I command the author wrote this article but to me racism is racism and there is no lesser or "casual" form of it.  All I can say is living in Canada for many years as an ethnically Chinese person I did had my fair share of racism encounters and sometimes I did receive especially rude treatment and I tried not to think because it was due to me being a Chinese-looking person but I supposed it could be the reason as the author suggested.  Canadia often like to boast about being a multicultural and tolerant society but all of that is just hollow rhetoric when people of color still receive so much racism in society and that any suggestion racism is a serious problem in Canada would often met with such dismissive, angry or even more racist responses.