New campaign takes aim at racial profiling in retail settings

The Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission hopes that education and training will help to reduce instances of consumer racial profiling in the province.

They will be working with the Retail Council of Canada to target their membership in order to deliver materials to raise awareness of this issue.

The campaign stems from a study conducted in 2012 in which they discovered members of visible minorities were often the victims of negative shopping experiences and were more often being unfairly targeted by retail workers.

“What they found was members of the African Nova Scotian and First Nations communities have been disproportionately affected by the types of behaviours that we describe as consumer racial profiling,”  said Christine Hanson, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission CEO.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "What they found was members of the African Nova Scotian and First Nations communities have been disproportionately affected by the types of behaviours that we describe as consumer racial profiling,"  said Christine Hanson, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission CEO.

They found that visible minorities were more likely to be ignored, followed or forced to leave the store or business, among other negative behaviours.

READ MORE: Sobeys likely to withdraw appeal of discrimination decision, facing boycott

The awareness campaign will include posters, pamphlets and other promotional materials. There will also be a free online training course.

“What we’re hoping is they’ll use this material, they’ll educate their frontline staff. It’ll raise awareness,” said Hanson.

“We’re hoping to bring those numbers down so if we do some follow up research a couple years from now, we’ll see a much lower frequency of visible minority shoppers experiencing these kinds of behaviours.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We're hoping to bring those numbers down so if we do some follow up research a couple years from now, we'll see a much lower frequency of visible minority shoppers experiencing these kinds of behaviours."

The study found that visible minorities also reported being the targets of offensive language, were treated as if they were physically threatening and were seen as potential thieves in a retail setting.

“Cumulatively over time this seems to be having a very painful impact on people,” said Hanson.

“I think it’s actually quite exhausting for members of the visible minority communities who experience this regularly, it’s hard on their morale.”

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The Nova Scotia study is the first in Canada to look at racial profiling in a retail setting.

READ MORE: Protesters allege racial profiling at Sobeys amidst human rights decision appeal

“We hope that this will go a long way in helping to resolve the problem and making sure that all Nova Scotians are treated equally when they’re shopping,” said Hanson.

The education and training tools are set to roll out mid-September.