Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced $1.5 million in funding for a Black-focused youth council days after saying Ontario does not have deep rooted system racism. He clarified his comments during Thursday’s daily COVID-19 briefing.”Maybe I wasn’t clear enough the other day but I want to be very clear today,” said Ford. “There is systemic racism in Ontario, our history, this is what I was saying the other that got spun out of context, but our history is different from the United States.”

Meantime, Ford has chosen his advisor Jamil Jivanim to chair the new advisory group called Equality of Opportunity. It will support Black communities and address the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19.

“We did not wait for CNN to tell us there is a problem, rather we have been working on these issues for months,”  said Jivani. “These issues don’t exist when everyone is paying attention,” he added. “The problems of inequality in our province have existed for decades and we have been mindful of those.”