Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy - Goals

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 project 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 continue 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 goals 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.

These goals will be the building blocks that will be used during the Visioning Session that Council and Senior Leadership will be participating in during the month of August to create the draft of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy. The aim is to present the draft of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy to the public for further comment in September.

In addition, any feedback about the goals, any programs, policies, procedures, or initiatives that the public wishes to provide information on or suggestions to implement will be taken into consideration as either a standalone project (such as the Women in Governance Program) or under the scope of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy.

The Goals we are currently proposing are:

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.

The goals are meant to be a foundation – and we build objectives and actions specific to them from what they are to achieve. In the “Ideas” and the “Forum,” tell us what you need from the Town of Cobourg to be able to engage with us, live in our communities, work at the Town, or play in the parks and beach. We want to know if there are barriers to accessing our resources or being able to fulfil your needs while being in the borders of Cobourg.

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 actions that the Town of Cobourg should take to improve equity, diversity, and inclusion.

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, please contribute to the following public engagement opportunities below:

1. Provide Ideas for actions to take under each of the draft Goals.
2. Join the Forums.

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