WINNIPEG — It’s starting conversation, it’s getting people engaged and hopefully it’s changing minds.
That’s what the Mayor hopes will come out of a National Summit on Racial Inclusion held at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights Thursday night and Friday.
Mayor Brian Bowman started the summit after a Maclean’s Magazine article came out in January calling Winnipeg the most racist city in Canada.
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“We’d like to demonstrate to Canadians that Winnipeg took the task of the Maclean’s headline and tag to heart and is trying to demonstrate some leadership on how we can increase inclusion in our community,” Bowman said.
The mayor’s national summit opened Thursday night and all day Friday at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights with over a dozen guest speakers and stories of discrimination, but more importantly what can be done to eliminate it.
“There is a real desire by this community to step up to the plate and deal with a very difficult issue,” Bowman said.
But one person who stole the show was an 11-year-old boy who wasn’t afraid to ask the questions no one else would.
“Everybody that was here today will most likely not be racist or be discriminating against people, the people who are, are likely not watching this or don’t think they have problems so it’s going to be harder to tell them about these issues,” Tait Palsson said.
Mayor Bowman says the conversation needed to happen and says it appears Winnipeggers were thirsty for it, realizing that the summit won’t get rid of racism but hopes it’ll get people talking, engaged and maybe change some minds.
“That won’t be solved after this summit, it won’t be solved in the next week or the next year this will be an on-going journey,” Bowman said.
He hopes to gather ideas from the summit and put them into action. Bowman said he’ll have an announcement in January, a year after the Maclean’s article, to say what changes he plans to implement. What those will be, he didn’t know yet.
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