. We will

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always need to educate. We will

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always need to bring awareness but

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I would say that in the current

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state of anti-racism [work], I think there is

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a tendency to stay limited to education,

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to stay limited to raising awareness. We need 

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to go further than that. We need to empower people to take action, 

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to help them towards taking action. 

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We need to help them fight for

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their rights. 

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And for that, we need 

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structures,we need organization. So that would be one of the

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first conclusion I could draw, first recommendation I would make.

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Another recommendation I would make would be to recognize the limits

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of an approached focus on trying to appease everyone and to 

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accept the need to take a militant socio-political.

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The necessity of pushing  

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even more anti-racism, or going towards a path that is 
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going towards a path that is 

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even more vocal in protesting. Sometimes, focusing on

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appeasing everyone is something that

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most people adhere to but sometimes I

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would say, thatd organisations that 

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limit themselves to one perspective of appeasing everyone

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kind of results in a bland discourse and kind of look

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away, 

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don't make as much effort

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to target oppressions, 

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exploitations and dominations. And make 

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very minimal effort

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to combat the people responsible.

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So that is my second

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recommendation. 

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Another recommendation would be to

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put to light the abundance of financial resources for small anti-racist projects 

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against the almost inexistent financial resources for sustainable initiatives 

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focused on the defending of rights

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the Quebec laws and freedoms

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and the popular education group 

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of the Quebec (city) region

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so their impact, I can tell you about right now.

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One of our biggest struggles right now

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in our willingness to create the group to defend racialised individuals

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it that is is 

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very difficult to go 

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get funding.Not getting  

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funding for many small things, 

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many small projects that in the long-term 

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may not have a significant impact, but rather

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for something that we believe

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will bring a significant impact, we find

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very little sources

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of funding. 

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The other recommendation that I could make would be

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that given the context of identity politics, 

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there is a need for people that work in anti-racist work to 

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advocate for and be vocal about anti-racism, 

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to not be afraind of the

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label, to not be afraid of wearing

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the label, to demand anti-racism

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and to maybe, in the context of Covid.. I mean not Covid but

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rather of identity politics, the importance of  

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docummenting and combatting the progression of right-wing xenophobia and notably 

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in an area like Quebec (city) where there is a racist right 

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that is getting 

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organised and that can 

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contribute to instilling fear and hiding
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in racialised people. 

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So, in short those are the recommendations

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that I could make.