E/CN.4/2004/18/Add.2 page 20 living in English-speaking provinces, who are considered to be genuine French speakers, owing to the exclusive mother tongue definition. For example, francophones in Ontario of European descent (500,000) receive about CAD 300 million each year through their institutions and organizations just from the official language support programme set up and run for this purpose by the Department of Canadian Heritage, whereas the 300,000 francophones of non-European descent receive only CAD 150,000 a year, through their organizations, merely because they are not considered to be “proper” francophones.16 According to all the other persons interviewed by the Special Rapporteur, this means that race and ethnic origin are indirectly used as determining factors in the definition of who is French-speaking. Thus persons of non-French ethnic groups, such as the Creole, Swahili, Wolof, Arab, Fon, Goun, Bambara, Vietnamese, Lingala, Kirundi, Ewe or Mina, are not recognized as francophones in Canada even though French is their official language in accordance with the Official Languages Act. The communities concerned consider that they are economically, socially and culturally disadvantaged by the regulations that enforce the Act. 67. One group of the black francophone community has responded to the situation by lodging a complaint against the Canadian Government before the courts for discrimination in the implementation of the Official Languages Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The complaint requests that the Government, in conformity with the Official Languages Act, should grant French-speaking status to any person who speaks French, regardless of that person’s ethnic origin or first language spoken and still understood, and that the existing regulations should be repealed on the grounds that they contradict the spirit and letter of the Act under which they are issued. III. ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT OF POLITICAL, LEGAL AND INTELLECTUAL STRATEGY 68. The Special Rapporteur considers that owing to its background and its specific characteristics, Canadian society is still affected by racism and racial discrimination. Because of its history, Canadian society, as in all the countries of North and South America, carries a heavy legacy of racial discrimination, which was the ideological prop of trans-Atlantic slavery and of the colonial system. The ideological aspect of this legacy has given rise to an intellectual mindset which, through education, literature, art and the different channels of thought and creativity, has profoundly and lastingly permeated the system of values, feelings, mentalities, perceptions and behaviours, and hence the country’s culture. The sacrificial victims of this culture of discrimination since historical times have been the aboriginal peoples and the communities of African and Caribbean origin. 69. It is this legacy which has been feeding the submerged part of the iceberg of discrimination. The issue is dominated by two major geographical and ideological factors. The geographical factor arises from Canada’s proximity to a country, the United States, which has been profoundly and lastingly affected by racial discrimination. The ideological factor is partly an intellectual consequence of this geographical proximity, but is also derived from the general atmosphere of discrimination generated by the excesses of the fight against terrorism, following the tragedy of 11 September 2001. It is in the political and cultural field, thanks to Canada’s current focus on multiculturalism, that the Special Rapporteur has been able to observe some alleviation of the burden of the legacy of racial discrimination. Nevertheless, the fact that two communities, which were historically the victims of discrimination, both individually and