How national study for Minority Views on Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act was compiled. The national study was comprised of 16 focus groups that were conducted in Halifax,Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver, with 138 participants from about 60 ethnocultural minority backgrounds. Discussions were held March 10-21, 2003. Sessions, which had an average discussion time of approximately 2 hours, were conducted in English in 13 groups (3 each in Halifax, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver plus one in Montreal) and in French in 3 Montreal groups.
Individuals were assigned to groups according to self-reported ethnic backgrounds (see Statistics Canada group classification in Appendix 3) to allow for 3 sub-groups with possible contrasting views on the Anti-Terrorism Act. The 3 groups were the following:
1) Group 1: comprised of individuals reporting Arab and West Asian ethnic backgrounds as well as those of North African and Pakistani ethnicity.
2) Group 2 was made up of individuals reporting Black, African, East Asian, South-East Asian and South Asian ethnic origins, excluding Group 1 members.
3) Group 3 consisted of individuals reporting Western, Northern, Central, Southern and Eastern European ethnic origins, including those reporting Aboriginal and Jewish backgrounds.
All cities hosted each of the groups, with an additional Group 3 for English-speaking participants in Montreal. Participants were recruited by random sampling procedures based on telephone lists available for the cities chosen. Participants’ ages ranged between 18-54 years old. Each group was of mixed gender, with a range of educational levels and occupations. Most of the
visible and many non-visible minority participants were foreign-born, and some were Canadian-born.
Participants in all focus groups discussions were queried according to the approved discussion guide in English and French. All were given summarized printed handouts (which minimized the legal language) to refer to when discussing aspects of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Tags: act, Antiterrorism, Canadian, Compiled, Minority, National, Study, views