B.C.'s human rights commissioner, Kasari Govender, calls systemic racism "a difficult and urgent problem" in this province.

That's the impetus behind a new public-awareness campaign asking British Columbians to examine their own internal racism.

The B.C. Office of the Human Rights Commissioner has launched billboards with the message: "Am I racist" in an attempt to get people to examine inner biases.

Other signs ask questions like;

* If I don't see skin colour, am I racist?

* If I want to forget our province's history, am I racist?

It comes after hate crimes more than doubled during the pandemic in Vancouver compared to the previous year.

Reported hate crimes in B.C. were up 34 percent from 2015 to 2018, according to Govender's office.

Meanwhile, racialized and low-income communities are contracting COVID-19 at a far higher rate than white people in the United States and in Toronto, where these statistics have been collected.

For years, research has demonstrated that those with darker skin colour are paid less than those with lighter skin.

Indigenous and Black people are interrogated at a far higher rate than whites in Vancouver police street checks.

And in the last Vancouver election, all but one of the 10 candidates elected to city council were white.

"Canada has a reputation of being a safe place with minimal racism, but this does not truly reflect the history and present-day experiences of Indigenous and racialized people in this province and country," Govender said in a news release.

"I know it's uncomfortable to recognize this racism and to start to work on it, but it's crucial that we do so—because uprooting systemic racism starts when we change ourselves."