The deliberate selection of vocabulary that avoids accidental or implicit exclusion of particular groups and that avoids the use of false generic terms, usually with reference to gender.

Introduced shortly after confederation, The Indian Act was an amalgamation of pre-confederation colonial legislation that had been updated to meet the needs of the emerging Canadian state to expand and allow European settlement of the west and other regions. This Canadian legislation governs the federal government's legal and political relationship with Aboriginal Peoples across Canada. It has been amended many times. In the late 1800s and the first few decades of the 1900s, it was continually revamped to make it more repressive, thus furthering the Canadian state's goals of assimilation. Since 1945, some of its more draconian elements have been removed to comply with the international human rights law regarding civil and political rights, including opposition to genocide.

The prejudiced individual, direct, or one-to-one action(s) against other individuals because of their group membership and skin colour to deprive them of some right  (employment, housing).

see Systemic Discrimination

Fairly stable social arrangements through which collective actions are taken (e.g. government, business, unions, schools, churches, courts, police).

The process of amalgamating diverse groups within a single context, usually applied to inter-racial interaction in housing, education, political and socio-economic spheres or activity, or the incorporation of children, defined as disabled, into neighborhood schools and classrooms. People who are integrated still retain their cultural identity, unlike those who are assimilated.  Integration is the policy with action that ends segregation.  It may be differentiated from desegregation on the basis of interaction as opposed to technical conformity to desegregationist laws and policies.

Information exchange where the sender and receiver are of different cultural, ethnic or linguistic backgrounds.

Incorporation of superiority and dominance, and the social interaction that results

Patterns of mistreatment of racialized groups and acceptance of the negative stereotypes created by the dominant group become established in their cultures and lock members of racialized groups into roles as victims of oppression.

The interconnected nature of all forms of oppression (cultural, institutional and social) against particular groups, and the way they are imbedded within existing systems such that they operate in insidious, covert and compounded ways (e.g. gender and colour; religion and race; sexual orientation and race).

Bigotry or narrow mindedness which results in refusal to respect or acknowledge persons of different racial backgrounds.

Aboriginal peoples in Northern Canada who live above the tree line in the Northwest Territories, Northern Quebec and Labrador. The word means "People" in the Inuit language - Inuktitut.  The Inuit is one of the cultural groups comprising Aboriginal peoples of Canada.

A term recently coined to refer to expressions of negative stereotypes, bias or acts of hostility towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general.

An acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (Transexual) and Intersexed people.

Refers to the group of people within society either largest in number, in a superior social position, or that successfully shapes or controls other groups through social, economic, cultural, political, military or religious power.  In most parts of Canada, the term refers to White, English-speaking, Christian, middle to upper-income Canadians.