Canadian Politics Today

Another who doesn't even know what racism means but feels free to throw it out there as a blanket condemnation.

This is racism:

Yes, I would call the guy with the white sounding name, but that's not racism. It's experience. First, the guy with the white sounding name probably speaks, reads and writes English pretty well. Second, he was probably born and raised here, which means he's culturally familiar with the rules of behaviour in an office setting.  Maybe not, but I'm going with the odds.

In effect, you are saying:  "Sure, somebody from a non-European background might be a great employee, but I have already made up my mind that they wouldn't be because they are from a non-European background".   It's really no different than saying "Yes, some blacks might be great but I have already made up my mind that they are sub-human because they are black."



 

This is racism:

In effect, you are saying:  "Sure, somebody from a non-European background might be a great employee, but I have already made up my mind that they wouldn't be because they are from a non-European background".   It's really no different than saying "Yes, some blacks might be great but I have already made up my mind that they are sub-human because they are black."

No it's simply not. And that's a gross exaggeration of my point. My preference for 'European sounding names' is simply based on the reality that most adults from the third world are immigrants. Not that they might be different colours. And I prefer the odds of getting a Canadian born person who is of a similar mindset to the group to the odds of finding someone from Nigeria or Egypt or India or Columbia who will fit in. Time is money and I had lots to do. So keep it simple, hire someone and move on.

Now the government's formal hiring practices are specifically designed to preclude my sort of behaviour. I'm sure that you will find that reassuring. They are mind-numbingly complex, horrifyingly time-consuming, and so devoted to being fair to prospective employees they are a huge problem for efficient operations. We tended to short-circuit them wherever possible simply because of how stunningly inefficient they were at finding employees. If we needed a new clerk we needed him or her NOW, not in 14 months.

Because I have 'preconceived' ideas about people from other countries being less Canadian that's racism? Seriously?

People from other countries ARE less Canadian by definition. Regardless of their race. Americans are less Canadian than Canadians. So are Ukrainians and Italians. If I go and live in Russia and they sell me a passport I still won't be very Russian. I won't speak the language as well, and won't embrace or understand the culture as well as the native born, and will retain a lot of the values, beliefs and behaviours I was raised with in Canada.

Your 'preconceived' notions are the exact definition of racism because they impact how valuable you consider them to be.  Your "preconceive" them to be less valuable than domestically-born Canadians in terms of economic viability, employees, neighbors and citizens. 

Your 'preconceived' notions are the exact definition of racism because they impact how valuable you consider them to be.  Your "preconceive" them to be less valuable than domestically-born Canadians in terms of economic viability, employees, neighbors and citizens.

They WERE less valuable than domestically born Canadians in terms of their likely value to the smooth running and efficiency of the group and its personality.  And that is not based on race, so therefore can't be racist. If I did an interview with a blonde guy who had come from say Ukraine a few years back I'd have had a lot of doubts about hiring him too. On the other hand, an Asian girl who dressed, acted and sounded Canadian would give me no such pause. Needless to say a blonde girl in a burqua would not have been hired by me. Then again, a blonde dressed like a nun with a big cross dangling from her neck wouldn't be hired by me either. The person before me hired a woman who was a JW and she caused no end of problems.

SirJohn would have missed out on both of these people who demonstrated excellent verbal skills, intelligence, customer service and 'smarts', because if he'd seen their name on a resume,

Yes, but the odds say otherwise. I would have gone with the odds. "missing out" on one person doesn't mean you don't hire someone equally talented.

Yes, but the odds say otherwise. I would have gone with the odds. "missing out" on one person doesn't mean you don't hire someone equally talented.

True, but by the same token you can't claim you have hired the most suitable when you refuse to consider someone based on their "name".   

Now the government's formal hiring practices are specifically designed to preclude my sort of behaviour. I'm sure that you will find that reassuring. They are mind-numbingly complex, horrifyingly time-consuming, and so devoted to being fair to prospective employees they are a huge problem for efficient operations. We tended to short-circuit them wherever possible simply because of how stunningly inefficient they were at finding employees. If we needed a new clerk we needed him or her NOW, not in 14 months.

Oh look, being fair and avoiding racist and xenophobic hiring practices is a problem.   

Now, I agree that the hiring practices within government could use improvement in terms of agility, but I consider that preferable to allowing practices that you engaged in becoming common.

True, but by the same token you can't claim you have hired the most suitable when you refuse to consider someone based on their "name".

I couldn't claim to hire the most suitable in any case. There's always a better applicant out there somewhere. I hire people who fit in and do the job well and that's good enough.

Oh look, being fair and avoiding racist and xenophobic hiring practices is a problem.

It's not racist or xenophobic. I've already patiently explained why this to you.   

Now, I agree that the hiring practices within government could use improvement in terms of agility, but I consider that preferable to allowing practices that you engaged in becoming common.

Right. Which is why your type should never be in charge of anything. Given the choice between System A, which is unfair to some people outside the section/department, and System B, which is less unfair but costs twenty times more and takes fifty times longer, you'll go with System B and drown everyone in paperwork and red tape while slowing the efficiency of the unit due to lack of employees.

In point of fact, I could have simply interviewed everyone whose resume qualified, but the rules for term and temporary employees only allowed a couple of interviews, and everyone had the right to appeal once they had gotten to that stage if they weren't hired. That meant more paperwork to justify decisions on hiring, especially if the person turned down was some sort of minority and especially when much of the reason was a difficult-to-describe assessment of 'best fit' for the unit. For example, I once hired the person with the least amount of experience, according to his resume, because I wanted someone for a low level job who wouldn't be immediately using the position as a ladder to find better work - which was always a problem for us. Language was also an issue. If they passed the test which said they were bilingual but they were hard for us to understand, well, I can't use that because the test says they're bilingual. Hell, some Francophones were hard for the Francophones to understand, especially if they came from places like Shawinigan. And then we had Ontario Francophones who were allowed to take the test in English, which they spoke fluently, but their French was horrific.

It's not fair to single him out when this is often times an unconscious thing that's done nearly everywhere. SirJohn is rationalizing it, but it's still a barrier people face due to their ethnicity or race and that's the important point.

It's done, I think, because no compromise is accepted, at least in government. The burden of paperwork, meetings, arguments with HR, justifications of competition questions and criteria, appeals and feedback, for a unit which is already short staffed is enormous. Combine that with the fact it can easily take well over a year and everyone takes short cuts if they can get away with it. And not just at the entry level.

I went through considerable efforts to bring in three young women once, one who was a friend of an existing employee, one of which we met hiring as a temp, and the third through a term process. Then I lost all three to directors within two months because the AS1 process HR had spent 18 months on and from which we all hoped would result in a pool of about 50 people, wound up with a pool of 4. Finding employees in the government is a crushingly bureaucratic and time-consuming process specifically because of the HR determination for "fairness" to all applicants. There is no interest, of course, in fairness to the hiring department.

The directors, given their greater clout, then arranged to hire all three permanently (I had brought them in as terms) without competition.