I agree that there is a lot of racism in Canada. It's just more hidden and subtle. Like in the American North. It's not as in your face as in the American South.
Also I find it suspect that lots of liberals are so eager to prove how much they hate racism. Many of those type of liberals themselves have hidden racial prejudices. I'm a liberal myself (moderately so). I find bigotry of all forms to be repulsive. I'm accepting of racial minorities, LGBTs, people with physical and mental disabilities, etc. But there was this one time a few years ago where a black guy wearing the standard "hip-hop apparel" (he was a random stranger from my school, didn't know the guy) saw me on the street waiting for the bus and he offered me a ride. My first instinct was extreme fear. I was afraid this guy would beat the shit out of me and do god knows what else with me if I got in the car. Truthfully, I wouldn't have experienced fear with the same intensity if it was a white guy. Funny thing is, turns out he was a pretty good guy. It's like a subconscious racial prejudice. Plenty of white people, including liberals, have this within them. They just won't admit it to themselves. And it's usually the progressive types who have a very cartoonish black and white reaction to racism who are the biggest closet cases. My sister is also a liberal and she's admitted to having some hidden prejudices. It's better to admit it to yourself than make this such a black and white issue.
Personally I think that realization that not everything is black and white and that many everyday good intentioned people have subconscious prejudices of some kind like this has allowed me to approach the issue in a more healthy, realistic way. I now realize that racism is a very huge issue that has permeated widely among society, even in liberal countries like Canada. The solution to this problem is not having neo-nazis serve 4-5 years in jail for burning a cross, making an example out of them. The heart of the problem is cultural. With me personally, I take it that all of that media brainwashing was the culprit for that subconscious prejudice. I saw a young black man in hip-hop gear. Which is automatically associated with violence and savagery in the North American media. The media has done far, far more damage for race relations in North America. Making an example of the neo-nazi that everyone laughs at anyway isn't doing shit to address the race issue.
