Anna Mehler Paperny
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, May. 17, 2010 11:10PM EDT
Last updated on Monday, May. 17, 2010 11:55PM EDT
When Jamilla Mohamud sat through her first city council meeting late last fall, she was stunned. Not by the length, the level of detail or the councillors’ aggressive banter, but by the people occupying seats in council chambers.
Why weren’t there more women? Where were the Somali Canadians?
“It was very shocking,” she said. “In school, you’re taught that everyone’s equal. … So where’s the divide? In my area, it’s the women and the mothers who take the initiative and make things happen. On city council, it’s not really reflected that way.”
Ms. Mohamud had never given city politics a second thought (“When I was younger, I was thinking more on the federal level,” she said) until her old employer, Africans in Partnership Against AIDS, forwarded an e-mail about the city’s Regional Champion Campaign, a program that aims to get young women involved in municipal politics.
“You see the results of your work directly. … I think it’s amazing,” she said.
So much so that she’s giving up her Tuesday evening to learn about how to join the city’s agencies, boards and commissions – the myriad bodies that help make decisions on everything from police services to health bylaws and the Toronto Zoo.
“[My friends] were like, ‘What?’” she said.
But the 24-year-old biology graduate sees this as her ticket into city politics and, who knows, maybe the mayor’s seat some day.
Toronto often boasts it’s the most diverse city in the world. But you might not know it from looking at city council, or many of the city’s arm’s-length agencies, boards and commissions.
These all remain older, more male and more white than Toronto’s broader population – something the city has spent the past four years making a concerted effort to change.
Some of those efforts are paying off: Since the city put in place a formal public appointments policy in 2006 that focused on diversifying the public service, those bodies have better reflected the city.
Women now make up 44 per cent of the city’s boards and commissions, as opposed to 33 per cent six years ago. But Southeast Asians, who comprise 5 per cent of Toronto’s population, make up only 1 per cent of board, agency and commission membership. Aboriginals? Zero per cent.
Tuesday’s how-to seminar on the public appointment process aims to increase that.
The city’s getting better, says Cathy Winter, manager of the Maytree Foundation’s DiverseCity onBoard program. It’s becoming more transparent, and more aware of the need to reach out to those who aren’t normally municipal politics wonks.
“They’ve come a long way,” she said. “And they’re measuring it, which they weren’t before. They can see where they have to improve.”
Councillor Janet Davis chalks it up to concerted efforts at three stages: outreach, shortlisting and selection of successful candidates. She said rules dictating exactly what role councillors can play in the selection process help ensure that the people chosen aren’t just friends or acquaintances of elected officials.
Alok Mukherjee, the police board’s first South Asian chair and a long-time advocate of diversity in Toronto’s leadership, said he’s delighted the city has decided to make this a priority. Toronto’s political institutions are making great strides when it comes to inclusion, he said, but “there’s still a significant distance to travel.”
The applicant pool is there, he insisted, but the city needs to look more closely at what qualities it’s screening for, and whom that leaves out.
“I think there’s a general recognition that we live in a vastly different city than what it was like 20 or 30 years ago,” he said. “So I think there’s a general sensitivity. … The question is whether the criteria that are used are helping to translate that sensitivity into concrete results.”
Creating a corporate population that reflects Toronto itself means the city has to change the way it thinks, acts and recruits, says Keiko Nakamura, head of the Toronto Community Housing Corp. “You want a diverse public service to get a better set of results,” she said. “It creates better public policy … when you have a leadership and workers who reflect the desires and needs of that public.”
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Ingrid Peritz
Montreal — From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published on Tuesday, May. 04, 2010 10:12PM EDT
Last updated on Tuesday, May. 04, 2010 10:20PM EDT
It may be the most historic parking lot in all of Canada.
Tucked away in Old Montreal amid the quarter’s quaint greystones is an asphalt expanse that covers up some significant ashes – the vestiges of an early Canadian Parliament building.
The site has been ignored by generations of schoolchildren, overlooked by tourists, and left to languish without a marker or plaque.
But this summer, work gets under way to dig up the dirt on Parliament, at last.
Montreal’s Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archeology and History, with $22-million in newly announced funding, is set to begin unearthing the remains of the Parliament of United Canada, created in 1844. The building marked Montreal’s time as capital of Canada, although the status was short lived: A mob stormed it in 1849 and burned it down.
Some might say that a landmark destroyed by anger-fuelled hordes deserves to be abandoned to the ashes of history. But the site has passionate advocates.
Essayist John Ralston Saul says the Montreal site has major national importance and has been overlooked for too long.
“I think it’s about time,” he said in an interview yesterday. “All the best things about Canada were formalized first in that Parliament building. This is where Canada became a democracy.”
The Parliament building was witness to the adoption of key pieces of legislation, including the act establishing “responsible government” in Canada in 1848.
The Parliament was created in 1844 in the grand St. Ann’s Market building in Youville Square on the western edge of Old Montreal. On April 25, 1849, incensed by passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill, which would compensate rebels of the 1837-38 uprisings, a largely English-speaking mob set upon the building and torched it.
Some records say the only thing saved was a portrait of Queen Victoria. Others report the mob carried it outside and shredded it.
Christine Muschi for the Globe and Mail
Francine Lelièvre, executive director of Montreal's Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archeology and History, says she doesn't know what archeologists will dig up when Canada's early Parliament site is excavated.
It was an inglorious episode for Montreal, but it’s not seen as all bad. Mr. Saul said the way the government responded – with restraint and conciliation rather than force – was a turning point in Canada’s history.
“The burning down of it is a great drama, but in a sense the response was a make-or-break moment,” he said. “And in a terrible crisis, they responded with enormous care and calm. By not responding with violence, it allowed the breathing space for people to figure out how to live together.”
Work on the Parliament site begins this summer with archeological exploration probes; full digs are scheduled for next summer, said Francine Lelièvre, executive director of the museum. The $22-million in funding, which comes from Quebec and the city of Montreal, also covers the cost of expanding the museum.
And while the riot destroyed historical treasures – including an estimated 12,000 books and archives containing the records of British North America – Ms. Lelièvre is hopeful that some tantalizing remnants may have survived. She said anything could be discovered in the debris, from clocks to porcelain pieces to other vanished treasures.
“What can we find? I don’t know,” she said. But at least the site, in all its blazing history, will be explored. “We built Canada here,” she said. “True, some of it is not a glorious history. But it’s history.”
Montreal — From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published on Tuesday, May. 04, 2010 10:12PM EDT
Last updated on Tuesday, May. 04, 2010 10:20PM EDT
It may be the most historic parking lot in all of Canada.
Tucked away in Old Montreal amid the quarter’s quaint greystones is an asphalt expanse that covers up some significant ashes – the vestiges of an early Canadian Parliament building.
The site has been ignored by generations of schoolchildren, overlooked by tourists, and left to languish without a marker or plaque.
But this summer, work gets under way to dig up the dirt on Parliament, at last.
Montreal’s Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archeology and History, with $22-million in newly announced funding, is set to begin unearthing the remains of the Parliament of United Canada, created in 1844. The building marked Montreal’s time as capital of Canada, although the status was short lived: A mob stormed it in 1849 and burned it down.
Some might say that a landmark destroyed by anger-fuelled hordes deserves to be abandoned to the ashes of history. But the site has passionate advocates.
Essayist John Ralston Saul says the Montreal site has major national importance and has been overlooked for too long.
“I think it’s about time,” he said in an interview yesterday. “All the best things about Canada were formalized first in that Parliament building. This is where Canada became a democracy.”
The Parliament building was witness to the adoption of key pieces of legislation, including the act establishing “responsible government” in Canada in 1848.
The Parliament was created in 1844 in the grand St. Ann’s Market building in Youville Square on the western edge of Old Montreal. On April 25, 1849, incensed by passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill, which would compensate rebels of the 1837-38 uprisings, a largely English-speaking mob set upon the building and torched it.
Some records say the only thing saved was a portrait of Queen Victoria. Others report the mob carried it outside and shredded it.
Christine Muschi for the Globe and Mail
Francine Lelièvre, executive director of Montreal's Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archeology and History, says she doesn't know what archeologists will dig up when Canada's early Parliament site is excavated.
It was an inglorious episode for Montreal, but it’s not seen as all bad. Mr. Saul said the way the government responded – with restraint and conciliation rather than force – was a turning point in Canada’s history.
“The burning down of it is a great drama, but in a sense the response was a make-or-break moment,” he said. “And in a terrible crisis, they responded with enormous care and calm. By not responding with violence, it allowed the breathing space for people to figure out how to live together.”
Work on the Parliament site begins this summer with archeological exploration probes; full digs are scheduled for next summer, said Francine Lelièvre, executive director of the museum. The $22-million in funding, which comes from Quebec and the city of Montreal, also covers the cost of expanding the museum.
And while the riot destroyed historical treasures – including an estimated 12,000 books and archives containing the records of British North America – Ms. Lelièvre is hopeful that some tantalizing remnants may have survived. She said anything could be discovered in the debris, from clocks to porcelain pieces to other vanished treasures.
“What can we find? I don’t know,” she said. But at least the site, in all its blazing history, will be explored. “We built Canada here,” she said. “True, some of it is not a glorious history. But it’s history.”
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