I found myself bouncing around City Hall Tuesday. First stop was a press conference held in the basement media room, where three white chiefs—chief administrative officer Dan English, police chief Frank Beazley and fire chief Bill Mosher—explained to a room full of white reporters that even though hardly any other cities in Canada find it necessary, Halifax is going to continue to require that new recruits to the fire department pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege of taking lie detector tests. The tests supposedly weed out potential criminals and those inclined to bestiality. (The pre-employment background and criminal checks that the cops provide for day care workers and teachers evidently aren’t so effective, but don’t worry yourself over that, parents.)
English did say that the administration of the tests—which were conducted by a company owned by two white Halifax cops—violated city contracting procedures but that matter will be handed over to Beazley (who OKed the contract in the first place) for “appropriate action,” a nice euphemism for “going down the memory hole.”
Mosher admitted that two white management level hirees were not required to take the test, but hey, we’re not worried about management, wink-wink.
After the press conference, I found that council was spending more time than expected in a closed-door meeting, so I spent a couple of hours in a ground-level hallway chewing the fat with my all-white media colleagues, trying not to get in the way as one white city staffer after another scurried between offices.
Finally, I was allowed upstairs for the public portion of the council meeting, and watched 23 white councillors, a white mayor and a couple of dozen of white bureaucrats determine the future of the city. Trying to stay awake through the drone-fest, I first pulled up a picture on my computer of the lily-white group of new police officers hired to the city last summer, and then recalled Don Clairmont’s lecture to the council last month about one of the primary ways council can help heal the racial divide in Halifax—by hiring more black people. “Look at your staff!” Clairmont admonished council. “You’re doing a terrible job!”
The lie detector tests are a bad idea for a lot of reasons. But primarily they impose an economic barrier to a diversified workforce. It’s hard not to believe that that’s their purpose.
This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2008.
With a tip of the hat to Human Rights day I offer the following. Blacks in HRM comprise 3.6% of the 2006 population – StasCan census. If there are more than 16 Black officers in HRM Police Force then the community is over represented.The total visible minority population of HRM is 7.5% – StatsCan 2006 Census.Rough translation – you can expect over 90% of the Police force to be white. anfd the same at City Hall.All of which is nonsense beacuse it takes no account of the age breakdown of a population.And all of that is really irrelevant because I don’t have a clue how many Blacks or visible minority employees would satisfy you. You may also wish to consider that policing is not that attractive these days when dealing with druggies, little gangsta wannabes, mickey mouse rotating justice system, and the calls to domestics where an officer does not have a clue what he/she is going into.A visible minority person has the choice of many first class employers eager to hire them, dealing with low lifes most of your day is not so attractive. Talk to any police service and they will tell you of the difficulties they have in recruiting people.
Maybe a reason the number of visible minorities here is so low is that talented and ambitious young people look around, don’t see anyone who looks like them hired into well-paying jobs, and so leave for other places. Same for potential immigrants.
Maybe a more pressing reason the number of visible minorities here is so low is that talented and ambitious young people look around, don’t see anything to aspire to in this filthy, crumbling, downmarket, low-pay ghetto s they go where there is a promise of a better life. Immigrants are obviously going to be attracted to affluent communities where there is a chance that they can live the dream. Nova Scotia doesn’t exactly look like such a place, and we have a council that is cowed by a preponderance of whiny special interest groups that will make sure it stays that way because it maintains their quasi-socialist ideals of bringing everyone down to the same low level.
I don’t think you know what “socialist” means. If anything, the council is moving the opposite direction politically. See: “tax reform.”
Tim, Just how long have you lived in Nova Scotia ? This is a small place so naturally most people head off to other places inside and outside Canada. My kids are all gone and I doubt they will come back except to visit.Visible minorities have been in demand in all sectors of the local economy for over 25 years . The 3 levels of government have all been active, the major banks, DND Aliant, the hospitals, all the large employers are have been ready, willing and able to hire visible minorities to meet the social pressure for diversity.Bottom line, if you are young and black and are willing to put the effort in to get an education you will have employers falling over to hire you ,because they do have a ‘quota’ but just won’t admit it, and you can pick and choose where to go.And Tim, forget the conjecture and respond in greater detail to the comments I made earlier. As an immigrant I never got to check out any part of Canada before coming here with a job offer in the pocket.
No need to be condescending. I was being a little tongue in cheek, Tim. But I’m not sure you know what that means so I’ll give you a pass. I wasn’t talking about council in any case; I was talking about the lobbyists that our council seems to be so swayed by in matters of economic development (or lack thereof.) I’m quite aware though that many are up in arms about tax reform proposals that would appear to relieve more affluent neighborhoods and / or owners of more expensive homes of a small fraction of their burden of subsidizing the less affluent ones, in some cases (it’s really not very clear). This of course is socialist anathema and I have no doubt that the special interest groups will do their level best to turn it over. It does seem rather upside down, though, if you look at the sample rates on the HRM website, so I don’t disagree with you on this issue. :-)In any case, I will change the focus back from that little red herring to the issue of your article. Have you considered that newcomers might just want to go to larger more affluent centers where there are large established immigrant communities?I find it quite a leap to imply that the costs of lie detector screening (however offensive the very idea of lie detector screening may be) are purposely designed to discriminate against minorities in some conspiracy to keep the force white. In fact it sounds almost hysterically reactionary to me.