Ali Bhagat Special to The Globe and Mail June 22 2026

Ali Bhagat is assistant professor and director of the public policy minor at the School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University.

A couple of weeks ago, I was out at a nightclub event in Toronto and witnessed a fight erupt between a group of white and South Asian men. The insults from the white men came instantly: “You guys smell like shit,” “go back to your country,” “no one wants you here.” And then, of course, it was the Brown men who were ejected from the venue. I was shocked to see this at a progressive and queer event in Toronto – and experiencing first hand the normalized hatred of South Asians was a jarring experience.

Canada did not grow its South Asian population by accident; these groups have been recruited with promises of jobs and a better future for more than a century – and contribute necessary labour in many sectors, including agriculture, transport and logistics, health care, and the gig economy, to name only a few.

And yet, the online hate towards South Asians has skyrocketed. Open X and you’ll see memes and videos mocking South Asians for their so-called comical behavior, and others displaying more explicitly hateful racism. Meanwhile, the comment sections on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook are fixated on the alleged incompatibility of South Asians (predominantly Indians but the entire diaspora is lumped in) with Western values.

Earlier this month, Tim Hortons’ grilled cheese sandwich went viral on TikTok after customers were served it with un-melted cheese, which users blamed on South Asian staff and their supposedly lazy work ethic. The complaints over Tim Hortons’ customer service are a dog whistle for those who fear a rising population of Indians “taking over” Canada. It’s often nakedly dehumanizing rhetoric that casts South Asians as second-class citizens or worse.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue and Statistics Canada estimate that hate crimes towards South Asians have increased 227 per cent from 2019 to 2023, and that there was a 1,350-per-cent increase in anti-South Asian slurs on X from 2023 to 2024.

There is a distinctly Canadian tendency to blame our racist impulses on the United States. No doubt the second term of President Donald Trump, amplified by manosphere podcasters and online influencers, has pulled young men toward the far right; the homophobia, racism and sexism they broadcast emboldens alienated men struggling with the overlapping crises in housing, employment and mental health. But electing a Liberal Prime Minister does not exempt Canada from being influenced by far-right ideology, and the everyday, systemic racism faced by South Asians in particular remains mostly absent in public discussions about anti-racism.

Canada has had a contradictory relationship with South Asian labour, going from an era of exclusionary immigration laws in the early 20th century – including the Komagata Maru incident, when Canada denied entry to 376 predominantly Sikh migrants in Vancouver harbour – to today’s dependence on this group for international students, temporary foreign workers and gig-economy labour. But while the country now relies on South Asain labour, it also benefits from the continuing dehumanization of South Asians.

Across various sectors, racial discrimination and the threat of deportation perpetuates the ability to extract cheap work. Racism isn’t the malfunction or glitch – it is the mechanism through which this labour is devalued.

The logic is straightforward. Workers who are portrayed as outsiders are easier to underpay, easier to blame for economic problems and less likely to attract public sympathy when they face exploitation. When international students work excessive hours, when temporary foreign workers fear losing their status, or when gig workers absorb low wages and poor conditions, public anger is often directed at the workers themselves rather than the employers, recruiters and policymakers who designed the system. A population that is simultaneously essential and disposable is especially vulnerable to racism.

The white men leaving the nightclub I visited would, in all likelihood, pass South Asian and Black security staff who had just protected them, call an Uber driven by a South Asian man, and then get home and order delivery prepared and dropped off by South Asian workers. This contradiction underpins the economy of every major Canadian city and it’s the reason South Asian racism stays muted in our anti-racism conversations.

None of this means that Canadians cannot debate immigration levels, housing pressures or labour policy. No doubt these are legitimate political questions. However, we must all address the problem that arises when economic anxieties are redirected to vulnerable workers themselves. South Asians have become the face of policies they did not create, which allows governments, corporations and social media platforms to elide scrutiny.