Reader\'s Digest Canada - 05.2020

schools in Canada so instead headed

down to the segregated South. Of Red-

mon, Lesmond writes: “She went to St.

Phillip Hospital Medical College in Vir-

ginia and graduated with her nursing

diploma in 1945. When she returned to

Canada that same year, she became the

first Black nurse allowed to practise in

public health after getting a job at the

Nova Scotia Department of Health.”

Lesmond names other trailblazing

Black women—Ruth Bailey, Gwen

Barton and Marissa Scott—who also

fought to get into segregated Canadian

nursing schools with the help of Black

churches and unionists.

Calliste wrote how, in 1952, the gov-

ernment admitted a small number of

Caribbean graduate nurses as “cases

of exceptional merit.” (Her paper on

the subject is titled “Women of ‘Excep-

tional Merit.’”) She suggested that the

government did this to appease the

concerns of Caribbean people who

were essential to Canada’s postwar

economic success. One of the condi-

tions for admitting Black nurses into

the country was that the hospital

administration that offered them work

had to be “aware of their racial origin.”

While the government evaluated

white immigrant nurses on the basis

of general admissibility to Canada, it

additionally judged Black immigrant

nurses on the basis of their nursing

qualifications. Canada wanted Black

women to prove they were exceptional

in order to work as nurses, even while,

in the immediate aftermath of the war,

many places in Canada suffered from

a shortage of qualified nurses.

These attitudes have shaped a coun-

try where today Black people are still

near the bottom of what researchers

Grace-Edward Galabuzi and Sheila

Block have called “Canada’s colour-

coded labour market.” Their 2011 study

showed that, on average, for every dol-

lar a white man earned, a Black man

earned 78 cents and a Black woman

earned 56 cents; white women earned

an average of 67 cents for every dollar a

white man earned. Today, in addition

to overqualified Black nurses who can’t

get a promotion, we have Black people

with graduate degrees who clean hotels

and drive taxis. A 2019 study on the

health of immigrants, refugees and

racialized people said that “Recent

immigrants (arriving between 2011 and

CANADA WANTED BLACK WOMEN TO PROVE

THEY WERE EXCEPTIONAL, EVEN THOUGH

WE SUFFERED FROM A SHORTAGE OF NURSES.

reader’s digest

98 may 2020