Book Review

The Pursuit of Division: Race, Gender and Preferential Hiring in Canada

by Martin Loney, Ph.D , McGill-Queen's University Press

Martin Loney has written an incisive, well-researched book which clearly exposes the divisiveness of gender and equality politics in Canada. He highlights radical feminism as a major force behind government policies which divide Canadians along group membership lines of race and gender. He claims that advancement according to group identity, which is part of Canadian hiring practices, is "an assault on standards and the merit principle." It masks increased polarization of social classes and ushers in the "Brazilianization of Canadian society." He writes that this injustice has taken place under an invasive bureaucracy and that his purpose is to expose the "fraudulent claims, nepotism, shoddy research, and self-serving rhetoric [which] have propelled a politics of grievance." Canadians who have witnessed the increase of contention at all levels of Canadian society will recognize the phenomenon which Dr. Loney describes.

Preferential hiring has benefited what Statistics Canada calls "Prime Women" (ages 35-54) who have "recorded large increases in employment and striking increases in earnings." Between 1983 and 1992, these women registered earning growth of 18%, while "Prime Men" saw only a 2.5% increase. Young males (20-24) have been struck the hardest by policies and division. They have experienced the greatest decline in earnings: 24%! In 1994, 18.5% of males aged 15-24 were unemployed compared to 14.3% of women. Loney comments: "There are no tax-funded lobbies who claim to speak on their behalf, no government departments mandated to address their 'marginalization'." Canadian men, who interpret this as personal failure, are the unrecognized victims of discriminatory preferential hiring.

Loney ascribes the lack of sufficient debate on these divisive trends to "government-funded preferential hiring advocates and an array of unrepresentative grievance groups ... [who] dominate the agenda." He suggests that the nation's public broadcasting system, notably CBC Radio, assists in thwarting a healthy range of public opinion.

In his chapter, "The Myth of Racial Discrimination in the Labour Market," Loney uses sound evidence to effectively discredit the accusation that "Canada is a racist country and always has been." He agrees with other analysts that affirmative action (employment equity), in fact, institutionalizes race. He calls attention to Canada's tax-funded race industry and quotes a Public Service Alliance Corporation press release which admits that current "policies and practices have in effect systematized racism in Canada."

In the chapter, "Canadian Feminists and Racial Grievance," he exposes the race-based attitude held by major feminists in Canada. He uncovers the nonsense of race politics at taxpayers' expense under headings such as "Skin politics," "The colour of guilt," "Women's press: playing the race card" and "Desperately seeking racism."

He refers to Canadian feminism as a "made-in-Ottawa women's movement," founded on a "biological basis of guilt and virtue." He writes, "Self-styled feminists with six-figure incomes, living in exclusive residential areas, seriously proclaim their victim status and entitlement to special consideration." He uncovers unsubstantiated assertions made by tax-funded social engineers which "portray men as insensitive parasites and women as eternal victims."

NAC, Status of Women, The Charter, Human Rights Commissions, Employment Equity bureaucracies, University Women's Programs, Parliamentary Committees, Multiculturalism and out-of-control government funding go under the microscope as key players. Pierre Trudeau stated, "You can't have a nation of people with different rights in front of the state." Loney reminds us that "... this, of course, [is] exactly the situation created by preferential hiring policies and [has been] legislated in Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

Although it is a fact that women got 84% of the new full-time jobs between 1990 and 1996, Alexa McDonough still stated in 1997: "Women are losing ground, losing the battle of equality."

Chapters entitled "Lies, Damn Lies and Federal Employment Equity Data," "Alabama North: Race, Gender, and the Politics of the Rae Government," and "Spare Me the Facts: Orthodoxy and the Flight from Scholarly Inquiry," contain interesting facts on group advantage politics and the personalities who have promoted it, including Ontario Court of Appeal Judge, Rosalie Abella, who chaired the Royal Commission on Employment and recommended "employment equity legislation" as a solution without any factual data to support it. In the book, a wide range of issues are covered from discrimination against white males and one-income families, to slavery, to race relations world-wide, to the bogus statistics and double-speak that prop up the new orthodoxy of identity politics.

One shortcoming in the book is its poor coverage of one powerful preference seeking group, namely, the homosexual lobby. This omission indicates the extent to which Canadians have been silenced when it comes to this pressure group and its proponents.

"The Pursuit of Division" is a fascinating read for those who have been following the cultural revolution in Canada during the past few decades.

(Martin Loney holds a Ph.D from the London School of Economics and has taught at universities in Canada and the UK. He is currently a consultant in social policy.)

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