In the 1970s, Lincoln Alexander fought the caucus of the Progressive Conservative Party. Mr. Alexander fought them because as a Black man, he wanted to support anti-hate speech legislation. His party, the Progressive Conservative Party, didn’t like the legislation because they felt it would curtain both the concept of the freedom of speech and the individual rights of all Canadians. So Lincoln Alexander asked a question: “Are you saying that you can call my son or daughter a nigger and that is free speech?”

In a similar fashion, as a proud Canadian of Caribbean heritage, I need to ask a similar question of Maxime Bernier and Rex Murphy: “do you feel that the recognition of various racial problems in Canada also exacerbates those problems?”.