Draft Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy

Background

Councillor Emily Chorley and Councillor Adam Bureau brought forward a motion to the Committee of the Whole meeting on June 22, 2020 to create an Equity and Diversity Policy for the Town of Cobourg.

As information and data has been collected and analyzed, a number of programs and policies have been created so far, including:

• The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee of Council;
• Indigenous Traditional Land Acknowledgement;
• Joining the Coalition of Inclusive Municipalities;
• Women in Governance: Leadership and Mentoring Program and Speaker Series, and;
• Adding Personal Pronouns to Town of Cobourg Staff’s Email Signatures.

As part of the Town of Cobourg’s commitment to the public and the Coalition of Inclusive Municipalities, a full Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy is being created. You can read about the overview of the steps that we are taking here.

Currently, we have completed:

1. Initial Internal Benchmarking,
2. External Benchmarking,
3. Leadership Interviews,
4. Document Review (In Progress),
5. Census and Engagement Survey, and
6. Confidential Internal Focus Groups (In Progress)

Through this Engage Cobourg and the Public Town Halls, we are working to complete Community Engagement and Feedback. This includes conducting community engagement and listening sessions to learn about the important topics that should be addressed for the community in Cobourg.

Goal
To round-out the completion of creating the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy, Staff and Council are collecting feedback from the public in a variety of ways, including through Engage Cobourg and open, public town hall forums.

The public are invited to comment on the draft of the Town of Cobourg's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy. As well, the public are encouraged to discuss any additional equity, diversity, and inclusion topics that they have experienced. Town Council has approved the four (4) goals of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy:

1. Identify and address systemic barriers within the Corporation.
2. Create programs to meet the needs of everyone.
3. Engage our diverse communities in a meaningful way.
4. Attract and leverage a diverse workforce.

Our current plan has over eighty (80) recommended Actions to take place over the next five (5) years that relate to each of these goals. We are asking the public for feedback on what to prioritize, adjust, change, and focus on as we continue on our EDI journey.

Staff has created three (3) Phases to roll out the EDI Strategy to ensure proper staffing, funding, and time spent on the action items; however, we are open to suggestions to updates and changes based on public feedback.

Phase One is “Internal Strengthening of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.” To create more cultural competence in leadership and our staff to engage meaningfully with our residents, we first need to work on some internal practices. This will allow our staff members have the tools, resources, and understanding they need to engage meaningfully with our residents and their diverse needs.

Phase Two is “Audit and Assess Goods, Programs, Services, and Information.” To ensure that we are taking diverse needs into consideration, we will work to audit and assess the way we create, advertise, adjust, and assess the success of goods, programs, services, and information. This will be coincided with the implementation of the EDI Lens creation and implementation to help our Staff assess using checklists and self-reflection.

Phase Three is “Collaborate and Build More Inclusive Practices for the Town of Cobourg.” This Phase will also include more awareness, understanding, and collaboration with external partners such as our urban Indigenous population as well as Alderville First Nations. While we work on the foundations to do so, and continue to implement ideas from the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples throughout Phase One and Phase Two.

During this project and process, we are committed to listening and learning, creating programs and actions based on suggestions, and making sure we're approaching this as the Town of Cobourg.

The public engagement objective for the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy is to:

• Receive comments on the draft of the Town of Cobourg's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy.
• Encourage residents to discuss any additional equity, diversity, and inclusion topics that they have experienced.

We are looking for your feedback:
To share your comments and opinions on the actions that the Town of Cobourg should take to improve equity, diversity, and inclusion, we have multiple options.

1. Review the Draft Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.
2. Complete the Survey to prioritize different ideas and actions.
3. Participate in the Forums to tell us about your experiences.

If you require any of the information in an accessible format, please contact Jamie Kramer, Accessibility Coordinator, at accessibility@cobourg.ca.