On Wednesday, May 9, 2018, EBDN held a session about Sexual and Gender Diversity. We were thrilled to have Marni Panas, a Senior Advisor Diversity and Inclusion at Alberta Health Services, speaking at this session.

Marni was part of the work that led to gender identity and gender expression being added as protected grounds to Alberta and Canada’s Human Rights Acts. Most recently she was a member of the Advisory Committee that helped draft the apology that Prime Minister Justine Trudeau delivered to LGBTQ+ people in Canada in the House of Commons on November 28, 2017 for discrimination and injustices faced by this community as a result of federal legislation, policies and programs.

Throughout this session, Marni shared her personal journey as a transgender woman and the challenges and barriers she faced along the way. Members were able to challenge their understandings about the realities that LGBTQ+ people face on a daily basis and how as employers we can create a safe and supportive environment. New and expanded terminology relating to the LGBTQ+ community and skills for communicating with this population on a meaningful and respectful manner were some of the important takeaways for our members.

Marni was filmed during this session as she is the Global News Edmonton: Woman of Vision for May!

In addition, Marni has a TED Talk where she shares information on her journey as transgender woman.

Diversity and Inclusion policies are often a source of confusion for many organizations. D&I policies can refer to employment equity, respectful workplace, Indigenous relations, duty to accommodate, as well as explicit diversity and inclusion policies.

Companies often wonder about how to get started or how their policies might stack up against other organizations. Our March event aimed to provide our membership with best practices and tools to take back to their organizations to start, or continue, on their D&I journey.

Shafana Mitha, Director, Diversity and Inclusion at Government of Alberta, was our first presenter at the session. At the Government of Alberta, Diversity and Inclusion is a relatively new initiative, and Shafana shared their policy development journey and the different pieces of policy that were impacted along the way. She also touched on related directives, implementation strategies and the engagement process.

Wade King, Safe Disclosure and Human Rights at the UofA, and currently in a one-year secondment to the City of Edmonton as a Consultant with the Office of the City Manage as well as an EBDN board member, followed Shafana to guide participants through creating D&I policies and the tools with which to do so.

The EBDN Board has examined our responsibility and opportunity to accept the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action for business, and, to that end, has committed to at least one session per year focusing on education and awareness regarding Indigenous peoples.

On January 10, 2018, EPCOR hosted the EBDN for another Blanket Exercise. The Blanket Exercise is an enormously popular and successful teaching tool that uses participatory popular education methodology to raise awareness and understanding of the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada.

It was a great opportunity for EBDN members and EPCOR employees to join together to enhance our learnings about the major themes and recommendations of the Royal Commission Indigenous Peoples.

Our facilitator was Michelle Nieviadomy from Reach Edmonton, who led us through the exercise and challenged us to examine our own experiences, and how we can bring our realizations into our workplaces and personal lives.

For more information about how to bring the Blanket Exercise into your organization, please contact Lisa Langston (Reach Edmonton) at 780-498-1231 (EXT. 317).

The Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action can be found at http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Findings/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

We encourage all EBDN members to share their experience with the Blanket Exercise and it’s learnings on our LinkedIn Group.

This networking event kicked off our 2017-2018 season! Twenty-five members attended our networking meeting, generously hosted by Alberta Health Services and sponsored by Kal Tire. After a brief presentation about EBDN, we were pleased to introduce Irfan Chaudhry, who spoke to us on Understanding Hate Crimes/Hate Incidents. This topic is, unfortunately, a timely one given the increasing incidents of hate and discrimination in the US and Canada.

Irfan Chaudhry has led many City of Edmonton projects to build community safety and reduce discrimination. He has worked on a number of anti-racism projects such as the Twitter Racism project and Racism Free Edmonton. Irfan has also been involved with a number of initiatives analyzing hate crimes in Edmonton, and works closely with different stakeholders to build bridges between Edmonton’s diverse communities and the police. This commitment to diversity and inclusion awarded him the honour of being named one of Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40. Irfan is a criminology lecturer at MacEwan University and is currently working on a “hate incident” mapping project with the Alberta Hate Crimes committee.

At this informative event, our members learned the difference between hate crimes and hate incidents: a hate crime is a criminal offense motivated by hate, prejudice or bias based on the protected grounds of identity such as race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any similar factor. This differs from a hate incident, where an act is involved which is also motivated by hate, prejudice or bias, but is not a criminal offense. We also learned about hate crime legislation, bias awareness indicators and how hate can be measured through the StopHateAB.ca website.

Special thanks to Marni Panas, from AHS who hosted us, Amanda May from Kal Tire who organized and sponsored our refreshments, and of course Irfan Chaudhry, who generously shared of this time and expertise.

If you are interested in joining the EBDN, check out more about us on this website, then apply directly online here! We look forward to our bi-monthly events, during which we have the opportunity to network with professionals interested in advancing Diversity & Inclusion in their organizations and the community, and learn and share information and better practices. Hope to see you there!

“Reconciliation is about forging and maintaining respectful relationships. There are no shortcuts.” -Justice Murray Sinclair

Our last 2 EBDN meetings have focused on Indigenous awareness, a topic chosen by our members to explore in this year’s programming. In March, Fort Edmonton Park hosted us for a Blanket Exercise, with several members of their staff in attendance. The Blanket Exercise is a popular and successful teaching tool to raise awareness and understanding of the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. Our facilitator was Michelle Nieviadomy from Reach Edmonton. By all accounts, it was an informative and powerful experience.

In the spirit of reconciliation, and as a network committed to equity, we decided that it was important to continue exploring our responsibilities to Indigenous peoples in Canada. We held our May 10 session as a Deeper Dive into Indigenous Learning, generously hosted by EPCOR. During this well-attended session, EBDN Chair Jill Chesley presented a brief review of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process and introduced the Calls to Action specific to the business community.

We were privileged to hear from three of our member organizations who spoke about what their organizations are doing to support the Calls to Action:

• Kathryn Charr, Regional Indigenous Trust Manager for TD Canada Trust

• Donna Knebush, Consultant, School of Business, City of Edmonton

• Amber Gagne, Strategy Enablement, TELUS

Finally, the group had the opportunity to discuss the calls to action, what their organizations are doing, what the challenges and opportunities are. Below are some of the great points brought up in the discussion:

• Many people and businesses are not aware of the Calls to Action; leadership should be aware

• Education and training is crucial step; many organizations offer Indigenous awareness courses to their employees

• Organizations need to create inclusive environments where people feel free to bring their whole selves to work

• One simple but powerful initiative is to make a statement at the start of each gathering/conference, etc. acknowledging that we are on Treaty 6

• This is an opportunity for organizations to look at their processes from recruitment to advancement of Indigenous peoples. Are Indigenous people applying? If not, why not? Is there representation at leadership levels? Are policies equitable?

• It is important to truly invest in communities, including attention to supplier/vendor diversity.

• Highlighting successful Indigenous leaders can have a powerful impact on Indigenous youth.

Special thanks to EBDN Board member Evert Poor, who guided us in the development of this interesting session, to our guest speakers Kathryn, Donna and Amber, and to Lana Burnstad and EPCOR who provided the wonderful space and refreshments.

On November 9, 2016 the EBDN board tried a few new things in the first workshop for the 2016/17 year.

Firstly, we traveled out to Sysco, Acheson. While the address was a little further out of town than our usual locations, this didn’t impact the member turnout. Secondly, we offered Sysco managers the opportunity to participate in the session and learn with the EBDN members. This benefited the Sysco management team and further enhanced our numbers. Thank you to Sysco for trying this out with us, and for the facilities and amazing breakfast you provided.

Our thanks go to Jill Chesley and Janet Waltho who co-hosted our session. During this workshop we discussed the definition of unconscious bias and its connection to brain processes. Participants had the opportunity to explore case studies and view thought provoking videos of unconscious bias in the workplace. Together they worked through a variety of scenarios and the strategies required to mitigate bias.

The topics discussed, and reviewed, were much more meaningful because of participation from all parties. It really helps when everybody in the meeting is willing to discuss the issues, and talk about things, and realize we all have biases no matter what, and sometimes we may not even realize that we have them.

As with all our events, audience participation was key to the success of this event, and you didn’t disappoint.

Please stay tuned for our next event on January 11, entitled Race and Racism.

In May of 2016, EBDN hosted their final network meeting for the year entitled “The Elephant in the Room”. Due to the high engagement and breadth of material introduced, we were unable to cover all of Candy’s presentation in the allotted time and it was agreed that a second session was required.

Below is a snapshot of the sessions.

May 11 –The “Elephant in the room: difficult diversity discussions” network meeting gave members and their guests an opportunity to learn about and discuss sensitive diversity topics in a safe and open environment.

Candy Khan, Senior D&I Consultant at the City of Edmonton, led this interactive session and explored topics such as barriers to expressing your authentic self in the workplace, equity versus equality, gender parity, and race.

June 21 – The continuation of this session involved Candy once again engaging us in a fascinating discussion on diversity, positionality and equality. This session also provided the opportunity to delve into some case studies which resulted in thought provoking discussion.

The feedback with respect to these network meetings was very positive highlighting Candy’s strength in facilitation, her humor, engagement, knowledge and conviction in the need for and importance of diversity and inclusion.

The sessions were hosted by Access Emploi at La Cité Francophone with a delicious hot breakfast served by Café Bicyclette.

We would like to extend a big thank you again to Café Bicyclette, Acces Emploi, and La Cité Francophone for hosting the event, Candy Khan for creating such a safe and engaging space to have these difficult diversity discussions. Further thanks to Dentons, Enbridge, Stantec and TD Bank for sponsoring the event.

I am delighted to announce our next workshop, delivered in partnership with Diversified Transportation, Norquest College and Enbridge.

Diversified Transportation has been an important player in the growth and development of Alberta’s economy since the 1960s. Building a diversity and inclusion initiative was identified as strategic to staff attraction and retention and achieving business success with its extremely diverse workforce. Participants in the session will gain insights and engage with the:

• Factors that drove and sustained the Diversified business case in a time of economic downturn

• Selection of strategic staff and champions for the initiative

• Approach to obtaining funding to support the multi-month initiative

• Experiences and insights of Diversified leadership through the process

• Learnings from NorQuest Centre for Intercultural Education on design and implementation

• Initiative’s outcomes and future direction

Time for question and answer as well as participant experience sharing will be incorporated into the session’s process.

Presenters:

• Dan Finley – VP HR Strategy, Diversified Transportation

• Todd Odgers – Principal of NorQuest College’s Centre for Intercultural Education

Keynote presentation: Lionel Laroche on Bridging Cultural Diversity for Competitive Advantage. This speech will be followed by an EBDN workshop.

Over the past 18 years, Lionel has trained over 60,000 people in 17 countries. Through informative, thought-provoking workshops, Lionel helps organizations turn cultural diversity into a competitive advantage. In this keynote presentation, he will examine the challenges that cultural differences create within Albertan organizations and suggests concrete approaches to benefit from them.

EBDN Workshop: Increasing the Effectiveness of Diverse Teams Gender, generational and cultural differences bring both challenges and opportunities to diverse teams. While they foster innovation and learning, these different ways of thinking and communicating can create frustration impacting the progress of diverse teams. This experiential workshop explores what being a “good team player” means to men and women of different generations and culture and provides tools to analyze the challenges diverse teams face and suggestions to turn them into a competitive advantage.

Learn about the Canadian Human Rights Act, Employment Equity Act, and how the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Alberta Human Rights Commission deliver on their mandates. This presentation will provide participants with information, at the federal and provincial levels on:

•duty to accommodate and recent case law

•how the complaint processes work

•the criteria for accepting complaints

•the role of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

We’ll also discuss harassment prevention and the complaint process for accepting and dealing with a complaint by the provincial Commission.

In this lively and interactive session, participants will learn about the Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks (GDIB). Participants will then have an opportunity to assess their own organizations, followed by a discussion on how they can move their organization forward. Participants will walk away with a practical roadmap for their organizations based on globally recognized benchmarks.

Cathy Gallagher-Louisy is an experienced diversity and inclusion (D&I) professional and a certified intercultural trainer and coach, with over twenty years of experience in human resources and project management roles within corporate, government, and non-profit organizations. Cathy leads the CIDI’s research portfolio and is the author of the report What Gets Measured Gets Done: Measuring the Return on Investment of Diversity and Inclusion. She also helps partner organizations and clients develop strategic D&I and cultural competence strategies, programs, and tools. Additionally, Cathy leads the Institute’s community outreach portfolio and is responsible for managing the CIDI’s volunteer initiatives and developing the CIDI’s partnerships with charities, non-profit and community agencies serving different demographic groups throughout Canada. Through her work with the CIDI, Cathy has authored several articles for magazines and trade publications, including Municipal World, BCHRMA’s People Talk magazine, and the HRIA’s HUMANCapital magazine.

Cathy is the lead instructor for the Centennial College online Certificate in Leadership and Inclusion and she is also a faculty member at the University of Toronto St. Michael’s College Certificate in Corporate Social Responsibility, lecturing on ‘The Employee as Stakeholder in CSR’ and ‘Diversity as an Essential Aspect of CSR’. She has recently delivered diversity and cultural competence training sessions at the University of Lethbridge, the University of Toronto’s School of Physical Therapy, the Ontario Police College, Georgian College, and the Canadian Centre for Ethics and Corporate Policy.

About the CCDI.

The Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) is a made-in-Canada solution designed to help employers, and diversity and inclusion (D&I), Human Rights and Equity (HR&E) and human resources (HR) practitioners effectively address the full picture of diversity, equity and inclusion within the workplace.

Wade King is the Safe Disclosure & Human Rights Advisor to the University of Alberta. A position accepted in February 2009. He currently serves as Past – President of the Canadian Association for the Prevention of Discrimination and Harassment in Higher Education (CAPDHHE), is an Advisory Board member of the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion and is a member of the Edmonton Business Diversity Network.

Mr. King has over 13 years of experience in the public and post-secondary sectors; primarily in the areas of human rights, diversity & inclusion, community relations and safe disclosure. Prior to his current position, he served as the Senior Diversity and Inclusion Consultant with the City of Edmonton, a position he held since the inception of that Office.

Panel members:

• Erick Ambtman, Executive Director of Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers

• Terry Coyes, Executive Director of Aksis (Aboriginal Business and Professional Association)

• Ian Mathieson, Senior Consultant, Centre for Race and Culture

• Ruth Ramos, Sr. Program Manager, Employment Services, Chrysalis

Panel members discussed resources and partnership opportunities they can provide to employers. Further discussion related to : Inclusive workplaces, fair pay/compensation, diverse workplaces.

Evert Poor, Data Quality Manager at TELUS, has over 39 years of experience leading diverse teams in a number of different disciplines at TELUS. He is one of the founding members of the Eagles, a Team Resource Group (TRG) representing Aboriginal team members and allies within TELUS.

Evert is in his second year as a selected member of the TELUS Diversity Council. As a Council member, he supports the development and activities to enhance the understanding and sustainability of a diverse and inclusive culture. The council reviews initiatives, policies and practices to determine their effectiveness in supporting and reflecting a respectful, diverse and welcoming workplace. Evert collaborates with team resource groups, the Community Investment team and various business units to help achieve their goals.

Evert has held executive positions with a number of business associations including Chairman of a non-profit daycare, President One Part Family association; President of a Mall Merchant association.

Part of Evert’s family has been here since the world began. He is Saulteaux (pronounced, SOH-toh) Ojibway Nation and a member of the Tootinaowaxiibeeng (Valley River) Indian band of Manitoba.

Break out groups – Three questions posed:

1. Share the D&I structures in your organizations (if you have one) or describe your dream team.

2. What strategies has your organization used to increase support for diversity and inclusion?

3. How do you identify and build potential team resource groups (also called affinity groups or employee resource groups) in your organization?