If I wasn’t the first African-Canadian in the Toronto market, I was the second. I was the black man with the exotic name and accent, which was rare at the time. Most people didn’t go into that field, because we didn’t think we could get in.

So I was rolling up TV and film credits, but at the time most actors were making their living through commercials and advertising companies didn’t want to use visible minorities. It’s against the law now, but casting agents back then had no problem saying that they weren’t hiring minorities.

“I was almost shocked that there was so much unexamined racism on the Prairies. Things have changed over the years and are a great deal better. But, racism is racism. At first, I couldn’t even adjust to the idea that people thought they were only being racist if they were disparaging against Black people … the largest visible minority are Aboriginal People and those are the people where I could see my history, my conflicts or whatever it is I was on about social justice. Those were the people who were important.”

You can judge the value that you place on something by the time and finances that you devote to it. So if we use that as the bar, we see that the Canadian TV industry doesn’t highly value black Canadian experiences.