An anti-racism advocate in Edmonton is concerned the city has not yet delivered on actions laid out in the anti-racism strategy it approved 11 months ago.
Sharif Haji is the executive director of Africa Centre in Edmonton. He said city councillors showed urgency by calling for an anti-racism strategy as their first motion as a council, but progress has been slow since then.
“In my view, it has taken longer than needed, to be frank,” said Haji.
The strategy was approved by council on Feb. 14, 2022. It outlined three elements to advance anti-racism in the city: establish core sources of funding for grassroots, BIPOC-led organizations; a high-level anti-racism organization with city administration, which would challenge systemic racism within the City of Edmonton corporation; and an independent anti-racism body which would oversee anti-racism in the city as a whole.
When the strategy was approved, funding was reallocated from the Edmonton Police Service budget to support a number of community safety and well-being initiatives — anti-racism initiatives were among them.
Haji is particularly concerned about the independent body, which he said is the key pillar of the strategy.
“I honestly just can’t pinpoint why it would take this long to create the independent body that would have led the rest of the work,” he said.
Salima Ebrahim, chief of staff at the city, said the body has a broad mandate and requires members with a wide range of skill sets, and it has been hard finding people for those roles.
“We’ve mapped out the scope of work, the legal structure, the budget — so on and so forth — so that we had a good matrix that we were getting the skill set that we needed for the advisory board to ensure that we’ve got the success for the independent body,” she said.
However, the applications are closed, interviews are ongoing, and Ebrahim said an announcement on the body could be made in February.
“We got a lot of interest, which was fantastic. So we’ve got quite a few interviews to get through.”
Another roadblock came after the anti-racism strategy was approved and certain community groups felt their voice was not represented in the strategy.
“So we took some time to re-engage them as well,” said Ebrahim.
Lastly, Ebrahim said a senior executive advisor on anti-racism left their role at the city and a new one needed to be hired, adding a bit more delay to the process.
The independent anti-racism body would function similarly to the city’s existing anti-racism advisory committee (ARAC). The members of the ARAC are paid an honorarium of $100 to $250 per monthly meeting, depending on the length of the meeting and whether the member is a chair of the committee. They also complete hours worth of unpaid work outside of the meeting, according to the anti-racism strategy.
“While the ARAC is currently relied on to attempt to achieve some (anti-racism) outcomes, it is not sustainable to have such responsibilities lie with a volunteer citizens committee in our system,” reads the strategy.
“Relegating it to a fringe, volunteer structure sends a clear message that the system does not value anti-racism work or intend for it to have any real impact.”
The strategy continues on to say an independent anti-racism body is necessary to continue the work started by the ARAC by creating anti-racist change and addressing hate-based violence.
The ARAC was created to inform city council while the independent body will provide advice and recommendations to the city manager.
Ebrahim said that because of the independent body’s broad mandate, it was not easy to point to tangible initiatives the members will be in charge of, but that should change once the board is appointed sometime this quarter.
The other two prongs of the anti-racism strategy called for an anti-racism organization within the corporation of the City of Edmonton and funding grassroots, BIPOC-led organizations in the city, both of which are well underway, said Ebrahim.
Ebrahim said while this initiative may seem slow to get off the ground, the city is still working on other anti-racism projects, like Project Lighthouse and the anti-Black racism action plan.
“I want to ensure that we’re getting this work right. I totally get the need for speed as well,” she said.
But Haji said the urgency he saw around the strategy right after the municipal election has started to dissipate a bit.
“There are three key elements that the city council approved. Those are important,” said Haji. “We just need to make sure that we try those and then see what effect that it’s making or what it’s done.”
Haji said he wants to see answers by the first quarter of this year.
“We need to get it right within a reasonable time.”