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ACCESS, EQUITY
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"The City of Toronto, over a 40-year period, ceased to be a city with a majority of neighbourhoods (58%) in which residents’ average incomes were near the middle.
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A successful city gives equal opportunity to all its people.
One of the extraordinary characteristics of Toronto is its diversity – a great mix of different races, ethnicities, cultures, languages, origins, religions and sexualities. And while it is remarkable that generally this incredible mélange of people lives together in relative harmony, many systemic inequities and structural barriers exist.
Racism and other forms of systemic discrimination that exist in our city rob members of marginalized communities of their opportunity to live a healthy, safe and fulfilling life.
Racism and other forms of systemic discrimination that exist in our city rob members of marginalized communities of their opportunity to live a healthy, safe and fulfilling life.
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City Council must have the power and authority to address these issues, to help dismantle all forms of systemic discrimination and remove barriers for all people.
This includes the challenges resulting from the cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples over many years, the racism faced by African Canadians and other people of colour, and the intersecting discrimination faced by women, people with disabilities, people of Islamic and other faiths, immigrants, refugees, LGBTQ++ people and others with precarious status. These marginalized communities experience a much higher rate of poverty than the general population, with some communities being six times more likely than white Torontonians to live in poverty. |
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Accordingly,
• The City should formally acknowledge the deep-rooted history and present-day realities of colonialism and racism.
• The City should formally acknowledge the deep-rooted history and present-day realities of colonialism and racism.
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• The City should adopt a racial equity lens and gender based equity analysis to develop, design, and evaluate all of its by-laws, policies, programs and services.
• The City should require all of its departments to collect and use disaggregated data (on the basis of race and other demographics) to measure the impact of all of its policies, programs and services on diverse and vulnerable communities, and create appropriate transparency and accountability measures within each department to ensure full compliance with an Access, Equity and Inclusion Framework. • The City should actively communicate the Access, Equity and Inclusion Framework with the public and engage in ongoing and meaningful consultation with equity seeking groups to monitor the implementation of the Framework. • The City should ensure that it removes all barriers to its services on the basis of immigration status, and it should work with the province to remove such barriers to services that fall under their shared jurisdiction. • The City should adopt an Employment Equity Policy to ensure its workforce is reflective of the city’s diversity. |
David Hulchanski, Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership, University of Toronto
CHARTER CITY TORONTO PROPOSAL IN DETAIL
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chartercitytoronto@gmail.com
