good morning everybody we have some technical issues but I think we're good now almost good give me a second e e e e e e okay our technical issues have been resolved and so now we're good to go so good morning everyone my name is councelor Chris Moyes and I'm the chair of the confronting anti-black racism advisory committee a week and a half ago on behalf of Mayor Chow I was able to present a certificate to the family of Louis March at his AA celebration Louis March was passionate about change especially with and for black youth not only did he found zerog gun violence movement he was an advocate and member of various organizations across the greater Toronto area I'd like us to take a moment of silence in his memory thank you the clerk has confirmed that we have quorums I will call meeting four of the confronting anti-black racism advisory committee to order and again welcome to everyone who's here today and online this meeting is being held in person and using the city's WebEx technology when it works with members and staff connecting by video conf confence or calling in because we are meeting in person and remotely we ask for your patience with any delays and technical issues members of the public can watch the meeting streaming live on YouTube at youtube.com/ Toronto City Council live I'd like to remind everyone who is joining the meeting remotely to keep your mic and muted and your video turned off unless you need to address the committee this this will make it easier for me as chair and for those watching on YouTube to see the members as we debate and vote on the agenda items members please keep your mics muted unless you wish to question staff or speak to an item if members wish to ask questions of Staff or to speak please make sure your video is on and raise your hand or mute your mic and indicate your intention to speak and I will create a speaker list when voting on an item or motion I would ask members to turn on your video and raise your hand to indicate your vote if there is a recorded vote I would ask you to state if you are in favor or in opposition or opposed members I want to remind you that although we are participating remotely and in person we must still submit our motions in writing the clerk's staff are available at Cabra toronto.ca to help with motions although we are in different locations the confronting anti-black racism advisory committee acknowledges the land we are meeting on isad the traditional territories of many nations including the Mis sagas of the credit the anos shabek the chipa the honi and the wind that peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations Inu and M peoples we also acknowledge the Toronto is covered by treaty 13 with the Miss sagas of the credit now turn over to l thank you counselor in the last year of the UN International decade for people of African descent we also acknowledge all treaty peoples including those who came here as settlers as migrants either in this generation or in Generations past and those of us who came here involuntarily particularly forcibly displ pled Africans brought brought here as a result of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery today we pay tribute to our ancestors ERS of African origin and descent we offer these acknowledgements separately to honor the distinct legacies of indigenous and black peoples here on Turtle Island okay thank you so this past week we closed emancipation month 2024 with the UN International Day of people of African descent the decade and the day concurrently invites governments agencies and society as a whole to promote the extraordinary contributions of people of African descent while working to eliminate all forms of discrimination against black people our com our commemoration of emancipation month began with us taking our annual ride on the Freedom Train in partnership with black heur Cultural Center I was honored to join community members City staff and visiting Royal guests in the raising of the black liberation flag here at City Hall on August 1st on the same day we launched the Citywide public education campaign to acknowledge the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery in the line with the UN International decade of people of African descent we were blessed to see artwork designed by Kenisha Deo on Toronto Transit shelters and saw newly minted wayfinding signs to sanova square in the past system we finished the day with the march to Christy Pitts Park later that day in partnership with our colleagues at Toronto library and the Canadian Canadian Association the city was able to co-host a film screening of Joseph and a panel discussion on the impacts of the transatlantic slave trade that was intergenerational and Intercultural last month we honored our elders leaders and cultural conservators who enrich our hearts minds and stomachs to close the month as we do each year we honor black youth with the blackhurst black youth can mixer in partnership with C Center for young black professionals the mixture included West African drumming remarks from our mayor and a panel discussion led by Eva Eva's initiative focusing on Equitable policies and practices needed to create inclusive environments the impact of leadership in driving cultural change and how organizations can address systemic barriers to inclusion all of this prepares us for the confronting anti-black racism unit bringing forward recommendations for the next 10year action plan to confront anti-black racism at City Hall on October 3rd after months of staff and Community consultation I would now like to ask the for motion to confirm the minutes of this committee on May 15 2024 I'm going to ask wear my glasses alucina okay all those in favor opposed carried thank you I'm going to turn it over to you so we now we will now consider the seven items on the agenda and there are three registered speakers I will turn it over to you listen for item number one yeah um so the first item is increasing equity and access social policy strategies and initiatives at the city of Toronto okay so members this is a deferred it item do you have any questions on this item okay um are there any speakers to this item okay so w go ahead hope you folks can hear me good morning everyone um happy September um I was just hoping that the chair could just uh remind uh the committee of what actions are coming from the specific items uh for is it more just uh a discussion on the presentation that was made by um sdfa on the social Equity strategies or can we provide advice on those strategies so okay um you want to go back to speakers then because you want to ask staff a question yes so it's a procedure question for whoever can answer that yeah so okay so if you want to ask staff a question on this item you can do that the order of the our order is questions than speaking so but okay so I can pose then this question to our friends at sdfa um what portions of the 10year action um uh plan that we developed at Cabra uh connects the work of sdfa like what specific pieces do we need to be mindful of as a [Music] committee uh through the chair uh thanks W so right now we are finalizing recommendations and actions for the 10-year plan and so there will be an opportunity uh as uh the chair noted in his remarks on October 3rd for uh the the committee as well as all um city of Toronto residents to make suggestions in line with the recommendations we just haven't finalized those as yet any further questions okay continue okay any speakers to the item one speaker yes will you go ahead yeah I just want to speak to the presentations we got from uh many organizations specifically I want to reference our good friends at taiu at the taiu community health center uh when they presented to this committee and spoke about the great work uh that they are engaged in uh what really caught my attention was the capacity building that they were involved in when it comes to governance uh specifically the board of directors of various organizations uh how to address anti-black racism at governance within organizations and I thought that was very very insightful I don't know if there's any other organization that does this type of work um so what I'm uh hoping we could do is when we do have a discussion about the commitments made in the city budget to address anti-black racism uh that we look at examples such as taiu um and and other organizations that um need to be resourced to do this work uh you know when I think about a budget it's a reflection of our priorities uh so I'd like for us to work with our mayor members of council to ensure that those Investments are made uh in organizations like taiu uh that are doing great work uh addressing systemic anti-black racism at the governance level um so I'm hoping that uh you know our friends at sdfa uh will be able to look into this and see how uh Cabra can play a role in in supporting such recommendations thank you um any additional speakers to this item uh yes Kathy go ahead can you hear me now I I just had a question and I don't know if we're if the plan is to to actually have a speaker to this item but in uh reading through the presentation on equity and access for social policy and strategies which is that's can you hear me now okay um in reading through the presentation which is here um I'm I'm noting that I don't see anything in regards to education either in the poverty reduction strategy or anywhere at all in this document and I'm wondering um where that is situated um as education is being important in terms of equity and and access and disparities in resources of uh schools within uh Toronto and so um wondering where we can get that included actually into these this item uh through the chair thank you so very much um Elder mosu so first of all that particular presentation was uh prepared last year um but education is held is an order of government that's held by the provincial government so there wouldn't be specific necessarily specific Targets in the the poverty reduction strategy we do know that there's a new strategy coming um so that's something that we can um make sure shared with you once there is draft actions put forward by this the strategy but just to be clear that those because education is a part of the provincial government there wouldn't necessarily be specific Targets in the new uh poverty reduction strategy if I might follow up on that uh I I appreciate that and that's important but to the extent in which we are operating in silos to deso that and think about the intersectionality between education and poverty at minimum it should be included in both strategies I would I would say absolutely and to to be fair that's you know Partnerships with uh ydu as well as pfnr and how that's the next steps are being framed but that's something I'm happy to take back to make sure that's focused on also want to add too that uh we do have a a committee at the city with councilors and trustees to address those issues as well and as CH Public Health when comes to nutrition that's actually funded through Public Health as well so it's a multi the wrong approach we're taking to it uh Yes W go ahead uh thank you for that really insightful question and and you got me thinking about uh one portion of the report that focused on updating Toronto's food Charter um we all know that food insecurity uh is uh something that concerns all communities but all specifically I I'll be referencing black communities across the city of Toronto um and in my work in the community uh in collaboration with stakeholders like food share Toronto um and various other organizations in the non for-profit sector what we realized was not many residents of Toronto are aware they're not even aware that we have a food Charter uh so when my friend Kathy reference education uh what I was hoping we could do is get an update on what sort of campaigns sdfa is going to be engaging in to raise awareness across the city of Toronto on this important uh guiding documents and how could residents actually be engaged um in in in the update itself you know what I what I would like to see is that Community buying residents actually saying here's what we like about the food Charter for example I'm using that as an example but it could be other pieces as well and here how we would like um you know it to be updated based on our experiences um in the pre not I guess in the pandemic era right because that really uh needs to be um incor those views need to be really Incorporated uh because of the challenges that the pandemic posed um so uh I think when it comes to Broad a consultation uh it would be a great idea to involve Cabra but also involve all stakeholders in that discussion through sdfa thank you thank you alite um I'd actually like to speak briefly to this item um to Dr mcu's point on working in silos I think what's evident from the plan is there are a lot of cross- divisional um strategies you know plans um Etc and so I think it would be um useful at Le um for for myself and perhaps other members to see the impact of those various potentially siloed uh strategies and their the impact um per budget cycle so what is the the real impact that we see with um with with the budget cycle and it sounds like this is a planner a collection of strategies that's still under development and we're still working out you know particular items but I'm just wondering like in real time given that these processes take time what is the precarity or the impact of that of the budget cycle on the longevity and continuity of this work um so I wouldn't be able to speak to that at this particular moment because uh again the the poverty reduction strategy uh unit is working on compiling um those recommendation recommendations and actions that will be tied to targets and have budgetary consideration but I can take back that information uh to see how we can share that with the committee going forward once they've been established um any additional speakers to this item sorry Rosary okay um so Rosemary go ahead online are you on mute Ros Mary cannot hear you we can't we still can't hear you unfortunately I'm not quite sure if it's on our system or yours looks like you are unmuted we're speaking to uh IV to see what's going on but in the meantime can members online please turn on your camera so we know you're there and we could actually record you for cor thank you uh Rosemary able to call in hi Rosemary this is the clerk we are going to send you a phone number in the chat and maybe you can call in using that phone number um so while we work out some technical pieces are there additional speakers on this item for can I have a I have a question um and and maybe Kemba can um elaborate on this um on undocumented day on August 20th uh we had an amazing discussion uh at City Hall and I'm glad that the mayor and and other members of council were in attendance um one of the things that was discussed was the need for Workforce strategy uh for um newcomers and refugees but there was also a discussion on um the impact on racialized youth specifically in in your could you elaborate on sort of the work that's been done uh to inform the Cabra 10-year action plan on the need for Workforce strategy specifically uh to better support residents or create opportunities for residents in the city of Toronto um through the chair uh just to confirm um so it's the Toronto action plan to confront anti-black racism so um it's not a plan of the advisory committee yeah um so in terms of our our youth actions we did consult with various um youth agencies like C Center for Young professionals as well as a nagby and the other names I don't have at at my hand right now um but we would be putting forward um actions that do look at Workforce Development but I don't have those exact as I said we're still working on them so just to give an idea of the committee what took place um over a four-month period we did uh surveys that were sent out through um excuse me throughout the the city and we also partnered with black mandated organizations and within those organizations they held either targeted or open consultations with uh for the most part black torontonians we received back the notes of those um all those Community consultations I'm going to see if my colleagues are sharing with me um how many consultations there were I believe there was 40 something so we are collating all those notes and then in cating those notes we are drafting actions so as it relates specifically uh to youth uh outcomes I don't have uh direct actions through that um and recommendations but as I shared at the October 3rd meeting meeting we will have those um prepared and we would invite uh even outside of the town hall on October 3rd if there are Cabra members who you know want to have conversations with us in and around that time we'd be happy to have those conversations thank you and just to add as well we are inviting those organizations and youth to come out and look at those actions too so it's not just like you know the old heads are going to be able to say this is what the youth should be um doing so we'll have youth out there to to directly comment and I think um inviting a nagby is important because we want to make sure that afro indigenous youth are reflected and we had a consult we had two consultations uh to ensure that we um have representation from that Community or those communities I should say thank you thank you while we're waiting just a matter of a reminder to the members so the way our process works is that we ask questions first yes five minutes then you can ask up to five minutes and then you you can speak for up to five minutes right so can I just go ahead I just want I just want to clarify so we actually had 129 engagements off the city I a little bald it I apologize so thanks um we can hold this item we can hold on this item we have actually a very large agenda today and uh we'll come back to it and once Rose Mary is able to ask a question and then we can vote on the item in the inter term we'll go to item SI 4.2 advancing action on the impact of advancing action on the impact to action uh FAL report on anti-black racism in Toronto police services uh this is was brought forth by a member wed you want you can speak to this you can give a give an overview of this um item just before uh I speak to this item I just want guidance from the chair um and and City staff if I want to amend the motion um to reference just and I I want to move this to reference just the uh confronting anti-black racism advisory committee and remove the confronting anti-black racism unit Social Development Finance Administration out of it um what's what's the process should I just be able to just move the amendment so you can you can speak to the item you can introduce the item okay uh then questions can be asked and once your turn to speak then you can amend it if you like okay and make sure you it should be in writing but you can work with the clerks for the wording of that thank you so it's when you speak that's when that happens thank you councelor Moyes uh so I'll quickly speak to this item um to give an overview of this this your this is your motion so yeah so I'm just going to reference folks uh to uh the information that's already available publicly uh on the website uh but I want to start off by thanking City staff um I want to thank uh Kemba and and the rest of the team uh from the confronting anti-black racism unit um the city clerk uh for advice related to this motion and this motion is centered uh on a review of the from Impact to action report by the entar Human Rights Commission um the the commission did some significantly important work in evaluating data from Toronto police services uh that and have offered some recommendations that are aimed at addressing uh systemic challenges uh we all know that this findings are very important and I think it's beneficial for our committee uh to invite a representative from the Ontario Human Rights Commission to present on the recommendations inclosed in the report we also like to um examine the anti-black racism at TPS specifically uh how the recommendations have been acted upon by Toronto police services um we when I think about this report I think about the conversations I had with members of the interal Human Rights Commission uh and my friends I was actually pretty shocked about this new notion it's called overcharging I'm not sure if you've heard of this word overcharging uh I will explain what overcharging is uh so according to the report it seems that uh members of the black community and Indigenous Community get overcharged more than members of the white community in the city of Toronto this is based on tps's own data uh and it leads to some really serious consequences one of them being that displaced uh from so access to Social Services uh one of them being social housing uh so this Mo motion also calls for a presentation from Toronto Community Housing being uh our largest social housing provider to uh look at this recommendations not just seriously but to act on this recommendations I actually appreciate the title of the report which is from Impact to action because it's calling for Action not just discussion um and from my own personal experience being a community organizer and helping a lot of Youth in our community navigate the challenges uh posed by this um by the impact of antiblack racism specifically when it comes to you know young people in our community who get charged go through the judicial process go through the courts and then years later are found innocent the damage has already been done right this are this are young people in our community that now displaced from social housing they now been displaced from access to Social Services because uh there were actions taken by those institutions uh to dis basically to to evict them either from housing uh or or uh prevent them from accessing accessing social services so we I want to have a better understanding and I think the committee will benefit from having a better understanding of what are the ramifications of anti-black racism institutionally um within the city of Toronto uh um lastly what I would like to speak about is I think this presentation will provide our committee with valuable insights into the progress made thus far and highlight areas where further strategic action is needed to continue to advance the committee's Mandate and and I hope this will inform our 10-year action plan uh so that's the reason why I put forward this motion is for us to get the information from the interal Human Rights Commission directly see how it connects with our 10-year action plan and make recommendations to the city council and the mayor on how those uh those actions can be implemented thank you okay we have a speak uh speaker um bazani are you here a are you online you see him online uh Queen we can Queen we cannot hear you we should go to yeah I had the same experience with the last speaker I could hear but um yeah yeah I would try calling in I think that might be the easier route Maybe uh B can you try can you uh try now can you speak into the your mic we may actually solve the issue hello can you hear me yes oh great that's uh so much better than calling in okay you have five minutes go ahead okay I just wanted to thank everybody for um uh taking action and um everybody on the council for their work um it's important work um so I want to get in um I'm up uh Community liaison um I behind several groups socialist action black lives mutata um and I'm also a publisher um I wanted to address three areas if I could um transparency breach of trust and accountability uh these are all recommendations um first with transparency um I just wanted to say that um it's important for us to have trust in law enforcement um with open uh Communications transparency and data on metrics such as race sex and other factors um much of the data collected by the TPS such as race based data um is referred to and assumed to as assumed racial identities and is presented in a manner that is not usable or easily decipherable to um accountability Watch Dogs the public or Community liaison such as myself nor does it break down um police complaints that were deiss dismissed um due to being unsubstantiated claims or why um they were deemed so and why these numbers are so high each year um my second area of uh interest is the breach of public trust um our our communities have uh felt that there's been claims of inequity and and physical violence against Pro Palestinian protests individuals being charged um with face coverings uh for for using face coverings during demonstrations um we believe is a health right um for people to wear masks uh the dismissal of um uh deput concerns and arrests of deput at TPS board meetings um the opd's lack of Independence Police access to complaints are being used to investigate and intimidate public complaintants um we have a use of tactics and threats of criminal harassment charges being laid upon civilians for recording the police and recording police misconduct um we have over policing of financially burdened unsheltered peoples C causing additional trauma to those already living through trauma disproportion of violence imit intimidation and arrests of black indigenous and Middle Eastern peoples um police assaults on suspected drug users potentially putting their lives at danger of heart failure and other life-threatening complications while they're on such drugs like fentanyl um and the last area is accountability um despite uh Health Canada declaring racism as the number one Health threat to blacks in 2020 um millions of dollars were spent in additional police without any assessment on how this would affect the communities being negatively impacted by the increase such as the black and Indigenous communities who are over represented in our jails and in in arrests um uh uh we um have seen no additional money for additional training or screening of officers that would reduce the amount of profiling and racial targeting of BAC indigenous and Middle Eastern communities and um we are calling for more independent reforms such as 100% civilian Le and community-led investigations and audits a publicly and democratically elected police chief intermediate or immediate transparency and full disclosure of policeman's conduct in order for additional victims to come forward an ending arbitrary dismissal of police complaints through bias police Liaisons and Toronto police services self investigations um that's my uh deposition and my recommendations um from our our community um and uh just want to say thank you everybody for having me today um if anyone has any questions uh I'll be putting out hopefully a full report in November um and I can provide it to your committee and as well as the tral police services okay thank you uh any questions for the deput seeing none thank you for coming in today uh any questions from the members from the members to W because it is his um this is his item so any questions sorry Mr chair you went through that so quick so could we ask the the the the member of the public that's making a deputation a question is that allowed permissible yeah I just asked if you had you just went so quick any questions for the deput yes yes please okay so I have a question to the deput um uh thank you so much uh for speaking to this item um you you mentioned that the the data that is been collected from Toronto police services uh that is uh it's not easily accessible to the public are you referring to the report made by the on Human Rights Commission I I want to understand the the Gap in Access that you reference my friend if you could speak to that I was speaking more to the information available on the Toronto police services website in regards to um race based uh data and uh their their plan um uh yeah the numbers on there are very vague and they're very hard to um to you know find specifics uh you know um it will give a general number but it won't break those numbers down um so it's very not telling of anything um it's just general information and uh it there's no conclusive evidence in my opinion sounds good so my follow-up question quickly is do you think the public will benefit from um uh a campaign done by CPS specifically on on on the data or uh another body much more neutral body like the Human Rights Commission or the city of Toronto if if where where do you think the information should be coming from and for with more clarity as you expect um I'm not sure uh where the information would come but um I would just prefer to see independent bodies um such as Community organizations um there's been many Community organizations who are directly affected um who work with the homeless um have had their complaints um dismissed by the police um they have community members that they're trying to represent and uh numbers um that that they they keep as well um about uh incidents with the police and how it affects them so I'd like to see more Community Based audits thank you my friend thank you for clarifying thank you any further questions from any other deput here um members seeing none thank youen question uh Queen you had a question um it was more like a comment um thank you for having me speak um one second process is important here do you have a question for the deput no okay so okay so you'll have an opportunity to speak um now we're going to ask questions of the Mover of this item wed does anyone online have a questions for w I'm not seeing any anyone in the room has questions for wed okay I okay um I do have one question so your motion focuses on the ontar Human Rights Commission um around their action plan but we have our own action plan in the city uh 2019 2023 tal action plan to confront an the black racism why didn't you focus on that report rather than the entar human rights report excellent question um I would like uh for the advisory committee to have a better understanding of the recommendations that have been made by the ENT human rights uh commission to inform our own action plan that's the simplest answer I can give uh but also uh to unpack some of the recommendations they've made uh some of the recommendations relate to the deletion of data uh when it comes to um Street checks I I want to better appreciate why they're making that recommendation um so that we all have a better sense of um what sort of action plan that we want to implement in the city that is up to date that is informed by um work that's uh addressing anti-black racism uh from from all sectors and from all organizations so I think this will be a great way uh for us to have the that appreciation and understanding before we move forward with a final um version of recommendations uh that we could uh pass on to council okay and um do you recognize so in your first item here you're asking the Ontario Human Rights Commission to come and present to a city body do you recognize that that's not a normal practice that another level of government comes to speak to advisory committee like this I've never heard of this sort of thing happening since my two years as a counselor I've never experienced this before uh you you're probably uh all the city clerk is probably aware of the procedures better than I do I'm I'm a new member of of this advisory committee but um I don't see a problem with uh you know other uh organizations that are connected to other levels of government to provide advice and share data I think what's really lacking is the intergovernmental um cooporation that's needed to address uh systemic anti-black racism uh we know for example at the federal level uh we have uh some serious anti-black racism uh issues um you know there have been news reports about this uh there's been discussions within Community about this so I think we need to create a platform for dialogue uh between different levels of government to address anti-black racism so I hope members of uh The Advisory uh uh committee support this motion so that that invitation is extended uh if they choose to accept it that's great and we can you know have that conversation here if they choose not to then that's their own U uh PR prerogative so um I think this will help us address systemic anti-black racism at all levels starting at the city level because we are more concerned with the city okay thank you any further questions I see none okay speakers to this item any speakers to this item online don't see any in the room sorry Queen you you did want to speak to this item my apologies go ahead you have five minutes uh thank you for having me speak I actually changed my mind but since I'm up here I'll say something I just wanted to thank W and the speaker you know for their comments and it's so important um what they were speaking about um I just wanted to comment uh about stacking which is the other term for what w is talking about and they do this so that to like in still fear and so that people will you know take the Lesser charges that's all I wanted to say thank you thank you um Lucina you want to speak to this item uh yeah no just briefly I think yeah thank you w for bringing this forward on on multiple occasions and stressing the importance of it I do um yeah I fundamentally agree like how critical it would be to understand I think what's being done um to address the recommendations and specific to how I think the recommendations are worded I I do think the report itself is quite detail and speaks you know for itself and so I I guess my my suggestion would be for members to kind of read in peruse and digest the report um but what would be really critical I think for us as a collective to understand is what exactly the TPS is doing um so I I agree to your point on like intergovernmental I guess collabor transparency you know that piece but I think um the like really getting down to what the TPS has done to address those recommendations I think is probably of utmost importance so that piece recommendation to is especially I think critical for us um but in terms of procedure I don't know um how that would work but I just wanted to stress that I think having TPS themselves really be at the center of this um be uh important and useful for us as a committee thank you uh I'll I'll speak to this item as well um I agree it's a very important issue uh I do have a motion actually you could put it up uh to replace uh recommendation two uh to really focus on our action plan and not the Ontario action plan from 2019 to 2023 TR action plan confronted black racism um and I do agree this is a very important issue we've all been impacted by it you know I I I'm a black man who grew up in the city I've been stopped by the police many times right I've had my own experience and Trauma as well I know that many young people still experience that today we're all aware of the carding issue um but like I mentioned in my uh questions in that it's not normal practice that we have an intergovernmental body come into this setting especially from the level of government there we have um mechanisms to make that happen at the city I've been part of many of those already as a chair of Board of Health um just recently in the last month and a half I had the um minister of addictions and mental health both provincially and federally here at City Hall with the mayor talking about addiction issues those are the tables that we have those conversations um another difficulty I have with this motion too is that Toronto police have their own board and their own mechanisms to deal for dealing with these issues these are very complex issues it's not these are not new issues um it also to Toronto Community Housing is also mentioned here they have their own board and they have their own procedures when it comes to dealing with these issues as well and I I I feel uncomfortable working outside of their system um in that regard but that being said as well like one of the action the action plan that we have been focused on here at crack is our is our own action plan for the city and I feel that that where we should keep our Focus not the on ter government itself which we have actually no control over so those are my brief comments on on this item um I hope my recommendation for item two will pass but um I mean overall I don't think I could actually support this in the in in the ways presented here those are my comments online um there are two speakers online I can't see I can't see Dr Daniel go ahead and then Queen I believe go ahead good morning everyone and um so thank you so much for presenting this uh this this motion with um and and I'm wondering whether or not to what extent there has been any discussion and and um counc Mo you talked about the um the trauma related to interactions with the police um but to what extent has there been any work that looks at the the impact of racial trauma specifically in relation to um police interactions with um with with black youth and black communities um because you know what what we're we're seeing anecdotally is that there there is an increasing presentation of um suicidal behaviors amongst um black youth and young adults um so I'm wondering to what extent we may also want to extend this discussion to not just look at the legal impacts of um police interactions with black communities but also the mental health toll that it takes um on our communities it's an excellent that's an excellent question Dr Beverly procedure um so I guess you're asking me that question because I have a motion on the floor um and I just spoke to it so you asking me a question on those issues I'm asking both a question and making a comment okay I'll speak to briefly I again this this is a complex issue um I know one one I was at the school board as a trustee we're having conversations at those tables as well because again it does impact our black kids um in the education system and those are conversation that we continue to have not only at the school board but also at the city level as well I don't know specifically the data I don't have the data in front of me so I can't really speak to it it's not my area of expertise I'm going to say that out loud um there are people that work in the city that deals with this on a daily basis including cabre as well and other City departments I mean that's I'm prepared to say on this on this issue I'm going to step out of procedure because procedure is important at these tables and I'm going to have W speak for 30 seconds on this item yeah so I'm just going to pose a question about the amendment you put forward we've all sorry this is the amendment I'm speaking to your motion right give me one second is uh sorry Ali Mo you have your hands up go ahead have a speakers list here thank you hi everybody I just want to make a comment um I'm not as well versed in procedure as I don't work with the city as well but I did want to say that like the confronting antib racism unit is itself very unique so I I really commend will for thinking outside of the box because um sometimes the way that we've always done things may not be the best way to do things moving forward um so speaking I guess or commenting on that motion as well um I'm I'm for I guess extending an invite and seeing what would have they would be willing to come and speak with us because I think that would be very helpful thank you okay thank you anyone else online had their hands up that I missed no okay W go ahead yeah I I I'm going to speak against the amendment uh and I'll speak against the amendment for the following reasons um we're right now in the process of outdating our 10-year action plan uh I think this motion this amendment actually makes the motion that I introduced irrelevant uh because it's just going to be focused on the 10-year action plan that the city has already ready adopted and approved the purpose of this motion is to inform the process to update the next reiteration of the 10-year action plan um so I think uh extending an invitation to the inter Human Rights Commission to be appreciate what the recommendations are and what they mean uh and how it could be incorporated in our 10year action plan uh is Moor main um I think that starting off our conversation with Toronto police services to see how those recommendations have been implemented and later on extending that invitation to Toronto Community Housing uh and and then hopefully other City divisions uh is also gerain because we have to have a better understanding and appreciation of what recommendations are being implemented and which ones are not and whether they resource implications associated with those recommendations as well that we need to consider so I want to encourage members of the committee to uh not support the amendment uh so that we do pass this motion and extend the invitation to the uh uh ontar Human Rights Commission to gain a better understanding as well as uh other city of Divisions to see the progress of the imple implementation of those recommendations thank you I think as I've mentioned the plan will be completed in November of this year so just so you know uh go ahead uh thank so much chair um my hand has been up for quite a while I think you are not my apologies that's fine um so in line with's motion I find it really very important and um I'm just wondering it's 5 Years From 2019 2023 on Toronto action plan for confronting at black racism in line with his motion do we have some uh impact assessment report for the 5 years of this Toronto action plan for confronting an black racism which can show us which recommendations have been implemented and those have not been implemented and why so that um even these boards you're talking about they have leadership why don't we work uh with them to make sure that some of these recommendations are implemented across you know the city want to speak to the Kim uh through the chair thank you I just want to clarify you're looking to understand what the impacts of the current 5-year plan uh was in a summary form uh so there will be some information in our final reporting on that but we also have had annual reports where we have documented what the the impacts have been um so there will be some information in in the new plan as presented um in sorry not in the plan specifically but in our next report but we have been tracking the success of the report through each annual um report to city council just to follow up a question is this accessible to the public it is it's online all of our reports are online okay do you want to speak to the final report coming out in November uh yes absolutely uh so um so as as I shared earlier the town hall will feature our draft recommendations and then from whatever comes out of those the town hall discussions the actual uh report will be going to um to committee on I believe the date is end of November beginning of December I can't remember the exact date so that time um city council or committee will be taking a look at it so this particular um report going to committee will be within days of the next kabra meeting so there wouldn't be time for uh this presentation to inform the final report going to committee okay okay good have more questions uh may go ahead and then Shannon hi everyone um I just wanted to uh make a comment uh to also agree with w and I believe cimo said something um that was similar um in terms of you know doing things in a certain way and following certain procedures um this is called the confronting anti-black racism unit so I think we need to be very um we need to live in that name and confront anti-black racism where exists and sometimes things are done a certain way and have been done a certain way but um I understand certain procedures and working and liasing and um facilitating certain things unheard of but there was a time where work like this was also unheard of so I don't think that we should um shy away from you know taking this next step uh because there is a lot of a lot of important data and information and stories that need to be shared so um yeah just wanted to make that comment okay you shanon go ahead thank you my question was just uh if we could share on the screen again the amendment put forward by so we just have a minute to digest it in light of W's request to the member first okay we'll do that we can do that when uh we're about to vote um Kathy did you already spoke while thank you for recognizing me um I'm actually would like to have some clarity um because it's I I'm hearing to sort of nuances within this conversation and I'm not sure whether this is an issue about proc procedures I mean it does involve procedures about who's invited to speak um however are we is it really an uh is the question really about whether or not information that is found in these reports is not currently included and and somehow we are seeking ways to um get that information into our report and and our recommendations as part of K Cabra and if so are there not mechanism to actually do that so I actually need a little more clarity about what it is that we're really just uh trying to sort out here sorry uh Dr masu so you're can you just ask your question again I apologize I'm hearing a debate here yes in regard to whether or not uh the Human Rights Commission should be invited to to speak and to you know talk and and speak to the reports that they have authored and so is this really the question um or is really or the question is really about whether or not we are going to um um acknowledge the report that is um has been prepared and address the issue the recommendations were raised Within in our report so it's what I'm hearing doesn't it sounds like I I excuse me I'm just asking for some clarity about is it really about who comes to speak to our committee or whether or not the content of the report is actually um considered in what Cabra is putting together and and I see I see those as different solutions oh okay so just to just to clarify um cuz I think there's an interchanging of the confronting anti-black racism advisory committee versus the confronting anti-black racism unit and so what I'm hearing is and um while they feel free to to correct me that there is a desire to hear from the Ontario Human Rights Commission in that any recommendations that they would bring would be able to inform future work of the confronting anti-black racism unit um and so uh so that it's the what's W is putting forward is one will inform the other so I hope that clarifies for you I can't speak to what w is is saying but that's what I imagine is um we can receive what the Ontario Human Rights Commission is putting forward but also how that information is used is what I assume while it is offering and the information is also public as well so I know some members have read it cabre members have read it we've all read it so uh Wally go ahead yeah thank you so much uh um so just to answer Kathy's question uh thank you so much for articulating it really well um we have a mandate as an advisory committee and our our mandate is not just to make sure that the 10-year action plan is uh you know implemented but also to provide advice to council and the mayor's office and there's a lot of things that need to be unpacked from the en human rights sorry inter human rights commission's report uh specifically um the report that's focused on uh the data that was collected from Toronto police services uh that introduces uh new challenges that we were not aware of uh that were not considered in the previous iteration of the 10-year action plan so this I think is just a way for us to do our due diligence as an advisory committee to consider all aspects to have a better understanding from the inter Rights Commission so that we can inform on the next iteration of the 10-year action plan the motion that's been put forward by the chair as an amendment takes away the entire Human Rights Commission um out alt together it just focused on the previous duration of the 10-year action plan and I think that basically is defeating the motion right like if if this amendment passes it will be mute it will basically say we're going to go back to the process as is we're not inviting the inter Human Rights Commission so that's why I'm encouraging all members of the advisory committee to reject the amendment for us to pass this motion for us to extend an invitation to the entire humans right commission for us to gain that understanding so that we can inform the next R duration of 10-year action plan and not put forward uh a plan that is you know devoid of of that knowledge devoid of those experiences that will actually make it much more effective got a question K go ahead sorry so w are you suggesting that the that there is information that could be provided that um is not read that is not currently within the report and and and is is is that what uh so the question is is where where is information gathered from so are so you suggesting that the information that they report is perhaps might be incomplete and that additional knowledge could be learned by the invitation yes well the the first invitation is already there I don't think there's amendment to to not invite the second part of the motion that's critically important is making sure that we have that conversation with the city division heads specifically talk about the chief of police for Toronto police services uh whoever is the represented for Toronto Community Housing TI better appreciate have they read the report are they acting on those recommendations because these recommendations are going to all municipalities across the province of Ontario but this specific recommendation uh uh that are highlighted in this report focus on data collected from Toronto police services which is you know we're the largest city uh you know and I think that data is so important uh for us to better appreciate so to answer your question directly yes we will gain uh a better Insight of what those recommendations uh are but most importantly the status of where we're at when it comes to implementing those recommendations because if there are resource implications to implementing those recommendations we have an obligation as an advisory committee to let city council and the mayor's office no that we would like uh for those specific pieces to be resourced uh so that we come up with better tangible results when it comes to the imple implementation of those recommendations I hope I answer your question okay go ahead Lucina very quickly so thank you w I think I I think I want to again stress and emphasize that the Human Rights Commission led the independent investigation of a body like the TPS to bring accountability to that body to do better right and so I think what I'm worried about and what I'm hearing is that I'm afraid that process is going to get in the way of our role as members to bring accountability also simultaneously to those bodies which is why I also take issue with shifting some of the discourse to the confronting anti-black racism action plan um because I do think that as members we have a responsibility to put the pressure on and to say what is the TPS doing um and sure that can be contextualized within the broader City agencies and the different actions that are named within our internal plan at the city but I understand that the TPS has their own governing body their own accountability bodies but how are we bringing them to account we have a responsibility to do that as members and I think that this motion is innovative in that way and that we're questioning how we're doing process and that we should be reaching out to get the answers that we need and I do want to raise that in March 2024 just by doing you know a cursory Google search it sounds like the Ontario Human Rights Commission had a deputation to the TPS on the implementation of the recommendations and the Toronto Police Service Board responded that half of the recommendations required clarification so to speak to what sounds like an evasion of the implementation of the recommendations and so I think it's very timely given that this was just in March of 2024 to say it like it is and to act on this and I think it's very timely and I think it's it's bold and I think that we need to consider that um as a whole thanks okay thank you and um just my closing remarks in that as Kimba has mentioned our anti-black racism uh report is coming to committee and Council in November and also to um as an advisory committee we can invite the members or the divisions or the boards that is listed here but we cannot force them to come they're not obligated to come so you could ask but that's all you can do and based on my experience with those organiz ation I'm not sure they would okay go ahead we do have a large long agenda thank you so much I'm just going to use uh one minute um I think this committee uh should be reaching out to other organizations um doing a lot of work in an black racism and uh one of them is the human rights Comm committee and also the black action class um they've done a lot of work Nicholas maras I hope and it's my prayer that the report coming up in November um we have views also uh collected with an interaction from these other uh players like the um human rights uh commission but also the black action class which because they've been at the Forefront of also trying to dig out some of the um injustices happening also in public service I've been following up the reports so um I think our role as an advisory committee is also to include the views of those people uh who are out there in the community doing similar work of um fighting and black racism and my prayer is that um the report in November will have views also captured from uh these um uh players okay thank you I'm seeing no other speakers this item we will put up my Amendment we'll vote on that first okay all those in favor of this amendment I can't see those online all those opposed okay that's doesn't carry and on the amendment on the item all those in favor actually should get recorded for so Clarity did it pass or failed it failed okay and on the original item all those in favor opposed and that carries so that will go to ecdc and the councils and that committee will decide what happens to it I also see on that committee um back to item number one I believe we're trying to get uh who was the speaker Rosemary Rosemary you want to speak to this item item number one can you hear me now yes we can thank you for your patience oh well I I don't have much to add because I already had put it in the chat and and I guess what I just wanted to stress is that um part of the the problem with the concept of education is that we tend to think of it only in terms of formal education in the province we all know that but there's education that is beyond that and we don't give enough credit or support to what takes place in community educational settings with youth organizations with things that are happening in community centers and with people who have organizations that are trying to um help make people aware of certain things so um I just wondered if if the focus instead of being overly concerned about formal education if we could look at education as a broader social construct maybe that would be easier to have had it included as part of the consideration that's it thank you rary okay I see no further um speaker this item all those in favor of receive re seat the one's voting on this all those in favor opposed carried thank you now to item number [Applause] three uh CR 4.3 data for equity Debbie Burke Bean director of equity and human rights sji Rahman manager equity and data equity and data for Equity unit Jamal dech researcher wellsy Institute and fer waru researcher black Health Alliance are here to give a a presentation and if I mispronounce your name please correct me my apologies good morning good morning everyone my name is Debbie Burke Ben my pronouns are she and her I am the director of equity and human rights at the city of Toronto um and to my left is my colleague swon Ramen she is the manager of the equity and data for Equity unit and Jamal de from Welsley and fer Wu from the black Health Alliance we are really happy to be I can't get any closer I'm too short is that where you're trying to tell me kba is it pull no you don't want me to destroy city equipment um we're really happy to be here to present the data for Equity strategy to the confronting anti-black racist committee it is a very exciting strategy that the city of Toronto adopted um today we're going to provide you with an overview of the strategy so that you're aware of it and talk to you particularly about the black data governance elements we do plan to come back with more information but for today it will be an information item and for you to ask us any questions and provide your guidance along the way with that said I'm going to turn over to my colleague sujon to take you through the presentation hi everyone good morning um are you able to hear me clearly thank you um it's an honor to be here this morning and to see all of you thank you so much for having us um so as Debbie mentioned we'll I'll start with a brief overview of what even data for Equity means so data for Equity is the use of disaggregated data that is broken down by social demographic data so those are things like race indigenous identity gender identities and even Geographic neighborhood identities um that can help us to identify inequities within the system and create uh programs policies that are responsive to those disparities that exist based on the information provided by the data um and the data for Equity strategy which um is the approach to social demographic data collection for the city of Toronto was approved by City Council in November 2020 and so today we are here uh to share a little bit about the work and how it came to be uh what are the key objectives of the work um what are the key components of the work as well as a focus on black data governance as well and the work to date around that next slide please thank you um so how did the data for Equity strategy come to be it was really situated with the understanding of the context so the context is um It is Well recognized that First Nations init May te folks black communities and Equity deserving communities face systemic discrimination and barriers that um impact their access to Opportunities and outcomes and and eventually their life trajectory cies as well and I was listening to the conversation that you were having earlier and it speaks just to some of those barriers here um and so based on that recognition there was a need for an approach that can enable and further amplify that further amplify those experiences and build that understanding for the city of Toronto to identify and address those barriers and understand where those barriers exist and what can be done to respond to them um and the response to that was to create the data for Equity strategy which enables the city to collect and use consistent and highquality data so there is a guideline that it accompanies it it is publicly available which includes the components in terms of um and the considerations to collect that consistent and high quality disaggregated data and uh build an understanding as well of the unique experiences of communities uh with systems but also with data itself because we know that data has had historic and ongoing impacts which has been harmful to certain communities um particularly indigenous and black communities and so it really is to uh the equity part here comes in to really recognize that data in itself also needs to embed whether it's in the process of collection analysis have that Equity lens and Equity approach and how that is being applied and used next slide please so the main objectives of the data for Equity strategy is to collect so collecting consistent highquality comparable social demographic data from tronto residents and service users it also focuses on supporting divisions to be able to analyze that data data so uh a lot of times what we like to say is that analysis is critical because you see a data but how are you analyzing it are you understanding the root cause barriers are you are you understanding ways in which to not put the onus on communities but recognizing what are the systems at play that are creating the conditions so it focuses on analysis and lastly leveraging we know that there's population level data sensus data there's a lot of data that are already available so how can the city continue to align and leverage those existing data to inform and tell that full data story and to understand that full picture of uh the experiences of groups and communities um this is a complex work as you can uh imagine and it is um and it would not have been possible Without Partners and the buyin of folks with critical like expertise and knowledge uh across different components of this process and so we wanted to acknowledge our partners who we have been working with uh to advance the data for Equity work and that includes folks and clerks um with uh knowledge on Privacy Information uh we also work with folks and tech services to understand the digital component obviously there's a tech component to like housing data digital infrastructure um people in equity that's Debbie and myself and then we also work with folks in Social research um who have at the existing data population level data the stuff that I mentioned how we can leverage that and lastly the divisions themselves we continue to work with our partners to really understand their experiences and help support them and build their capacity through things like training and advisory support in terms of supporting them to collect analyze and apply the socio demographic data so these are the key Partners in that ecosystem within which we're functioning um so there the main function of the data for Equity team which is our team um is to create the enabling conditions to really support divisions to um use collect apply so soci demographic data by and follow the data for Equity guidelines and strategies so we provide advice we provide trainings uh we provide support uh but also I wanted to distinctly mention that we also have as a part of the data for Equity guidelines this is within the guideline themselves um the need to create a First Nations init mate data governance framework and a black data governance framework and this goes back to what I was speaking to earlier is that recognition that data has been historically and continued to be used to harm indigenous and black communities um and so the in First Nations init mate data governance framework really is built on that recognition and looks to consider and address the principles of indigenous data governance the methods of Engagement how relationships can be built how trust can be restored and really looking to community for their expertise um and leadership in terms of how indigenous data can be used and collected in a way that advances uh and benefits First Nations in mate people um on the black data governance um my colleague here Jamal will speak a little bit more in detail about it but at a high level it is again the acknowledgement of the distinct experience history and experience uh and um the impacts uh on black communities uh with data and it applies um an anti-black racism analysis lens which is also embedded within the confronting anti-black racism plan to really understand that experience and once again seek to community for their leadership for their expertise for their lived experiences to inform this framework this process this principle and it's rooted in engagement with communities and looks to sharing data collaborating and engaging with black communities to ensure that the data supports uh positive Community outcomes um and with that I will pass it over to Jamal to walk us through a little bit more on the black data governance and ficker hello fer no problem um I hope you can hear me well my name is ficker worku I'm at the black Health Alliance and this is Jamal Dem at Walley and we're here to tell you kind of how we fit into all of this so uh as an overview we can't talk about data um without talking about Community Trust uh Community Trust is a important issue that uh is affecting big data in Canada because without Community Trust people are going to be unwilling to share their data and without that we get an insufficient data sample and we are unable to make decisions out out of that data um however these this mist trust is not unfounded right um there have been experiences of black communities um where data has been extracted and it hasn't been used for Community benefit data has been poorly analyzed and also leads to community harm um and there's also concerns of monetization of data with no Community benefit so one of the ways that we um we've heard that has tried to rectify this mistrust is the black Health Equity working group has created egap which stands for engagement governance access and protection which is a framework that is a starting point to address um data sovereignity in Black communities so they have control over their Collective data so the e um engagement uh refers to uh consultation with communities having that genuine connection governance uh refers to the decision- making that Community bodies have um over their data access refers to the right communities have to access their data and then protection um refers to the safeguards that we should put in place so that folks are comfortable sharing their data and also um protecting the the sensitive data that exists so um yeah while we started with EAP and and that's a lot of the work that the black Health Alliance and Wells Le Institute has led on you know across the sector it started off in a conversation on Health Data and so when we uh started you know having conversations with the city of Toronto and we understood that there's a lot more information that the city ofono collects Beyond Health right we're talking about housing community safety and Beyond and so we knew that we would have to think about a slightly different while in alignment with egap we'd have to think about uh the information a bit differently so we have to kind of go back to the drawing board and understand okay how can we devise a strategy for a municipality and so that's what we tried to do in uh building the black community data governance framework um we wanted to build a strategy that says okay if we collect race based data how can we actually use it to deliver positive change one but then also addressing some of what fer mentioned around the mistrust part because we understand in order to use this state again we want people to actually provide that information and so uh we were able to start working on that framework through a number of ways we started with a literature review that we conducted we found about you know 71 different sources around the world trying to understand what are the foundations of community data governance what are the examples we see how's this been practiced and implemented and then thinking about you know data is a pretty broad word and data governance just means broadly right the decisions that we make around information and there's lots of decisions to make around information including how are we going to collect that how are we going to analyze that interpret that um where are we going to store that information and that's what the literature review has and that's also um you know publicly available on our website uh we also did an internal scan because we needed to understand okay if this is what's happening Beyond what's happening at the city of Toronto because we need to understand the the foundation um you know with which we're working with and so talking to those different City Visions helped us understand okay where are we starting from right to actually get to where we want to be we also formed a black data advisory Circle which was comprised of different um you know leaders in data governance or Community data governance in different ways so we had people from you know housing Healthcare the data side um of things and then you know Community leaders as well to help a as we're developing the framework in our journey um conceptualized that right and then we also had um these focus groups that we LED um with three different broad categories of people the first one that's listed over there black organizational leaders so this could be you know folks who are um you know black themselves and they're leading an organization that serves black communities um but then also you know any type of organization that black communities often uh uh use and then you know experts from diverse sectors it's even hard to capture that because we had folks from Tech from legal side equity and social justice um you know people from housing people from education it was uh very diverse from their perspectives because again we're trying to understand the city has lots of Divisions that have lots of different purviews let's make sure that's reflected in who we're talking to and then of course foundationally we spoke with black community members of Toronto just um you know the public allowing them to engage with this idea and I think one of the very fruitful benefits of doing these focus groups too is that we were able to demonstrate that people of the public are ready to talk about data and this is an accessible conversation if you make it accessible and so that's what brought us to the end of uh you know this initiative in developing the black community data governance framework so we took all of the different uh you know sources of information that I listed from before right the literature review we had an internal scan um we had the black community uh black uh advisory Circle and then we also had different focus groups and so if I were to just you know at a high level walk through what this framework is or what it's says we have those starting principles over there um demonstrating what was most important to people uh if we were to ask them to have their information firstly data used for Progress people want to ensure that it's not a static piece right that information comes in that there's going to be a flow to it um eventually delivering Community benefit then accountability and transparency people want to be engaged in a part of it and and in the full report you know we delve into a bit of what this means um to folks and then now coming into the three objectives first one uh you know talking about building space for Community governance that's where we want to start uh having those conversations build a community governance table um where we can have that um the access and protections uh conversations from egap that builds a Readiness you know and and start of uh you know trust building with communities and then objective two which just talks broadly about creating that riness internally now with the city's Data Systems and it's uh uh you know the way that it is built the way that uh data uh agreements or documents and materials are devised at the city and shared um and then once you have that Community Trust um and a place for those decision- making and then you have a city that's ready you know an internal environment we come into objective three which is talking about driving Action Moving Forward which comes into lastly those outcomes that are uh listed below building trust with black communities through engagement centering black voices and decision- making on data and data is used for the good of black communities and so so lastly what I'll just note is you'll see the first principle is that data is used for progress and the last outcome is data is used for um the good of black communities and the word use carries along and within them again you can take a look at those different pillars or areas of emphases which just dive into each objective and to what that means but I'm happy to speak on that um at another time so yeah thank you all and that that that is the work that both fer and I have done with Welsley and uh black Health Alliance and it'll bring it back to our city Partners thank you thanks thanks very much um so we're here today to ask some reflective questions of Council of of uh the committee as part of our process of working with community and their reflective questions are on the slide what resonated or interested you about this work do you have any suggestions on how to further strengthen in advance black data governance and data for equity and are there any alignments or lessons learned from presentations that you may have received or worked on in other jurisdictions and areas okay thank you so much for your presentation uh questions for the um panel Lucina and then um Shannon go ahead thank you thanks for the presentation um so I see that the framework was or at least the report itself was developed in 2023 and um scrolling down to the implementation considerations in the report one of the concerns that was noted was like the decentralization of I guess responsibility for this type of work and how there may be fragmented responses to how this framework is applied within the city and so I'm wondering if you could speak to how the uptake of the framework has gone thus far um it's less of a I guess guess some of the reflection questions posted there but in terms of that concern that was initially held around fragmented I guess application of the framework I'm wondering if you could speak to to the uptake sure I thank you so much for the question through the chair many divisions collect data at the city and this guideline was developed to create a consistent approach to collection of data we do get people asking us about the guidelines the guidelines are guidelines and they are applied differently by divisions depending on some of their own legislative Frameworks that they may have to follow from The Province and elsewhere um right now the when Council passed the guidelines originally they basically you know passed guidelines and they said that there were four Pilots that would be applying these guidelines consistently and that we were to learn lessons from those four Pilots everyone else at the city is applying them based on their own desire to apply them so with the we're going forward to Council in Q4 to ask Council to apply to say now the whole city can apply these guidelines within their Frameworks there are a lot of different things that need to be factored in and then we'll be able to determine how consistently people are applying them but right now it's people who are interested in making sure that they're following our guidelines they come and they speak to us thank you so much and were there any Lessons Learned From The Pilot that were worth I guess carrying over sorry there are four main lessons that were learned by the four Pilots one is technology and the need for technology to to support data collection the other the other is around staff resources so just the literacy around data collection making sure staff understand data collection um I I can add to it there was also considerations around change management so as with any large scale um change of this degree there there's been a reinforced need to be flexible in our approach to have a more customized approach depending to depending on which division we're providing advice to trainings um all of that stuff so really rolling this out in addition to supports and resources and up having that change management lens and lastly continuing to build relationships with communities and uh and continuing to work with black and Indigenous communities to uh guide this work based on their expertise their experiences and having that user centered Focus uh there's obviously City processes but not losing sight of the communities that are at the end of this and continuing to build and Foster this relationship and really um working with them through this through this process so those were the four thank you I just want to add to thank you so shy to the um change management there was also acknowledgement that we need Champions we need people who are championing this work thank you Shannon minutes thank you thank you for your presentation I think my question has two parts um one is a response to the reflective questions and one is my own question so as a matter of process curious if I can combine those both uh here yeah uh okay so my my first question I actually was at the race based Summit in May so uh that was a great Summit and a lot of robust conversation um I've heard you speak in this presentation a lot about the process of data collection um and thinking through some of the um risks I'm C ious at the very end of that Summit uh there was like literally at the very end was probably the most interesting part of the the day but there was a lot of conversation around the actual um subgroup status that would be collected like what uh what categories are we actually naming I guess in collection uh I guess you know there's a lot of experimentation going on right now in terms of what type of data is collected so I guess my first question is really around like are you able to share or in the future share with us like what some of those subgroups would look like and I asked that because there was um yeah some really interesting conversation around sort of the difference that um an intake form might have that says like black or of African desent and there was it was just very nuanced and interesting conversation that happened at that Summit so that's my uh first piece and the second piece was just more to your presentation in terms of process um because we already do have a lot of data uh around health and uh Health Equity and it hasn't historically led to any um Major Impact I'm curious how um how this will be presented to build the trust that you articulate as so critical when there is already a lot of um bad even fatal experiences that have come out of the Health Care system from you know black patients um and and how is that going to be addressed in the fact that uh there is currently a lot of data that's just not being used so I I'll start and then I'll let Jamal talk about the summit uh we in the data for Equity guidelines that Council adopted we do have the categories of black we have a category of black and it has an example of African African Canadian and afro Caribbean and those those are the core that is a core uh data element that we're asking people to collect and we're the importance for us is that people do not divert from our guideline core guiding elements because that's part of our challenge that if I'll use youth because it's a simple one youth is collected from 12 to 29 by some divisions and by others 12 to 35 and because of that inconsistency we can't actually do like some comparative analysis um and uh to answer your question we um are very committed to community involvement in the way that the data is analyzed because I think that some of our challenges are that it's who's doing the analysis of the data who like are we looking at root cause analysis as opposed to doing an analysis that maybe addresses a Band-Aid so that's why we engaged Wellsley and and um the black Health Alliance because they have been very instrumental in knowing that Community needs to be involved and then I don't know what happened at the summit I didn't stay for the entire day um yeah no I'm glad you know you're able to find benefit from this the summit and just to contextualize that in case people are just not aware um Welsley Institute hosted a national Summit bringing together a bunch of leaders across the country who are collecting and using race based data to try and you know uh create some type of network so that we're all on the same page um but yes I'm thinking about again the the way that questions are asked I think one of the learnings that came from there is that it entirely depends on the context of where you are living in and that's one of things if I give an example of those from Nova Scotia who had to build a separate C category for you know um African Nova scotians because that is you know very important community over there so I think it's just very important for the city of Toronto to assess what's most important with the black communities here and then move um from there um maybe you wanted to add something to the um yeah to add to your second question um I think a large part of what is beneficial is that we are focusing on governance um we're we're not just focusing on creating the data and analyzing the data but also who has access to the data um how are we being transparent and how are we how are we able to report back in a meaningful way and I think the other piece um that is within the framework is we do talk about the whole point of generating this data is to create change um and so that's another piece that we um are very clear on So yeah thank you for your question go ahead follow uh just you mentioned um that you'll have a like part of the process will be around looking at the city of Toronto and what resonates here because exactly as you referenced I was thinking about the Nova Scotia example so will there be Community consultations or how will that roll out in order to determine that at the moment we are not changing the categories that came forward in the 202 report that doesn't mean that we couldn't in the future but initially we just really want a consistent data set and um having people not create new categories thanks okay thank you Wally then and then then Kathy go ahead five minutes I hope you can hear me uh thank you so much for your presentation uh I'm a big fan of data uh I'll be honest with you uh I feel like if we made decisions that are evidence-based the world would be a better place uh and I'm very involved in the evaluations and Benchmark Committee of the region Park Social Development plan um and um also with the access to Recreation group um so I just want to from your own slide reference this important context which is uh black and Equity deserving groups face systemic discrimination barriers that impact their access to opportunity unities and outcomes and and when we're working with Parks and Recreation right uh one of the things that we've been asking for uh as a group and by the way this are led by uh women in our community mothers folks who are trying to Advocate to ensure that their kids have access to Opportunities uh whether it's employment opportunities within parks and recck but also access to free swimming lessons you know um one of the things that we're asking for is um to collect race aggregated race based data on the usage right uh so what I was hoping you could comment on is um how many city services are you aware of that collect this type of data uh who's getting in the way who's like pushing back against the collection of that data so that's the one response that I like uh the second thing that I want to quickly uh talk about is um I was going through your presentation last night and um I have uh some suggestions to make you you POS a very good question I think it was your second question in the slide deck um and so I think to further strengthen Advance black data governance and data for Equity here are some suggestions that I want you to think about one community-led data collection right how do we encourage more community-led data collection processes to ensure data accurately reflects community experiences and needs so that's the first recommendation I'm going to make and I can email you all of this stuff by the way after this you don't have to write it down capacity building uh inves in training and resources for black communities to develop their data management and Analysis skills prom promoting data sovereignty okay so how do we build capacity in our communities thirdly trust and transparency which is a theme you mentioned this earlier right trust um so how do we build trust through transparency about data use ensuring that data collected serves the community's interests okay uh the next one is policy advocacy so how do you advocate for policies that protect data privacy and prevent misuse particularly in the monetization of community data which I'm concerned about right uh lastly is collaboration fostering Partnerships with organizations that have successfully implemented similar Frameworks to share best practices and Lessons Learned so how do we bring that educational component back uh so that we understand what works and what doesn't and how can we uh enhance it so I would like for you to maybe respond to my first set of questions if you can uh and I'll quickly reiterate it is uh do we have a universal approach uh when it comes to collecting a aggregated race based data uh it is are you aware of which city divisions which uh um you know which programs do so so we could have a better understanding of what the gaps are thank you so much and I hope I didn't miss anyone just if maybe you could just quickly introduce yourselves because I think I missed one of your names I don't want to remember it thank you um just yeah as a reminder my name is Jamal DEA from the Welsley Institute I'm fer worku from black Health Alliance I'm sjon uh manager of the equity and data for Equity team Debbie Burk Ben Equity director at the city of Toronto amazing thank you great questions and thank you for your feedback um through the chair very um we've heard a lot of that and it's great to hear it again uh we know that City divisions collect data they do it in different ways and they analy the data differently so do I know if there's divisions that are pushing back no I do know that part of our challenge will be that people are collecting data and that they may be comfortable with their data elements and we're asking for people to consider a consistent data element collections I hope that answers your question could you elaborate what the consistent pieces are we have seven core data elements and um 10 core data elements and seven optional elements that are in the guidelines and so if people I I'm I use youth as the best example because I know that uh some people collect youth at 12 to 29 and some collect at 12 to 35 and then it's hard to compare the data and to to you know life cycle sort of comparisons as well would be helpful yeah it's our data um strategy and guidelines are all publicly shareed that's one thing that Council asked us to do make sure that as we were going through the process and all of our lessons learned as wels ley's report is as well that we share this information because it is the first of its kind in Canada the data for Equity strategy at the at Toronto in Toronto yeah thank you uh May hi think sorry I know Kathy was before you actually sorry no problem Kathy go ahead thank you counselor and thank you may I want to commend this group for the work done to create the egap framework it's amazing I've long advocated for something um like this and it is modeled I think probably off of the oap principles which are a framework which is for data which is collected um by en for indigenous communities so great in picking up on that lesson learned um you know I've been a long advocating for data collection race based data collection knowing all of the the pitfalls is not a reason not to collect it the reason to collect it is is in order to create a a baseline to understand racism I mean we understand that race is a social construct so the only reason to actually collect data race based data is in order to um understand racism and order to think about to to create strategies for for addressing it and so I think that this um that the go that black data governance is a way in order to actually do that and to W's Point yes I a strong advocate of community-based um participar action research as well um I would say that you know it's it's interesting to hear there is some push back you know to actually um collecting race based data for this purpose of equity and challenges in the variability um to your point lenda about um the use of of these Frameworks and so um my question to you is is that um primary research requires ethics right and to what extent are you considering or maybe you've already done this you know getting egap um embedded within the tcps2 um similar to the chapters that are for um for research which is conducted uh with indigenous communities and in that way you don't have to worry about whether or not agency X or agency y wants to do it it actually is required thank you so much for your comments and questions um through the chair ethics absolutely important as we are here in the early State we're further along in going to council around asking Council to allow all of the city to adopt the data for Equity guidelines Welsley and the black Health Alliance are helping us determine the next implementation approach so we will the ethics question is a very good question and it's something that uh we can consider as we think about what are our recommendations around black data governance yeah uh just to add a bit to that no definitely good question and uh actually people who work on ethics boards were actually included in some of the focus groups that we did earlier to try and understand how you know perhaps there may be a way to to to consider their work in the way that the city of Toronto will operate um ultimately you know when it comes to egap but then also this framework specifically one of the most important things is to get an understanding from Community um as to their perspectives that this is the most important way I that definitely resonates with me as an individual but what I would just um say as we're working towards exploring what the implementation approach um may be um I think it's important for us to highlight that and bring that to to you know uh the stakeholders involved and and to community but yeah what I'll just say right now is yes um I like that um but ultimately again the decisions lie in community and I would not want to you know supersede that the steps that we want to take first so thank you for that is what I'll say thank you uh May five minutes hi everyone thank you so much for that presentation um my question is regarding um approaches on how data is being collected specifically for black communities um this is the part where the artist and me jumps out but often times um if you want to know what's going on within a generation or a set of group of people looking at the art that is being produced what's happening in the music um what fashion are people wearing what stories are paintings telling um are there any um organizations or any work being done that's using African centered approaches to collecting data and arts based approaches um because often time there's that kind of Disconnect when it comes to collecting data and as people from the AAP community's oral culture and storytelling and certain things are very familiar and important to us in sharing information and data is just information and storytelling once you reduce it um so are there any is there any work currently being done is using African based or africentric principles and art-based approaches um to capture what's actually going on I know absolutely love that thank you for bringing this perspective I think sometimes when we talk about data we limit ourselves to thinking about you know numbers but data is a bit beyond that and it goes into stories and art and lived experiences as you're saying um what I can speak to is what we've seen in the literature and that's what I'm you know I'm going to be sharing right now uh one primary example of ways that communities have been engaged there's a institution in the States called the urban Institute and they focus a lot on you know Community Building specifically in the context of data and they built this method called Data walks which essentially is this you know format where they bring a bunch of community members together and the way that they build it is ensuring that you know perhaps we'll bring in some youth to uh who uh want to participate who understand you know different languages so that they can walk along with a group as they go on along the walls and people there's a creative element to it where people are able to you know in whatever form that they want draw colors or say what does equity mean to you let's just draw that we don't have to talk about it and those sorts of things it's an analysis that that's what the purpose is so that you can walk through information and in the end curate an experience for community members where they have trust and then also in the end you know be able to have some concrete understanding of what the data shows um there's also a common research method called photoo um which is often used it's not necessarily I would say Afrocentric in the way that it is built but it definitely can be practice in that way where you essentially bring in people and you know they can you ask them a question about perhaps what's going on in their their neighborhood and what they think should be explored and they can take a picture of it and then you know say that this means this to me and they explain a story attached to it so that again you know in context of what this could be is a matter of you know is your community accessible do you think and what places are what opportunities are there to be more accessible and perhaps they can take pictures of that and then explain you know stories of their own lives and share what that means again that is just what the literature has available but it's ultimately up to you know uh community members themselves to I suppose have these options explained to them but then also develop something new because you never understand just because things exist does not mean that is all that should exist right and so I think perspectives like uh uh those that you're sharing right now are incredibly important for us to develop new methods here in the toron in Toronto because black communities of Toronto is so distinct in separately in all the different communities but also how you know uh we all come together so there are you know options out there and I think that that's definitely something to to consider and I'm I'd be curious to see what communities explore as this work develops along the way thank you thank you you already spoke one one round any uh speakers online just unmute yourself because I can't see you right now I was wondering if I can ask a question of the team yeah go ahead uh folks uh thank you so much for uh for your presentation uh my question relates to whether or not um because I know you you've identified um race as one of the key components of your um of the strategy but to what extent are you also looking at um intersectional identities right because we we know that um collapsing race into just one category doesn't give us a a full understanding of the pictures so how does to what extent does your your data include uh gender analysis Does it include um issues that looks at um sexual identities uh because I think that would give us a much more um comprehensive understanding of how uh communities are impacted through through the chair thank you so much for your question that's a great question the the core um data elements do include uh age neighborhood language preference Canadian born or immigrant in time of immigration indigenous identity into Spirit identity race disability gender sexuality household income and household and then optional are ethnicity religion or spiritual affiliation CI cens ship and immigration status housing situation family and household composition education level and employment status so we are very interested in intersectionality and know that that impacts uh as we walk through life okay any further questions no uh anyone else online okay thank you seeing no other you already spoke well procedure important if you you can speak is anyone want to speak to the item you have five minutes to speak to the item okay sounds good we'll do that so you can go ahead and speak to the item thank you thank you councelor Moy so um I think I answered the first two uh pieces of your reflective question so thank you for that um on the third piece um are there any alignments or lessons learned from our experiences uh in in other jurisdictions and areas so I have a couple of um items and I want to share this with the rest of uh the advisory committee as well I I think it's important when we talk about Community involvement that we resource the community to be involved uh you know I'm I'm thinking about honorariums uh to help with the collection of data uh so you know successful initiatives often involve community members in the data collection process itself but also in the analysis so that it can better appreciate you know the whole trust piece that we talked about earlier uh and decision- making processes as well so ensuring that the data accurately reflects the needs and concerns the second thing with regards to data sovereignty um many um many areas have emphasized the importance of data sovereignty where communities have control over their data so ensuring it's used ethically and for their benefit um I would like to have a better sense of what are those best practices to ensure that there is data sovereignty uh and how does it look like uh you know from an intersectional lens as well um transparency and Trust um building transparent data practices that have been key in gaining Community Trust so what which is is what are those uh practices and why is it essential for Effective data governance I I I would love for that to be addressed by you folks uh lastly is cross- sectoral collaboration uh I think this is key um when we collabing with diverse sectors including you know folks not just in government like here at the municipal level you know I earlier talked about intergovernmental cooporation um but also involving Academia involving Folks at tmu UFT York University um how how is that happening and also how is that happening in the non for-profit sector that is that works very closely with communities uh in in meeting those species so how how those conversations taking place um because I think it's a beneficial uh approach in creating comprehensive and inclusive data governance Frameworks right so I love for you folks to come back and help hopefully help us address those gaps uh because I and and if you need any support you know please uh reach out to the you know the clerk's office and we can figure out a way to to work together thank you so much any other speakers to the item online see none thank U thank you um Wally you like to move the item for receipt sure all those in favor oppos carried thank you thank you thank you so much thank you great job as always item CR 4.4 overview of the social procurement program and policy next team coming up by Hillary Kad director of program support policy and strategy purchasing and materials management see after we uh the presentation we do have one speaker to the item two speakers to the item s uh sure good morning committee uh in the interest of time I can start with introductions while we get our presentation onto the web BS and the screen um my name is Hillary kirad I am the director of program support policy and strategy with the purchasing and materials management division which I'll be referring to as pmmd with me today are Genevie shy the chief procurement officer and Diana Levy the policy development officer and policy lead on the social procurement program um pmmd is the central procurement division for the city of Toronto we procure on behalf of Divisions and provide policies and procedures to guide divisional procurement those of you who don't know who we are it's Diana perfect thank you okay uh so today we'll be providing an overview of the social procurement policy and program sharing some results from from a review of the program and discussing recommended next steps our first objective is to explain how social procurement Works in practice now we'd like to hear about experiences that committee members and their networks have had with doing business with the city in particular we're interested in learning about opportunities to increased spend with blackowned businesses including identifying black business networks and organizations that we should speak with regarding the social procurement program as we plan community and business engagement in 2025 what is social procurement social procurement leverages the city's purchasing power to drive inclusive economic growth through two key components supply chain diversity and Workforce Development supply chain diversity focuses on Contracting and subcontracting to indigenous black and diverse suppliers Workforce Development attempts to increase the number of employment apprenticeship and training opportunities leveraged for people experiencing economic disadvantage particularly those from indigenous black and Equity deserving communities the origin of Toronto Social procurement policy starts in community as as early as 2006 residents began to challenge City staff to use Municipal Capital spend to create youth employment opportunities work then began on connecting youth with jobs on a project by project basis until a corporate team was established to scope the social procurement program for the city this team established a social procurement framework in 2013 which became the current social procurement policy in 2016 in line with Direction in the poverty reduction strategy in 2017 Council adopted the confronting anti-black racism action plan which included an action to Target blackowned businesses and social Enterprises for outreach training and vendor networking as part of the social procurement program in 2019 the social procurement program was recognized as a community benefits initiative under the corporate Community benefits framework in 2021 Council requested that the chief procurement officer review the policy and incorporate a 10% Equity Target in construction procurements valued over $50 million in 2022 the city adopted the reconciliation action plan which included an action to develop decolonized procurement processes this work is now proceeding apart from the social procurement program and policy review and is being led by an indigenous policy development officer dedicated to the indigenous procurement portfolio and the co-development of an indigenous procurement strategy as noted the social procurement program is one of several Community benefits in iives these initiatives are all administered by different divisions and utilize their own policies processes and tools the Social Development finance and administration division oversees the community benefits framework and provides guidance and support on the various approaches pmmd manages the social procurement program how does social procurement work in practice the social procurement policy provides direction to City staff who procure goods and services there are three policy mechanisms that apply to supply chain diversity first staff are required to invite at least one indigenous black or diverse supplier for Invitational procurement opportunities valued between 3,000 and $133,800 pmmd maintains a list of certified indigenous black and diverse suppliers that have expressed an interest in doing business with the city which divisions use to select suppliers to invite the city is currently a member of five supplier certification organizations which are nonprofit profit organizations that certify diverse suppliers in Canada these are listed in appendix one of the presentation the second policy mechanism applies to open competitive procurements valued over $133,800 points are awarded to suppliers that submit proof of diverse supplier certification with their bid additional points are awarded to suppliers with supply chain diversity and employment Equity policies and demonstrated results of those policies the third policy mechanism applies to tide bid in the instance of Tide bids if one supplier is indigenous black or diverse and one is not the award is to the indigenous black or diverse supplier in cases where both suppliers are indigenous blackw diverse the standard method of a coin toss is used to determine the award Workforce Development is the second pillar of the social procurement program as noted earlier there is Council mandated intake of all construction projects valued over $50 million Beyond this all projects valued over $5 million must be reviewed by pmmd to determine if Workforce Development will apply projects are assessed based on their potential to create meaningful employment opportunities and skills development opportunities for people from indigenous black ande Equity deserving communities projects are reviewed based on four principles suitability reach volume and feasibility when a project is selected targets are set based on the solicitation type so for construction projects and any solicitation where award is to the lowest compliance bid targets are set upfront in five activity areas in discussion with the divisional project manager in evaluated solicitations without a construction agreement suppliers are asked to include a Workforce Development plan in their bid that considers the five activity areas and which is assessed during the evaluation process the plan and targets are finalized post Award with the successful supplier the activity areas are non-construction employment which involves customized recruitment approaches for professional administrative and Technical opportunities opportunities for registered apprentices training and work-based learning opportunities subcontracting opportunities for indigenous black and diverse suppliers and other employment related activities such as participation in job fairs in 2021 city council directed the chief procurement officer to conduct a 5-year review of the social procurement policy to identify successes and improvements needed in the policy the review focused on opportunities to maximize impact and consisted of data validation and Analysis of program outputs and achievements a jurisdictional scan of emerging best practice an online public survey of indigenous black and diverse suppliers preliminary community and divisional engagement discussion with suppliers that have Workforce Development contract terms and to feasibility assessment of options to enhance the program's performance from 2017 to 2023 the city's direct spend with certified indigenous black and diverse suppliers through the Invitational procurement process is over $9.6 million in 2023 5.3% of Invitational solicitations processed by divisions and 5.9% processed by pmmd were awarded to indigenous black and diverse suppliers during this same period the city spent just under $400,000 with four certified blackowned businesses which is 4% of the spend with diverse suppliers and I want to note that this number represents only spend under the scope of the social procurement policy it's entirely likely that there is other spend with blackowned businesses but there are challenges with identifying and tracking that spend and that's something that we will be working on um while these statistics are not currently published on the city's website we plan to create a public dashboard next year also from 2017 to 2023 78 projects have included Workforce Development requirements resulting in 100 employment opportunities filled by candidates from indigenous black and Equity deserving communities 194 subcontracting opportunities with over $10.4 million in spend with certified indigenous black and diverse suppliers and 188 other employment related activities such as participation in job fairs in October 2022 pmmd released a social procurement business survey to understand the barriers indigenous black and diverse supplier space when doing business with the city we had 368 respondents 92% of the businesses being small businesses and 78% of respondents had never been awarded a city contract in many ways the survey validated what we've heard through regular training Outreach and supplier meetings the procurement process is complex and can be difficult to understand small businesses in particular face challenges with not only navigating the process but also with certain solicitation requirements for example requirements are a number of years previous experience in addition the requirement in the social procurement policy for suppliers to obtain certification excludes some businesses from registering on the social procurement supplier list opportunities for the city to better support indigenous black and diverse suppliers particularly small business include more training in different formats for example workshops on how to write and submit bids better communication was also a key recommendation including dedicated staff for outreach and system navigation and an easier to navigate website staf also talked with the community benefits Advisory Group convened by sdfa with key City divisions and with suppliers who have Workforce Development in their contracts these conversations solidified what we had found through the rest of the review process the social procurement policy and how it fits within the procurement process is not well understood in particular questions were raised around how the Invitational procurement process works and how hard targets are set for Workforce Development in discussions around barriers both internal and external factors were identified that limit program success there were concerns around the size and breadth of the social procurement supplier list in addition labor shortages in specific job categories were identified as a potential challenge to achieve employment outcomes enhanced collaboration is needed relating to both supply chain diversity and Workforce Development this includes continuing discussions with indigenous black and diverse suppliers job Seekers from indigenous black and Equity deserving communities community organizations and labor trades unions so what's next overall the review demonstrated program achievements that are low in terms of volume and value of contracts awarded to indigenous black and diverse suppliers and successful employment outcomes we'll be recommending a series of next steps at executive committee on December 10th 2024 the most important recommendation will be more divisional business and Community engagement through 2025 the engagement is intended to inform a second phase of recommendations and a report to Council in 2026 implementation of second phase program enhancements will proceed in 2027 following which we'll be able to move to a regular 5-year evaluation cycle this road map slide is focused on reporting to city council administrative and procedural improvements with which the chief procurement officer has the authority to make will proceed throughout our first priority is continuing engagement to do this an advisory committee with represent presentation from community and business will be formed next year Community engagement sessions will also be planned in discussion with that advisory committee in advance of Engagement in 2025 we know that there are program enhancements that can be made under the chief procurement officer Authority in particular to address challenges with Workforce Development in the short term we're proceeding with updating solicitation templates to clarify requirements particularly around Target setting I'll speak to the proposed policy enhancements on the following two slides the most consistent feedback we heard from the business survey was that the city's Reliance on certification is creating barriers for many suppliers cost is a significant barrier but not the only one we recommend expanding the current certification process to include organizations associations and Chambers of Commerce that represent indigenous and black black and diverse suppliers Community Based organizations have a relationship with the communities that they represent and they know their members best this will allow us to meet suppliers within their current networks rather than asking them to incur a cost to become part of a new organization the city will still recognize the current certification organizations and the indigenous black and diverse suppliers currently registered with the city making this change is critical for staff to fulfill the 2021 Council directive to achieve an annual 10% increase in the number of suppliers on the social procurement supplier list and for 7.5% of those suppliers to be blackowned businesses we cannot meet this Target under the current policy the advisory committee will consider additional questions around business ownership definitions and alternative approaches for the city to expand the list of black and diverse suppliers as they relate to indigenous businesses these questions will be addressed at a separate advisory Circle for the co-development of an indigenous procurement strategy and finally the current definition of social Enterprise in the social procurement policy is based on the social procurement landscape in Toronto in 201 16 and it's similar to what's now considered an employment social Enterprise staff conducted a jurisdictional and literature review to explore various business models aimed at creating social impact including social Enterprises based on This research and discussions with Community organizations we recommend adopting the definition of social Enterprise used by biso Canada and recognizing biso Canada certified social Enterprises this definition encompasses employment social Enterprises but is broader and includes businesses that embed a social cultural or environmental purpose into the business and reinvest 51% of or more of profits into a social cultural or environmental Mission as with the previous recommendation we would want to keep the process open to other organizations and associations representing social Enterprises in addition as part of Engagement in 2025 and ongoing review staff will consider other social business models such as employee owned or worker Collective models thank thank you for your attention we would be happy to answer any questions and we very much appreciate hearing your feedback thank you that end of your presentation okay thank you I said no no no no I was very clear for everybody 15 minutes um yes any questions for for our members here panelist no questions uh Wally go ahead yeah are we hearing from the deput first before we ask yes that's correct thank you you're welcome thank you for that I appreciate that um kumsa Baker from Toronto Community benefits Network are you here a step on ahead you have five minutes you go ahead awesome uh good morning uh good afternoon uh committee my name is uh Kuma Baker I'm the director of community engagement at the Toronto Community benefits network uh and uh we're pleased to depute here today about uh the city's uh advancement of the social procurement program um the TC TBN is a community labor Coalition with over 100 member organizations uh from Community labor and social Enterprise um ensuring commitments to social procurement and supply chain diversity through Community benefit agreements and Community benefit Frameworks uh as part of public sector purchasing like the city of Toronto procurement infrastructure uh large scale Housing Development is one of the the five key areas of focus that we have as organization uh since our Inception in 2014 uh the TC band has advocated for the city to develop a social procurement policy and we welcome the launch of this program in 2016 uh since then we have been uh really focusing on ensuring its implementation to really ensure that black indigenous and diverse uh people but also suppliers and businesses are well represented um in the jobs and opportunities enabled through the city's uh city of Toronto's billions of dollars so we recognize the city spends billions of dollars every year in procurement purchasing and we really want to understand better how uh black indigenous and diverse communities are adequately represented in these opportunities and that create economic Prosperity uh for people in the city of Toronto uh while we recognize that some progress has been made uh you know through the work at the city of Toronto we also recognize that there are numerous barriers to participate uh that contined to exist for black indigenous and diverse businesses and social Enterprises uh some of which have been highlighted in the presentation today uh we feel that more emphasis needs to be placed on community involvement not only in terms of advisory but really at the project level um we also want to make sure that there's more tracking reporting and also ensuring compliance uh amongst uh the companies that the city of Toronto chooses to do business with uh so in in terms of community involvement uh we like the recommendation to set up an advisory body we think that's a great uh step to really bring those businesses and Community organizations and stakeholders to the table uh to really identify what's needed to make sure that this program is actually successful and and reaches its intended purpose however um you know some of the challenges that we continue to face like I mentioned is at the project level uh so the city has some really large uh infrastructure projects you know a good example is the tobaco Civic Center you know which is you know millions and millions of dollars of spending uh that the city is making towards this new public uh asset and amenity for the toico community however um there isn't there's very little transparency and Community involvement in you know what are the benefits what are the opportunities what are the Workforce Development Pathways uh that we can work with our organizations and uh Partners to ensure that um especially uh those who are underrepresented whether it's in construction uh or other types of jobs or if there are procurement opportunities how do we actually make sure that uh those outcomes are successful at the project level and so one of the things that we've recommended is that we want to have a working group right that can bring together the developer who's building this project the city staff uh the community to really identify what are those job opportunities what are those procurement opportunities how can we really make sure that those targets that are being included in the contract are met how do we make sure that there's quarterly reports so one of the things that we want to see is really at the project level you know what are the the outcomes on on annual basis uh right now from what we've heard is that you know the city's reporting at a at a very high level which doesn't really allow us to understand what are the impacts to the community really at the local level at the project level we know these type of uh processes have been established on large scale projects like the casino Woodbine Community benefits agreement uh in region park with the community benefits agreement for phases four and five there's a community benefits oversight working group that brings together res residents Community organizations stakeholders from within the local community to work with the developer and the city and tchc and tridel to implement and oversee the implementation of these uh commitments so that would be something that we would really want to see going forward for especially some of the larger projects how we can have that uh uh be achieved uh we also recognize the importance of black business participation in in City procurement uh the 7.5% commitment in 2021 we didn't get a response today in terms of how this cities achieving that 7.5% increase in black business participation but we like some of the steps that are being taken uh we also are uh you know really focus on tracking reporting so really the the update of the previous item around data for Equity uh we think that's really essential and and how we can bring those Frameworks to the work that the city is doing around procurement and black business participation I think are really critical uh but overall uh we like the direction that this work is heading however we need to see more emphasis on really making sure that especially for black businesses uh that there's uh Pathways and opportunities and outcomes so really focusing on tracking monitoring outcomes across the city of Toronto so that we have this data to understand what is a baseline but also setting targets of where we want to go in future years it is coming up to 10 years of this policy and we really want to see some outcomes really move forward uh so thank you for your time today and uh for hearing my presentation and happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you uh any questions for the deput well go ahead thank you Mr Barker thank you for your eloquent deputation um I was hoping you could provide advice um to the advisory committee um on the best practices um focusing on uh the role of a an oversight committee uh the second part of my question relates to how do we engage communities uh you know what do you recommend and specifically I'm thinking about neighborhood associations whether it's fastra or Fanta which is you know sort of an alignment of various neighborhood associations across the city of Toronto uh but also how do we approach uh specific groups that cater to diverse communities across the city of Toronto and what do you think about the role of C for example um how can C play a role uh in supporting uh this work uh so those are my first questions I don't want to overwhelm me with a lot yeah those are really great questions uh I think in terms of like uh Community involvement uh like I mentioned the community benefit oversight working groups uh so really at the project level really making sure that communities are at the table so that they could hold the city and those developers accountable to the commitments that they make cuz a lot of times you know we know that okay we hear that this project has Community benefits or has social procurement but we never get an update in terms of like you know this what the progress is or these are what the outcomes are um so really at the project level having more Community involvement whether it's neighborhood uh associations for the casino wood bind it's been integrated into some of the work around neighborhood Improvement areas and some of the resident tables that come through the uh neighborhood development uh plans that they have for for that for their community and having some of the representation of residents at the table uh Community organizations are very tapped into the local area right so how can Community organizations when there is a a big project happening in a community Community uh how could Community organizations be involved to you know share that information and awareness within you know people that may be looking for jobs or job seekers in communities to understand that hey you know these are the type of skills that this project is looking for when it comes to whether it's construction or non-construction employment opportunities right so really thinking about a really focused local uh strategy there um with cultural businesses I know there is a push to bring in more cultural business organizations with I think is a really great recommendation in this report um because they they know their communities and suppliers that are within their networks as well um so I'm really looking forward to what that work looks like however it can just be part of an advisory body um so as like an advisory body and all of this engagement is happening I think there also needs to be a strategy in terms of um you know how to build more awareness and do more proactive Outreach uh you know I heard about doing training sessions and like hosting events for businesses to understand how to bid with the city so I think those are the type of activities and education that are proactive that need to start now we can't wait two or 3 years once the advisory bodies are set up and the work is happening to then start to do that work we really need to start now with that uh so in terms of resourcing the team to be able to do that work I think is really critical thinking about Partnerships you're going to hear from Ana from black urbanism too uh after me uh who's doing like some really great work with black businesses especially in little Jamaica but across the city you know how could those type of Partnerships be created um you know so that you know businesses are informed about you know the city spends billions of dollars a year there are tons of different opportunities and you know different sectors that you know they could tap into however I think that the knowledge is not there the education is not there there's still a lot of barriers in accessing procurement um another big challenge is that the social procurement policy sets is sits aside from the procurement policy so we could have the best social procurement policy but if it's not embedded in the actual procurement policy we're going to continue to face a lot of these barriers and challenges uh so I would say like those are probably some of the recommendations of like you know really taking action actionable steps now to really um ensure that some of the barriers that currently exist are uh eliminated and that you know we can actually see the social procurement policy actually be embedded in in how the city does business rather than sort of seeing this as two separate uh pieces excellent excellent excellent uh response uh quick followup um we have major developments happening across the onario line um and when we talking about social recruitment I'm thinking about the role of metr links and infrastructure Ontario um could you elaborate uh because you highlighted a very important point which is you know uh social procurment and the procurment P process needs to be one right they needs to you know it can be two separate things 10 seconds could you elaborate on how we could work with provincial agencies to to to expand our social procurement policy to have a better impact in in those projects yeah that like um yeah it's always a challenge AC cross procurement this like the similar challenges are being faced that provincially and also federally with their own procurement plans and uh but I think there is a big push right now to revise these procurement policies to uh be more reflective and open especially for smaller mediumsized businesses where we know that they're like the the biggest challenges and gaps uh I would say like you know with the work the city is doing to create social procurement list I think making it publicly accessible because a lot of times what we hear is contractors don't know what the bu where these business are or who these businesses are so if there are like supplier lists being developed you know how could that be shared with other entities like metr links you know so that when they're doing their procurement that they have those readily available list of social Enterprises of diverse own businesses within the communities in which they're working in and so you know maybe that could be a way of the city kind of you know uh working closely in partnersh ship with these big infrastructure projects to make sure that they understand that these are the available businesses uh and also making those connections to those businesses whether it's around procure hosting procurement events or uh fears or things like business Expose and things like that but I think the city could play a role in kind of cultivating that type of ecosystem for other you know infrastructure projects from other levels of government to Al also tap into some of that infrastructure thank you no problem please try to respect ECT the time right um any other questions seeing none thank you Ana mark from black urbanist to are you here yes hi hi you have five minutes go ahead Queen uh sorry Queen you had a question go ahead um it was more a comment so that's why I put my hand back down um yeah I'll I'll come back around for when we can make comments okay sure thank you go ahead can can hi sorry this is clearly my first subcommittee meeting so just bear with me a little um my name is Ana I am the director of communications for black urbanism to we are a nonprofit organization founded in 2018 with mandate to increase the participation of black people in Community Development processes that Advance our social cultural and economic interests in the neighborhoods we call home I want to thank kumsa and the entire Toronto Community benefits team for the work they've done in the sector and Echo all the points made in their deputation we are honored to join them in this advocacy on the city's social procurement policy Bud's major Focus has been in Toronto's oldest continuous black Enclave little Jamaica where Redevelopment threatens the cultural Integrity of our neighborhood little Jamaica has one of the city's most resilient black business corridors with some business owners having held their brick and mortar storefronts for over 40 years a part of our work has been to elevate their stories and come up with innovative solutions to combat their displacement this is why in 2022 we incorporated the little Jamaica Community Land Trust one of the four pillars of the ljt is to reduce the barriers to property ownership by acquiring mixed used properties and selling them back to Legacy business owners in little Jamaica below Market rates by expanding their networks their Workforce capacity and ensuring accessible Avenues to rever generating activities like social procurement we know that business owners will be better equipped to participate in community wealth building models like a Community Land Trust we had the pleasure to release a policy report alongside the University of Toronto School of cities titled waving Supplier Diversity certification for minority owned business enterprises our goal with this report was to Spotlight the social procurement program as an exciting vehicle for marginalized business growth but that certification requirements imposed by the city were creating barriers it was great to hear that one of the policy enhancements is to expand social procurement Beyond supplier certification that there was a community engagement or that there was Community engagement done with diverse suppliers in 2022 and that an advis committee will be developed in 2025 as these are all steps towards our Collective goal of increasing marginalized suppliers and speak to the recommendations made in our policy report while Buddha supports that there will be a discussion around reducing costs and administration for IND indous black and diverse suppliers we would like to see the advisory committee or the social procurement program in general explore options that create an entirely fee-free certification process for minority owned businesses removing the fees is a critical first step in creating a social procurement policy process that supports rather than restricts the successful growth of minority-owned businesses in the city additionally we would like for there to be more resources to the social procurement program to embed capacity building opportunities throughout the social procurement process to make it easier for diverse suppliers to partake in the program capacity building is integral to increasing Supplier Diversity research by The Institute for gender and the economy in 2020 states that Supplier Diversity programs will not be effective without building capacity in the small businesses themselves as Kuma mentioned capacity building opportunities can come in the form of training sessions workshops mentoring services and networking opportunities that provide small to medium Enterprises with the tools to improve their businesses to succcess ful access to social procurement programs various opportunities but most importantly it should also include resources that make the social procurement program uh procedures and policies easier to understand follow and access which was something that was mentioned by survey respondents in 2022 lastly I would like to Echo tcb's Point made on developing black business focus strategies and initiatives that ensure we surpass the previous Target of 7.75% black businesses thank you so much thank thank you any questions for depent uh seeing none thank you for coming in today thank you any questions to the U presenters you can stay where you are you have mics in front of you uh any questions Wally go ahead uh thank you so much for your presentation um I'm very interested in the workforce uh portion of your presentation so if you could maybe elaborate on how the workforce related plan or if there any Targets what sort of uh conversations have taken place with communities um is is uh specifically I want to reference the black communities in in Toronto uh because I want to have a better sense of what sort of work has been done by by you folks in in informing um the the implementation of of a plan I can start with maybe sorry clarifying the target setting process and I might ask uh sdfa to to weigh in because we've been using their processes as well for workfor development so there are procurements where we set targets up front because there's no evaluation associated with them the award is to the lowest compliant bid and that Target setting process is done in partnership with the division that is uh procuring the good or the service based on where we believe the most opportunities will arise on the project so what trades will be on site for example how many subcontracts will be available through the project for evaluated solicitations we ask suppliers to submit a Workforce Development plan with their bid that is evaluated and then the targets are finalized post Award with the successful supplier MH um and that is based on what opportunities the supplier identifies as being available so it's usually a fairly accurate approach to Target setting in terms of how connections are made so the employment Pathways we have been leveraging the community benefits unit in sdfa to um they've developed a number of pilot tools and processes uh so we can link suppliers that have Workforce Development targets with employment service providers in the community and then those employment service providers will meet with the suppliers and identify where opportunities arise um sdfa has also developed a labor forecasting template that we utilize and ask suppliers to submit so that we know where opportunities will be coming over the next 3 to six months so that supplier sorry so that employment service providers can also identify candidates in community thank you for that Clarity uh just a quick followup the we had a previous deput speak about opportunities uh to collaborate with provincial agencies for example like metr links or infrastructure interal uh when it comes to informing uh their social procurment policy or at least a bare minimum their suppliers list uh from you know uh local communities uh this is how we can build trust that's how we can work together has has your office or s are you aware of sfa's role in supporting those conversations yes so as it relates to supply chain diversity that is within pmmd we convene a Cooperative purchasing group of the agencies of the city and do have conversations with them at that table around how they design their social procurement policies okay specifically respecting the list this is a a challenge that we face and one of the reasons that we do want to make changes to the policy we are not allowed to share our supplier list interesting uh we are members of the supplier certification organizations and our list is their list so we're not allowed to share it thank you for clarifying that appreciate you okay thank you um I'm going to have a motion to extend our meeting is supposed to be end end at 12:30 but um I'm going to have a motion to extend to um completion do you have it oh here we go it's front of me uh Lucina I'll move this item all those in favor of extension to the end of the agenda opposed carried um any other questions Queen sorry you did have a question go ahead my apologies I keep forgetting you go ahead hey I'll make sure I'm in person so I can be remembered you are remembered just it's a lot going on here today no I get it I'm just kidding um so I have a comment and a question so I'm going to try to rephrase my comment somehow into a question um but first I wanted to thank uh the deputi speakers I think um that their points were valid and I agree with everything they were going to say and I think what I'm going to say slash ask Echo some of the things that they said um I was wondering um because a lot of the business are smaller businesses and they don't have the capacity to take on some of these larger projects what what are strategies I guess that will be put in place to ensure that um these companies are able to let's say like level up their businesses or their like mentorship opportunities from like larger um organizations and companies that you know are do typically get these um get approved for these procurement um uh bids um and I also wanted to know what are the strategies to engage um black organizations um for the committee that's coming up uh in 2025 thank you for the question so it with the first question with smaller businesses we do know that's a problem and the the bulk of the social procurement policy Focus on Lower value contracts under $133,800 where smaller businesses would have more success there are opportunities with larger contracts through subcontracting and we do make introductions between uh suppliers larger suppliers and Indigenous black and diverse suppliers with respect to current capacity building uh the City offers monthly doing business with the city workshops that uh provide information on the procurement process and how to register in the online bidding tendering system and uh what the social procurement program is we present quarterly through the small business Enterprise Center under Economic Development and culture division with the same content and then if suppliers are struggling to navigate the process they can email social procurement at toronto.ca and we provide one-on-one coaching and support for them I think there are other strategies as well to level up and that's something that we want to talk about next year in terms of recruitment for the advisory committee I think we would be looking for suggestions uh we we don't have anyone particularly in mind right now um but want to make sure that we have a good mix of businesses Community organizations and uh likely nonprofits working in the employment space as well um I think um a recommendation could be like partnering with uh this committee here to make sure the word goes out for the call um for applications for the committee that's a easy enough strategy okay we can certainly do that okay thank you um any further questions from anyone online thank you um speakers to the item okay W five minutes okay thank you um thank you for the presentation and thanks to the deput uh for informing all of uh informing us on on on the status of the social procurement program uh sorry policy um one of the things that came to mind is the importance of integration in communities and I'm thinking about uh the Social Development plans for example like in region Park we have an employment and economic development working group uh they have a you know a social procurment Focus uh how do we work with those specific uh residents who are super engaged in in this work uh for to get their thoughts get their ideas and get the involvement so uh I can connect with you after this meeting uh to share those details on the co-chairs uh for example in region Park but I think in Alexander park and in other communities uh there's a similar model um and some recommendations for us to all think about is how do we simplify the procurment process streamlining the procurment process and reducing complexity particularly for small businesses by providing clear guidelines and more accessible training resources how do we broaden supplier certification expand just beyond existing supplier certification requirements to include a wide range of organizations such as social Enterprises and Community groups to increase participation Mr Bacher spoke earlier about uh the suppliers list being a simple solution you talked about the challenges of not sharing that suppliers list we need to find a solution to that um how do we strengthen Workforce Development by enhancing Workforce Development initiatives by set settling uh setting clear more achievable targets and providing robust support and training for potential suppliers uh I think we need to be da data driven uh I I like to see hard targets uh when it comes to social procurement and uh who's abiding by this policy polies and how they're going about doing that um how do we increase awareness and training to improve Outreach and education efforts to ensure all stakeholders understand the benefits and requirements of social procurement uh lastly I want to talk quickly about the role of um our our role in promoting intergovernmental cooperation when it comes to uh social procurement I'm thinking about agencies like metr links and infrastructure interal so why don't we explore a collaborative framework where we can develop joint initiatives or Frameworks with these agencies to integrate social procurement into their projects leveraging their large scale large scale infrastructure programs to drive inclusive economic growth I'm talk thinking about the Ontario line specifically um how do we share resources and training uh offer shared training and resources on social procurment practices ensuring consistency and mutual supports across projects how do we Monitor and report so establishing collaborative monitoring and Reporting mechanisms to track progress and impact allowing for shared learning and continuous Improvement in the implementation of the policies um I I think it's important for us to explore establishing Community advisory committee uh you heard from uh my my friend about the importance of this advisory committee but how do we Engage The broader Community to create working groups that include community members City representatives and and relevant stakeholders to overse procurment projects ensuring transparency and Community involvement how do you regularly track and Report um how does that get publicly uh shared or disseminated uh so that we we are aware of which specific groups for example black businesses um are are uh participating in in Social procurement to ensure that the you know this this progress over time contractor compliance monitoring this is important how do you develop robust mechanisms to enforce contractor commitments including penalties for non-compliance and regular audits to ensure adherence to social procurement goals how do we expand the definitions of suppliers include alternative business models like not for-profit Cooper cooperatives and non-certified social Enterprises to fost inclusivity and how do we finally align policies to ensure that social procurement policy is consistent with the overall City procurment policy to support effective implementation of community benefit Frameworks across the city of Toronto so I think there's an important role that agencies like metr links and infrastructure Ontario can play uh by engaging uh with us uh in Solutions so I'm hoping that those conversations start now uh if they haven't already started so thank you so much have speakers this item saying none uh anyone online I can't see my monitor if you're online please turn on your camera and unmute yourself okay hearing no one uh Mr Williams you want to move this item for receip ask yeah all may have an issue with Quorum so if you're online please turn on your camera all those in favor opposed carried thank you the next item is Toronto fire Services diversity and inclusion update Matthew Chief Matthew Peg uh general manager ton fire Services Frank Jones ton fire fighter and chair Toronto fire Services black staff Network are all here for a presentation thank you uh Mr chair members of committee good afternoon my name is Matthew Peg I'm very PIV privileged to serve as the fire chief in the city of Toronto all beit for the next 30 days so thank you for the opportunity to be here uh I am joined today uh by a number of uh a number of members of our team uh sitting beside me is uh and I will say it is my sincere privilege to introduce firefighter Frank Jones Frank is in his 10th year as one of our Toronto firefighters he is assigned to station 132 at Bathurst and Lawrence and uh is extraordinary in many ways one of the ways that Frank is extraordinary is in addition to all of that work he also uh serves as the chair of the Toronto fire Services black staff Network and in that capacity I have the privilege of working what amounts to very frequently on a daily basis in direct collaboration with Frank and his teams so it is uh it is a very distinct privilege today for me to be able to co-present with Frank we're going to walk you through what uh we'll do our best to make a very short presentation uh and then we'll be uh very happy to answer any questions that you may have and to take any uh receive any feedback that you can provide to us I should also acknowledge uh two other members of our team division Chief Melissa janaro is here and policy and planning adviser L Laurel sharp both from the office of the fire chief are here so without uh without further Ado just a very quick uh timeline to walk you through and sorry Mr chair I should I should acknowledge this presentation responds to a request by committee uh we we were asked and I appreciate the opportunity to uh provide committee with an update on a number of the the inclusion and diversity efforts that are in place with within Toronto fire Services we've done our very best to be specific and to give you as much access the data and outcome measurements as we have so uh that's what you'll find in this presentation by way of of Journey and where we where we where we came from or how this journey began at least in my context in 2016 we authored and implemented what was what became and what is the First Transformation and inclusion plan for uh in this in the history of Toronto fire services that was put in place in 2016 that drove a number of important initiatives we began to work alongside our people in equity colleagues in driving substantial transformation in in our recruitment process uh a very concerted effort in identifying systemic barriers that pre-existed in those systems and eliminating those barriers in uh 2019 we were successful with Council approval at implementing and hiring a staff psychologist on a part-time basis who now uh works as a a full-time member of our team you'll see that Council supported the uh addition of that position in 2022 on a full-time basis in 2023 and I will just pause there Mr chair to say there is I I acknowledge there's a gap of time in the timeline and I just it's worth noting that many of these initiatives were put on pause on a multi-year basis as a result of the covid-19 pandemic so I'll just draw that to your attention in in 2023 uh for the first time uh in my capacity as fire chief I established uh direct uh diversity Equity inclusion accountabilities for all of the non-union and all of the Senior Management members of the Toronto fire service they are now Incorporated directly into annual performance uh objectives and there are there are annual uh accountabilities in place uh for each of those members of the team me included we were successful with Council support in reestablishing our commu our Recruitment and community outreach team in 2023 that team was was shut down as a result of budget reductions all the way back in 2012 and again with the with the much appreciated support of council we reimplemented that uh Recruitment and community art reach unit in 2023 also in 2023 saw the launch the formal uh and dedicated launch of the Toronto fire Services black staff Network which Frank is the chair for which Frank is the chair and we have uh we enjoyed the the the extraordinary privilege of serving as the grand Marshals for the Caribbean Carnival parade in both 2023 and 2024 and we had we've had the privilege of uh leading leading that parade now twice our our workplace culture is continuing to evolve and what I hope you see from that timeline is that has been a priority for me in this capacity for as long as I have been in this office and is very much a work in progress we are driving uh and working at fostering a culture that is ever in ever increasingly inclusive welcoming and supportive across the organization we are prioritizing a number of very important diversity Equity inclusion and belonging initiatives continuing to drive top- down culture shift and Leadership expectations as I said uh we have formally embedded those expectations now in senior leadership and Senior Management roles within our organization and those expectations have been established uh I benefit and my office benefits greatly from now pre-existing and very formalized uh engagement and collaboration methods alongside Frank and the members of the black staff Network and we're going to share two I have two stories and two examples that we'll share with you uh one being black history month and the second being a really exciting uh story to tell around the implementation of swim testing and how that evolved within our organization and I'm excited to share and proud to share with you that since the implementation of our inclusion plan we have achieved a self-reported diversity rate in recruitment of 38% and for context that is Nation leading within within the fire service and uh I wish I would love to tell you that attire but I'm very proud of the fact that we've we've been managed to get to there this slide I'll move through very quickly but I think it's important that you have an understanding as to not only what we're doing but how we're doing and what our performance has been uh the the context I will provide to you that I think is really important there commonly it is misunderstood commonly people assume that fire Services is uh an independent agency in the city much like we see in police and TTC that is not the case we are a division of the city proper and there therefore uh we don't operate independent from the city we are a client of people in equity and we are therefore recipients and have the benefit of being recipients of many of the corporate wide training initiatives that are implemented so one of those is the Toronto for all foundations uh you'll see across the top I won't take you through what I will draw your attention to on the first uh five circles moving from left to right on the top line we're sitting at about a 93% completion factor for all of uh the the initial five I'll just explain that the reason that that is 93 and not 100 we are going through a period in our in our organization right now where our attrition and retirement rates are very high so we are constantly seeing a number of turn uh of people retirements and subsequent new recruitments so that number is is constantly evolving in August on the 1 of August of this year so just a month ago the city made available and released the exploring anti-black RAC racism module as part of the Toronto for all foundations we implemented that immediately that is now part of our mandatory training curriculum and uh it was assigned to our staff in August I know the slide says 28% that was accurate as of August 19th very happy to tell you that we are presently sitting at 35% completion across our organization uh which is quite extraordinary actually given that we're only a month in 403 of our staff have completed that mandatory training 95% of the senior management team have now completed it the reason that's not at 100 we've seen a significant number of retirements at the platoon Chief level and those those positions are in the process of being replaced and the mandatory training will be applied uh we are on track to have 100% Senior Management complete completion by the end of 2024 and we are now planning for the roll out of this training across all of our Frontline operations which admittedly is a daunting undertaking under undertaking given the size of our organization so uh that is the that is presently uh that's our present stat uh status a little bit of background I will now uh turn the microphone over to firefighter Frank Jones over to you [Music] Frank sorry I'm a rookie at this kind of stuff I'm typically on a truck somewhere in the city uh thank you very much Chief Peg for your kind words um it's a pleasure to talk to you uh today um the Toronto fire Services blackstaff Network is a culmination of many things that have happened uh I would say probably about four or five years back just prior to the pandemic and I'm very happy to say that uh I was elected chair of that committee um we've done a lot in a very short time um the good thing about the Toronto fire um management Chief Peg uh deputy chief Janeiro uh deputy chief um Jim Jessup is they've allowed uh an open door I don't have a seat at the table in their meetings every day and quite frankly I'm not sure if I want it but at the end of the day uh it's an open door policy I've been able to contact them at any time and they've been able to respond to me um we've had very open and Frank conversations and it's allowed us to um develop this staff Network which has uh like I said done some very good things in a very short period of time we've had a lot of firsts and I expect in the very near future we're going to have a lot more firsts uh Black History Month uh the first month was the first time this occurred was back in uh 2023 uh was a very historic moment not only for the city of Toronto and Toronto fire services but it was also more importantly and very close to my heart it was very special for the actual members um being seen as firefighters and specifically as black firefighters in the city of Toronto is uh was extremely important to them and that was a special day uh for them to watch um senior firefighters have been on the job I've only been on 10 years but I watched guys that were on 25 30 years um almost almost teer up because they were being recognized and that was very very important to me um the first black history month was really focused on our staff uh we did very uh specific uh social media events where we focused on specific firefighters um and the city got a chance to see them and they don't typically get to see them them usually they see them maybe in passing on the truck uh this was a really really important not only for the guys on the truck but also for the city to see them and it was really really important and really a special month um moving forward to 2024 we took a different approach uh our approach was really to focus on um community and Outreach we did several events across the city four of which were um they were at the Woodbine Center Lawrence Allen Duff mall and we had one at the Academy and I can tell you honestly you won't see it in any stat but the amount of people that came up to us not necessarily to me but also the other members that said they were so proud to see us doing this and to be in the community and to show uh the young people and the Youth of of Toronto that you know there are possibilities there are other other possibilities out there and um if we continue with this motto of of getting out into the community and getting to the roots and having conversations with our community then I think uh this project and I don't want say project but this this opportunity to move things forward um is going to be really really special and I'm very very proud to be a part of it uh one of the guys I'll go back really quickly one of the guys that um uh that was at the center of that last uh clip was uh Anthony Simpson Anthony Simpson was our highest ranking black member of Toronto fire um I actually because of black history might got a chance to meet him I didn't even know he was there and uh one of the Great Moments that I can remember um with him was he was so proud to I presented him with uh his his patches and um he was so proud to have those patches and to see that impact with just us alone was was Monumental to me so that just keeps pushing things forward and again I I am going to thank the management staff uh for allowing us to really um push things forward and it's very easy for management and fire uh to say no to a lot of things like because they're not used to it they they don't sit in our spaces so when Chief Peg and management and Jim Jessup and Janeiro all said Chief Jano said uh let's make this work and how can we what what what's going to be our impact that just gave us a green light so special moments like that really sit import they're very very important to me um obviously we talked about the Toronto Caribbean Carnival um just looking at the picture the very center picture there you see two firefighters hugging and talking to each other that was the General theme of the day um it was such a special moment uh to see a lot of people just very happy and that was the going comment that I got from a lot of other firefighters in the city that were able to witness it whether they were on shift or they saw Clips in the news they said you guys look just so happy and and and there's something very special in being seen and when you're seen then it allows us an opportunity to do some really great things you know that being in that Carnival um shows you uh how diversity can can really really Propel things Propel you do really really great things and I'm really really happy to be a part of it a very small Story the first uh Carnival that we took part of was in 20 23 and um my father was getting uh phone calls from Jamaica uh saying that I'm watching your son on TV and um to me that was very special because uh everybody got to see it and and there was a lot of people that said they were just very proud of that moment and when we have moments like this you really really see how diversity can take something to another level thank you thank you Frank I'm going to walk you I'll move very quickly through this our community outreach section that I talked about uh extremely active now it is a small But Mighty team of of a total of five people by the end of January or Sorry by the end of July of this year July 31st they had completed 106 community events uh there are more happening every day and an example of something that has been extraordinary is a new partnership with Toronto Community Housing we work in partnership with employment and Social Service as well but uh in July 2024 we launched the inaugural toron Toronto Community housing and Toronto fire Services Day in the Life event and uh literally I I'm I really believe that these are Partnerships that are going to make a difference in people's Liv so uh really happy about that our Recruitment and Retention uh 37% self-reported diversity in in everyone we hired in 2023 uh 34% uh to date in 2024 we were asked a specific question about what our retention story is there were 109 people uh that have exited our organization to date in 2020 4 98 of those are retirements uh we're at a we're at a phase in our cycle where a number of people are reaching retirement age and they're retiring we had nine people or I've had nine people resign primarily when people resign from our employment it is to accept other employment in a location closer to their family home so that we had nine people and uh two terminations to date so a total of 109 uh to date our recruitment process as you saw in the timeline we have been working literally non-stop with our people in equity teams on continuing to enhance and streamline our recruitment processes and make them as inclusive as possible there have been a number of really exciting changes made uh we implemented um adjustments related to the candidate testing Service uh we have now removed the swim testing requirement as a recruitment prerequisite we're going to talk about that at the end uh there have been a number of updates to the selection and screening Matrix uh we continue to intentionally prioritize both Toronto residents fully qualified Toronto residents and fully qualified members of equity deserving groups who enter our process they are prioritized in our recruitment process and one of the last thing the last point on the slide that I'll I'll I'll speak to and then I'll ask Frank just to comment because he's involved one of the most exciting changes we've made is that every recruitment interview panel that happens in our organization now is intentionally diverse and Frank is one of the one of the members is go ahead Frank uh yeah I had the opportunity to take part in the interview panels which again I have to thank management for taking that step forward for allowing uh the rank of firefighter to be in the panels and I can sincerely tell you that the comments that I got from some of the candidates after the fact whether I met them at a community event or maybe I was on a truck and somebody saw me um they literally said that one of the best things ever was to walk into a room and to see a patoon Chief a firefighter who was black and a female firefighter and it was very very comforting to walk in it's a very daunting thing to walk into a firefighter interview and uh to put them at ease right away was uh was very comforting lastly uh last slide and then uh certainly look forward to taking any of your questions I just want to share with you something that has been very important to us and this has been the subject of a principal point of collaboration between Frank and I personally and between his uh his team on the black staff Network and the TFS command team team a number of months ago the province of Ontario made Regulatory and legislative changes that requir require certifications uh across the province of Ontario so there's a professionalization model that's happening and that drove some very challenging changes for us one of those changes was in order to certify firefighters under certain disciplines professional disciplines under NFPA I won't get into all the technical things but the the overall professional qualifications requires swim test Tes in so that was imposed upon us uh our operations team was faced with a very challenging situation because as you know under the occupational health and safety act and specifically section 252h which is the duty of the employer we have to respond immediately we don't have we didn't have the ability to take time to think that through or to take time to work on that we have to make an immediate uh an immediate action to remain in compliance and to protect the worker so the initial response from our team was we implemented mandatory swim testing and that included as prerequisite for recruitment very quickly and in fact immediately there was a collaboration that initiated predominantly between Frank and I and Frank and his team became uh I don't know the right word it's more than valuable but became an integral part in what happened next and the the end result of that story is in collaboration and at the advice and guidance of Frank and our and our Toronto fire Services black staff Network we created a made in Toronto solution that has now allowed us to eliminate the requirement for uh swim testing it no longer exists we we created a made in Toronto solution whereby we now have integrated a program known as swim to survive it is Incorporated in our recruit training program so that it we teach it to people that we hire it is not a barrier to recruitment any longer anyone that that has not had the opportunity for for any reason to complete those requirements we now incorporate that as a training program in our in our recruit training program we manage it internally and that has eliminated all of that systemic barrier that was in place uh it has concurrently allowed us to effectively address the health and safety concerns and I will end where I started what I am so proud of this is a made in Toronto solution that is based on respect and trust and collaboration and I'll let I'll let Frank add his uh add his commentary uh just uh add to that uh one of the things uh that's special to the blackstaff network is we do a lot of mentoring and we do a lot of Outreach and so I'm currently part of uh a few group chats where there are aspiring firefighters specifically who are black and I can tell you on that day where that announcement was made that group that chat group lit up because they saw the opportunity now become real again I know a couple of them that were literally ready to apply to Toronto fire and then when it changed they couldn't because they now had to learn how to swim um which doesn't mean that um you have to discarded I I do think that swimming is an essential skill to to firefighting um but I think it gave them a little bit of a shot in their arm if we will um to really focus and and and focus on swimming and get that that that skill done and um yeah it was just a very special moment to to know that uh not only did they they change the requirement slightly um but at the end of the day they still know how to swim and still know how to survive so thanks Frank Mr chair uh with that I will conclude I will acknowledge I am over 15 minutes thank you for your patience sir and Happy to take any questions that you or committee may have and certainly would appreciate any feedback from committee on how we can further Advance any of this work any and all of this work that is ongoing thank you so much uh for your presentation I know you and I and your team has had many conversations about the swim test and I'm happy that you actually really took it to heart and made the changes that U that were suggested um W has a question is there any any other speakers oh sorry yeah questions from anybody else okay I just first of all want to thank you for your amazing presentation and uh Chief Matthew Peg I just want to say congratulations on your retirement and Frank thank you so much uh for your advocacy and your participation uh within Toronto firefighters um I loveed how the solutions focused the presentation was um before I pose my question I just want to acknowledge the great work you folks are doing engaging with communities um we had our Sunday in the Park event I'm just going to see if uh Jina can put this up but we had folks from Toronto firefighters joined us at Sunny the park for the first time uh and we've been having it for the past 33 years and you will be so amazed by the level of enthusiasm not just from the parents but from the kids they were all over that truck taking photos thinking about being a firefighter inspiring uh the possibilities of joining that amazing profession and um I I I think that's really really critical and important um the other thing is I want to give a shout out to um Ricky I believe was there Ricky's chief chief Ricky Chief Ricky Ricky Brooks let me say it properly Chief Ricky uh because he made that happen I'm actually going to be emailing him to thank him for uh their participation at Sunday in the park and we need more of that we need more intentional um engagement in communities that have been historically disfranchised from these professions and I I love the recruitment strategy that you have I love how diverse your interview uh panelists now becoming involving racialized as well as as women on it uh and that's wonderful uh I went through your presentation and I loved it but the one question I have for you uh and maybe this is something that we could work collaboratively on is track retention you know when I think about recruitment it's great people get into the profession but I know in in you know in in many professions including firefighters they stress uh there could be you know other challenges that we may not be aware of so I want us to have a an approach that retains as many uh qualified trained firefighters as possible so maybe you could speak to what are your thoughts about retention how do you track retention uh and how can we work together to ensure that we retain the best firef firefighters the city has ever had thank you fantastic question uh let me I have a couple of thoughts to that that that I'm happy to share so overall uh I would say that I I am very pleased with our retention we we do see some people you you recall the stats obviously retirements are are naturally occurring thing that happens in the big scheme of things overall we we lose very very few people so uh there are there are some the the latest stat was this year not nine people have left our employment to seek employment elsewhere that is almost entirely moving closer to home so uh what I can what I can say Sir is that we uh we track them all there is an exit interview process in place across the organization and as a client of the city's people and Equity division as a division we uh we we are a we are their client and we that means we work in direct collaboration with the equity unit inside p& as well and we are recipients of all of that data work that is happening and being collected uh I don't see it all as a division head I'm only entitled to certain amounts of aggregated data I completely respect that but uh we work very closely with p& um the the recruitment the recruitment issue the recruitment challenge is we're doing very well I'm very pleased with the retention issue and I will just say that I fundamentally believe that events like you had on the screen and you talked about and all of the work that District Chief Brooks is leading in recruitment Outreach and all of the great work that Frank and his team are doing it is it is creating an environment that even I hear about even I hear that people are excited someone described to me earlier this week that this organization has become the National Fire Service of choice for people that want that are seeking to work in this field and that makes my heart happy but I also believe that we we have a foundation that will now continue there's a five 5e strategic plan in place these values and principles are embedded in our 5-year strategic plan and have been evaluated and endorsed by by the international the commission on Fire accrediation International so this isn't something that stops this this is this is literally our path for the next 5 years and I will be the biggest fan sitting somewhere somewhere watching all of this happen with uh with my Applause and gratitude uh before we proceed I would just like to ask folks online to turn on their camera so we can confirm Corum is still applicable I have a question I have a question thank you Rosemary um so I'm just going to go down the list I think Kathy uh was first so Kathy go ahead you have five minutes thank you for recognizing me and thank you also for that uh presentation um I'm quite pleased to see that there are um processes in place in order to um address historical barriers to entry and uh great to hear about the swim test and um I'm curious uh to find out I in your data you presented uh that there were 109 members who have who are no longer for a variety of different reasons most of them retirement I'm I'm curious to know whether or not that decrease in Staffing um is um is very sort of specific to this year like how does that uh compare to other years and um if it's higher than other years I do have question is perhaps uh why that might be um in addition to that um you have some uh planning strategies for Recruitment and which is fabulous um but I'm curious about sort of secession planning uh strategies so if you have 37% uh uh individuals who identify as uh being of a equity uh deserving group I'm not certain how what that represents in terms of the entire population because that's just hiring for 2023 and so could very well be it's a 1% and so um what efforts are being made in order to um more fulsomely even beyond the efforts that you're making right now to increase the percentage of uh black firefighters um in Toronto uh great question I'll start let me start with the I'll try and deal with those in order so our our our retention or our our exit numbers are very flat so what we are seeing it is is we're basically in in what has become a traditional year we see a it is almost it's almost shocking to me how how how static that stays there there is you know uh a very common number of retirements that happen so not an abnormal year by any sense we're we're on a on a normal and good trajectory uh we we have challenges um we we often are carrying as we are right now carrying a vacancy count we we have doubled the capacity uh within the within the Toronto fire academy so the number of people that we can recruit at any one time so a number of strategies in place to to replace and eliminate those vacancies as very quick as possible but all in all there's nothing there that causes me any any concern from a from a I love the question about succession planning thank you for raising that so there are uh there are a number of processes in place the promotional processes from the first level of supervision within our organization which is what we would refer to as an act Captain level all the way through all of the unionized ranks which go as high as acting platoon Chief and acting division Chief are defined and established in the Collective Agreement so the the union Collective Agreement between local 3888 and the city defines all of those processes I will say that I have never in my 32 years experienced a more collaborative environment than we than we enjoy today with the uh Executive Board of local 3888 and folks like like Frank and the black staff Network so those discussions are ongoing there have already been process improvements made the both the the city and the association are in the negotiation process right now so there are a number there are a number of really important topics that are live on that table but we've already seen uh very significant improvements and enhancements to those process processes within the non-union environment uh any of the senior positions that exist within our organization so the fire chief position any of the deputy chief positions uh by matter of process are automatically uh internationally searched so when those positions came up or come up they are of course open to the super talented group of people that exist within our organization but with intention we go out and seek uh a the most qualified but also uh we we look to the global Recruitment and executive Search Community to maximize opportunities to enhance our inclusion and our diversity across the team so that's standard process for us and just a quick followup what is the percentage of the black fir Fighters within uh a Toronto I I will start Frank may have comment I I don't actually have disaggregated data with me here uh happy to take that offline we would need to go to the equity unit at people in equity to see what they can provide but I'm sorry I don't have it here um I don't have a specific uh percentage uh but one of the things that I did many years ago was actually start to catalog all the black firefighters within the city and all the black um employees within the troner fire services so we do have a number it is under 100 but at the end of the day um what we're doing is trying to build that number over time and that doesn't happen overnight you don't just hire somebody off the street to become a firefighter uh you develop them and uh with our outreach program and with talking to Firefighters uh we're we're starting to do that I have a very quick story about uh someone actually Ricky Brooks met uh last year at one of the Outreach events uh he was so taken back by the presentation and being there within one year he became completely certified to become a firefighter and he is now in the process of applying so it doesn't happen overnight and we're not going to jump to 20% but uh it is a process okay thank you very much um so I believe up next is Dr Newton Thompson followed by Rosemary okay good afternoon everyone can you hear me can you hear me yes we can okay good afternoon everyone and thank you for the presentation I I just have a few questions um the previous speaker as asked some of my questions already so I I'll just have ask you the ones that are left I wanted to know what's the highest rank among black staff at the the um Toronto fire Services that's the first question and then there was a mention of of a certain percentage of people from Equity deserving groups that are that are recruited into the fire service do you have disaggregated data on that do we know how many of them are black and how many are from other Equity serving groups and then the third question is do you have goals and Tim taes for recruiting black firefighters like how many are you going to recruit within a certain time frame uh thank you very much for the question so first question the the highest the highest ranking uh black member of our team right now is at the platoon Chief level that is the that's the highest ranking operational response chief officer that uh that we have so uh that is question one my memory is going to slide question two can you just remind me of question two I'm sorry you you spoke about the equity deserving groups that that have been hired right uh thank you for that uh I do not have disaggregated data that is a again as a client of people in equity that is something that we we would need to access the principal collection source for everything that we do is the city's count yourself in survey so uh that would be something we would need to take offline and seek the expertise and assistance of the equity unit and people people in equity for disaggregated data I am not entitled to some of that uh just based on numbers and and making U resulting in in identifiable stats that for which I'm not entitled and I completely respect that okay and the next one was about goals and Tim taes yes so our our the our recruitment strategies are in place we don't have we have not set specific Equity deserving group uh targets meaning disaggregating those into into their individual identifier so that that is not the case what we have done is structured our recruitment process so that the entire recruitment process is as barrier free as it can be and that we are prioritizing uh as Frank spoke about giving people the opportunity to see themselves reflected in the process and in the selection panels eliminating as many or all of the systemic barriers as have been identified and as that we we can eliminate and setting people up for as much success as they as they can uh possibly achieve We There is a priority within our system right now that prioritizes a Toronto residence which is a really important aspect because it is it is that Foundation that is that is uh creating and fueling the partnersh ship that we're that we're exploring now with Toronto Community Housing so we are prioritizing Toronto residents and we are prioritizing uh fully qualified applicants that is a prerequisite applicants who are who are deemed fully qualified who also self-identify as members of equity deserving groups that um ma'am is not given to me on a disaggregated basis it is that within the process it's that's aggregated data we we simply our our recruitment team simply deals with that as in essence a yes or no there's a priority applied and then uh those folks are welcomed into our process and ultimately are are uh moving to the interview stage of the process thank you for your answer just a followup is there any mentorship attached to to the recruitment of of equity deserving individuals uh yes certainly uh once uh they're in the process again we try to uh put our boots on the ground to know who's applying and who gets through the process and once they're in the process we don't necessarily sign them a mentor but they are they do have access to the entire black staff network uh through a grab through a chat group but we also make it a a point some of our senior Fighters are constantly reaching out to them from the time that they are finished their interview to the time that they go through their medical through the time that they're in the academy they're constantly being contacted to make sure everything's okay and making sure that if they have any questions they can ask we try to get them into our chat group uh while they're in the academy because there's a lot of questions that may come up during the academy and um we try to make sure that all that information is available to them it's not just me that's responding it's also the many other people that are in the chat so thank you very much and I I'm really happy to hear about the very um supportive environment that you have for for people coming from the community thank you thank you so up next we have Rosemary go ahead um my question is very short I uh thank you very much for everything that you've offered today and it certainly sounds like it's um a positive initiative um but I want to just share my own son's experience which took place before covid and um while he was able to successfully complete all of the requirements there was one requirement that was left hanging for him and I suspect it may be a requirement for others as well and that was um the funding in order to get the next level of Licensing so he had a driver's license but you have to get the the other one in order to drive the big trucks it was expensive and it was a a hiccup in his process and as a consequence he actually slowed down what he was doing and didn't stay with the program he finished everything but he didn't go on to seek employment As A Firefighter he never got his uh license and I wonder if there are any Financial uh elements to assist some of these people that you may have reach you're reaching out to now because I think that um Equity seeking groups are in that position and they are already perhaps coming in um needing other kinds of support not just the getting in not just being accepted not just being identified but also tangible things like some fin ccial assistance um Co came up he had a different way of perceiving what he was going to do with his life and he's gone on to uh pursue other um other directions but he might have been a firefighter my 6'2 180 pound child well may I say uh first of all I really appreciate your cander and thank you for that that means a lot to me and thank you for sharing that story these are those are discussions that are very live for us and I very much wish that I could sit here and tell you that I have the solution to that problem I would be lying to you if I told you that but I can tell you this that is the very foundation for a number of the initiatives that city council is uh directing and pushing us towards rightfully so uh that was that has been a really important consideration in the ongoing work and now the revitalized work we're doing with the employment and Social Services Division it is a really important consideration in our partnership now with Toronto Community Housing and there is so much overlap I'm I I admit to you I'm not looking to pass the buck but there is so much overlap and dependency on provincial and federal jurisdiction that the city ends up we end up being a very minor player at this table but I I guess the best I can do is to assure you that I hear that I understand and those those considerations and concerns are live and active on tables that are that are current not future not projected they're happening right now and I I have every confidence that our team and all of our corporate partners that are working with us alongside provincial Ministries will stay focused on that uh where that goes I will will remain to be seen but it it is an issue of importance to me and something we understand thank you very much um so William uh you can go ahead uh thank you chair um just just following up on Dr Samson's submission on the equity serving group in your recruitment process when you say Equity deserving group sometimes it disadvantages the black people do you have a method uh to determine uh how many can for example Equity deserving group includes many groups right so do you have like a percentage where you saying equity group we need probably 10 candidates from the black community or indigenous Community which method did you use to determine uh the equity deserving group yeah thank you very much for the question so uh we the the questionnaire when when those questions are being asked again facilitated by the Recruitment and the people Equity people and Equity team and our partners when the questions are being asked the questions themselves are disaggregated so there it is not an aggregation it's disaggregated the the result of that collection of that data is I am not I am not entitled to see so it is the the data is collected it is protected within the equity unit they see it and then we re we we get the aggregated data so uh there is absolutely a question set and an analysis that is disaggregated based on a number the the list is quite exhaustive actually and uh from a priority perspective so we do not establish a Target there is not a there is not a there must be you know your example there must be 10 the reason for that is we are prioritizing every applicant every full qu every fully qualified applicant who is either a Toronto resident or who identifies in any of the equity deserving group including including black they are prioritized in the process uh automatically and on top and you know I'm really appreciative this is a very complicated system and process uh my former colleague here in the city who worked with City legal helped us create this really robust process a number of years ago it has worked flawlessly for us and as you know we're we're seeing the result but we don't we don't set predetermined uh we don't set targets and we don't set caps so it is all about it's all about maximizing the fully qualified people that enter and then doing everything we can do to support their success go ahead Frank if you like I'll just add into that um and I'm sure my fellow firefighters will agree with me we don't want anybody just to come into the job we don't want to give anybody a job you have to earn it you have to have the skills to earn the job at the end of the day we are Emergency Services we're out there protecting you or helping you when it's a bad day right so at the end of the day it's it's very very important that you have a certain skill set in order to achieve um the prestigious career of being a a firefighter and it is very very unique so you have to mentally be ready to do this job physically be ready to do this job and we don't want to get in the business of uh you know handing out a job to anybody just because they are from an equity deserving group because as you all most of you know in this room uh that's a dangerous place to be in to be given something um that's really just a to me it's just an opportunity for for failure sometimes thank you so much I believe Shannon has a question thank you you and thank you for your presentation and your service to our city but my question is actually about your maid in Toronto solution and I'm curious uh if there's opportunity or uh thinking about feeding that back up to the province um and having the province you know rethink their own legislation and how they can work with other communities throughout the province because obviously that's uh a really successful solution and that's how I think we need to be talking about a lot of these challenges yeah I appreciate that question so uh bit of a complicated answer the the issue actually doesn't lie with with the province so the the requirement for those the the pre the the requirements and the technical requirements in order to be certified are are actually they're okay they are what they need to be we were able to create this made in Toronto solution and I'll be very candid largely as a result of the fact that we are we're large we have a lot of capacity and resources and expertise within our Training Division in the toron fire academy I know from ex from previous lived experience many of our fire service peers across the province don't actually have the capacity within their organizations to implement the training like we have so I respect that we we in Toronto uh we do and it took it took some uh it took some creative work it took some commitment it took some collaboration but we were able to uh adjust our recruit training program we're able to implement swim to survive uh partner with Parks forestry and Recreation and all of the you know satisfy all of the plethora of things that had to happen for us to do that so we were able to do that here I'm not sure that smaller jurisdictions across the province will be able to do that internally but so let let me just say a we have we have fed this in it has gone the information has not only gone back up to the province but I am connected uh as the fire chief here connected with a number of networks one of them is called the large Urban Fire Chiefs of Ontario so that's all of my peers from the largest municipalities in our Province there is a that all of that information has been shared we've shared openly and transparently how what we're doing and how we got there also through an organization an international organization known as the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs and that is a network of Fire Chiefs in the largest cities around the world and those are also these are discussions that are live on that global a as well and what one of the things that I will eternally be proud of the Toronto fire service for and the City of Toronto 4 is our continued ability to drive to outcome as opposed to getting stuck in a policy decision or a policy debate and this is an example of where we were able to take a really important issue turn it into action implement it and then share the implementation plan the swim to survive program is not something we created it is a pre-existing program it's actually something that's common place in in elementary school and we were able to just identify that take it um figure out how to implement it it does not turn somebody into a rescue swimmer it is literally that is a baseline that I'll speak for me that gives me the Assurance to know that the firefighters that we are putting on our on our on our trucks if they find they have the skills through swim to survive that if they find themselves unexpectedly in deep water they have the survival skills necessary to avoid drowning that is a big difference from uh people for example that are assigned to our marine Rescue Unit who are ice and water rescue technicians very different levels of training but that's part of what the collaboration meant is let's let's make sure that we are not overinflating the amount of prerequisite training necessary for people to succeed and that was part of the the the path to solution uh and and we we I have and we will Contin continue to to share that success story across the province and the country and everyone else that wants to listen to me frankly thank you do we have any other questions on this item okay so hearing no other questions are there any speakers to this item uh yeah will you go ahead you have five minutes just uh want to thank again uh Chief Matthew Peg um and Frank for your amazing presentation and and talking us through the initiatives that your organization has uh taken on to address the need uh for diversity uh within the organization and recruitment I'm GL I'm really happy about your response Rel to retention uh because you know I'm data driven I want to see if there's any changes and I think other members of the advisory committee had similar questions um one of the things that you you highlight in your presentation that I can't stop thinking about is how it's all interconnected when I think about Parks and Recreation and the work that's been done by you know women in our community and uh residents to ensure that for example there's free swimming lessons uh for for youth in our community so that they do have those skills uh to be able to qualify for those good jobs like being a firefighter how everything is interconnected and I'm wondering how can we work together to ensure that uh when we're thinking about our Workforce uh development strategies how do we integrate uh those nuances to ensure that you know what CPR training swimming lessons and and being certified are important for our youth now more than ever right because you know you don't want any barriers to entry when it comes to those professions um and also how can we uh learn learn from your experiences engaging with the community uh to make it more robust uh are there workshops uh that could be uh put in place when I think of Rosemary's Point earlier of young folks in our community racialized you know black men or women or you know other racialized folks who are interested in being a firefighter where's the mentorship happening right um and and I'm so glad Frank you're part of this cuz I see the passion your voice and and the conviction uh that you have to to improve things so I want to challenge you to think about uh opportunities for mentorship opportunities uh to engage uh you know uh black firefighters or racialized firefighters in that work uh and most importantly creating a forum for discussion and dialogue because it could unpack a lot of misconceptions that may have had about the profession or the skills they need and finally I just want to thank you for being here thank thank you so much for taking your time and uh Chief Matthew Peg I want to wish you a happy retirement one more time thank you thank you do we have any other speakers to this item Dr Carris Newton go ahead Thompson go ahead uh I just thank you very much um thanks again for the presenters but I just wanted to underline that when we ask about equity deserving groups and their placement or recruitment or or um retention we are not but let me just put this another way we are assuming that these are people who are already qualified so so there should not be any assumption that we are thinking of just pushing anyone in there who is not qualified who we just want to get in there because they're black we our assumption is that they're coming in qualified and we're saying do you have goals and temp tables for that so I just wanted to say that because I think there was this underlying assumption that we're thinking well you know we could just get our people in there there are a lot of people out in the community just as we have the represented here the representative here Frank who is qualified and there are a lot of black people out there who are qualified too so we are not championing people who are not qualified so our comments are directed at people who are already qualified or who can be qualified to take those positions thank you Dr Newton Thompson any other speakers okay so hearing no further speakers do I have a motion to receive the item um I have a motion from Kathy oh yes okay so all of those in favor please raise your hand yes any opposed okay so the motion carries uh the next item we'll move on now is the Avenue's policy review and so we have presenters uh carola Perez book who is the project manager Kyle faren senior planner and K pacan project coordinator for the official plan and legislation unit um so go ahead please thank you um so to ensure that we're maintaining Quorum I'll just ask folks online to turn on their cameras for okay so we're good to proceed go ahead thank you thank you so my name is uh Kyle Pikman I'm a project coordinator with the official plan and legislation team and I'm joined uh by my colleague Cora prebook who's a project manager with the same team and uh we're happy to be here to talk about uh a project that we've been working on uh for a little while now um called The Avenues policy review and uh we'll talk about uh kind of the background on the project and um what's being proposed and then we uh are looking forward to having a uh discussion about the initiative okay so first just for some background and I'll try and keep the uh planning jargon to a minimum uh so everyone can sort of follow the the presentation uh so Avenues are a uh what we call sort of a strategic growth component of the official plan and and uh the official plan on map 2 uh which I'll show on on the next slide uh identifies all of the Strategic growth areas within our official plan so Avenues are just one part of that we also have our centers so uh a topico center North Rook Center and scarber center and then we have our downtown area and um as part of the of the urban structure map that map to we also identify employment areas so combined um those all sort of represent uh what we call Strategic growth areas so areas where we want to see uh either residential growth uh mixed growth so residential and jobs or jobs for our employment areas uh so Avenues are what we call an overlay they're not a land use designation um so you might be familiar with uh residential residential areas um apartment neighborhood areas mixed use areas which uh most of downtown Toronto is and so those are land expectations Avenues are an overlay and and they're a bit different in the sense that overlays um typically don't um describe the kinds of uh uses that you're allowed to have in these areas they set these higher level uh kind of policy objectives and so for our Avenues our Avenues are described as areas uh in Toronto that are intended to reurbanization anticipated to grow incrementally over time so Avenues this this Avenue policy framework has been part of the official plan since the early 2000s um and uh what we've seen since then is that um that incremental growth that the official plan has anticipated has more or less been true for most of our Avenues um and so I will show where the Avenues are but you know when you think of um the Queens Way in a toico Kingston Road and scarbro Shephard Avenue East and West um you know these are areas that have been identified as Avenues and we've seen that slow um incremental growth over the past 20 years or so this image on the right here so this is a uh Kingston Road um just uh just east of Victoria Park and um this building here is what we call a mid-rise building um so mid-rise buildings are typically uh in the range of 6 to 11 stories uh depending on the width of the street so usually it's a 1:1 ratio so the wider the street uh the taller the building that um the official plant contemplates can can go into this area um and uh while this building here is uh I think entirely residential um Avenues as mentioned are intended to play a Main Street role and so typically we look for more mixed use developments where you have um some sort of retail or service uses on the ground floor and then residential above uh and then lastly uh as you'll see on the map The Avenues look actually quite um large in terms of their geography but where they apply uh where the policies apply are typically um actually just to the lands that are along the street not not typically behind the street so this is our Urban structure map uh map two of the official plan and so those red bits um are the centers that I spoke to and the brown uh sort of linear corridors are the Avenues so you can see that uh they're not uh Avenues are in each sort of part of Toronto although certain certain parts of Toronto have more Avenues than others so if you sort of look to north of tobaco there's very few Avenues um but uh there are sort of long contiguous Avenues in scarbro along Kingston Road um Eglington and parts of Lawrence and and uh Shephard uh so one of the key things to know about our Avenue policies is that um you know the Avenue policies uh do a good job at sort of laying out the vision for what we want to see along Avenues but um in terms of the actual implementing policies uh the official plan defers to what are called Avenue studies and these are prepared for uh strategic mixed use segments and will typically sort of first assess the um sort of the built form of the Avenue that'll look at uh the transit parking public realm community services and facilities and through that study we'll um recommend a development framework um that can include uh Community improvements uh official plan amendments zoning amendments and design guidelines and about 50% of our Avenues have been studied and have some sort of implementing policy framework um another and this is maybe a bit more nitty-gritty but uh another thing that the official plan um outlines that's important to the implementation of the Avenue policies there's something called Avenue segment reviews which are different from Avenue studies in that uh these reviews are undertaken by the applicants that are proposing developments along the Avenues and um really they're intended to sort of assess the incremental impact of development along the entire uh stretch of the Avenue and um determine whether the proposed development is um supported by available infrastructure okay so just for a bit more background um so the housing action plan that um uh you may be familiar with uh was adopted by Council in December of 2022 and uh identifies a a 4-year uh plan to um look at increasing the supply of housing within complete inclusive communities um and the Avenue's uh policy review is one of I believe it's 54 action items under the sing action plan um and so this diagram here just provides uh kind of an a illustration of where that fits within the larger housing action plan um and you can see that there's a number of other actions that fall under official plan updates zoning updates and guideline changes um one that uh we should call out is uh the expanding housing housing options in neighborhoods or ehon for short and uh that work program um is is mostly complete um so they had uh ehon multiplexes work has been completed and the major streets initiative which looked at um providing for permissions for town houses and small scale apartment buildings along our major streets um recently uh was adopted by by Council so in terms of our mandate uh so the housing action plan directed staff uh to look at updating the vision and policy directions for how Avenues will develop so as mentioned our Avenue policies um haven't really been touched in the past 20 years and so uh it's it's prime time I think for us to to look at uh updating that vision and policy direction to match um the growing needs for Toronto uh our second mandate is to look at expanding and introducing new avenues so so that map to on the previous slide so looking at which other streets in Toronto can we identify as Avenues our third mandate is to look at streamlining study requirements for building new housing along Avenues so uh I previously spoke to Avenue studies and those Avenue segment reviews so taking a closer look at whether or not those are still aligned with our priorities uh and then lastly looking at enabling what's called areas of transition between Avenues and neighborhoods um which um simply put um look is look sort of get gets us to look at are there policy solutions to allow for uh more development along our Avenues where the land that's along the Avenues are too shallow to to uh to do a lot with so are there some policy Solutions there um and then I also wanted to uh just point out that we did have a proposals report that went to the planning and housing committee back in February of this year um and uh coming out of that uh report we were directed to undertake uh broad Publican stakeholder consultation which we started in Earnest um late uh June of this year um and to report back with a official plan Amendment um and um those mapping changes to map 2 in Q4 of this year um so likely in December of this year uh there were two other recommendations that came out um one was to advance the review and evaluation of certain city owned sites to look at delivering housing and then um sort of more of a wonky uh recommendation around looking at um redesignating lands in that area of transition to better facilitate midrise development along Avenues so in terms of our draft uh policies so one of uh so in that proposal's report that went to planning housing committee we identified um that uh you know a potential Rec recommendation to city council would be to delete the requirement for Avenue segment reviews um as well as Avenue studies in order to streamline study requirements and um in lie of these Avenue studies which um again we have been undertaking to uh create the sort of development framework for avenues that would be replaced by a new study that would be a bit more that would be discretionary um and and more flexible in the sense that it doesn't need to be as comprehensive as they've typically been uh perhaps the biggest thing that the proposals report does is outline um what we're calling a typology framework um so previous as I mentioned before you know the Avenue Studies have been really the mechanism by which um growth has been guided along our Avenues and uh if we're moving to a world in which um we are no longer going to be comprehensively studying each Avenue then uh then we believe that the official plan needs to provide more Direction around the kind of growth we would uh potentially want to see along our Avenues and that's what the typology uh really attempts to do and so um you know the typology really does sort of three things so one is it identifies the planned built form of the Avenues so the sort of built form that um we think is desirable along these Avenues um and for two of the three um we would be uh proposing that midrise building so those 11 6 to 11 story building depending on the width of the street that that's the kind of uh built form we would want to see along these Avenues um and that the land uses uh for those Avenues um you know one for the main street avenue corridors these would be areas where we' want to see uh what we call non-residential uses which is everything but residential um on the ground floor so providing spaces for businesses and services to uh set up shop and and Service uh the local residences uh another policy we've um where we've been U sort of workshopping is this idea of uh you know encouraging a range of unit size and scale to ensure that um you know not just uh sort of corporate businesses are able to lease have the space or potentially buy the space but smaller local businesses also have an opportunity to um to set up shop another policy that's part of the typology framework is um what we're calling commercial replacement and so the idea here being that where uh a site is being redeveloped and there are existing uh there's existing commercial space that that space would be replaced um to some degree within the uh new development um another part of typology that I'll just point out is this new idea of a mixed use Avenue node and so this is uh sort of a net New Concept to the official plan and um although there are sort of similar uh kind of ideas but uh the idea here is that these would be certain locations um typically where two Avenues are intersecting where uh the um where the plan built form could potentially be something greater than a midrise so tall buildings which are typically kind of a Podium and then a tower on top uh these areas we would be looking at requiring um nonr residential uses um on the ground floors and we believe that these would also be locations where uh larger format commercial and institutional uses like schools uh could be encouraged uh so bringing those kinds of uses to um parts of Toronto that um perhaps lack them and these would also be areas where we would want if there are ex if there is existing commercial space we would want to uh see that replaced uh so in terms of extending and introducing new avenues so just wanted to highlight that we did um create a bit of a criteria for identifying where we think uh new avenues are suitable so we looked at a number of things including um the existing land use designations uh primarily from the point of view of wanting to avoid um identifying Avenues next to um uh certain employment areas that can have noxious uses that could pose a risk to um human health uh but perhaps more importantly we looked uh quite closely at our Transit infrastructure um and that uh that component was really kind of The Guiding star for identifying where a new avenues are as they are Avenues are intended to be Transit supportive um and uh you know the official plan talks a lot about um encouraging alternative modes of transportation Beyond um uh the private vehicle and so you know when thinking about where we want to uh direct growth um we we thought that uh tying it very closely to where we have frequent Transit and the ability to increase the quality of Transit um uh is uh sound planning in terms of some principles um so we also um thought a lot about sort of um you know what type of avenues we wanted to to create and so we had a preference for creating longer contiguous Avenues as opposed to fragmented Avenues uh we also sought to avoid identifying Avenues in areas of Toronto where there's limited intensification opportunities um so you know some examples uh of this are uh you know parts of Toronto where it's already meeting kind of the vision of of an Avenue so it's already quite built up and so um you know uh I think from our point of view it doesn't make sense to direct even more growth to these areas that are already seeing a lot of growth and are perhaps already meeting the the vision for Avenues uh and then the last one I I'll just point out is um this idea of avoiding areas where there's a substantial amount of purpose-built rental housing um so examples of this are along uh Jameson Avenue in in the Parkdale neighborhood um so that area uh for those familiar um has a has a large amount of rental housing stock and um as those as as you likely know as well um we're not replacing that rental housing stock at least in terms of affordability levels and so we thought it was important to uh avoid identifying those areas as Avenues so so is to not send a signal to um largely the development industry that these are areas where we would want to see Redevelopment so this is um the up proposed update to the to map 2 that Urban structure map so the dark brown uh linear corridors are our existing Avenues and then the light brown are the new proposed Avenues um it is it is hard to see where these new avenues apply this map is available on our project web page which we'll have a link to at the end of this presentation uh but uh suffice to say that uh we are identifying a number of new avenues in all parts of Toronto um uh based on that criteria and the the print principles that we uh we just discussed so in terms of uh next steps so as mentioned we have started our public and stakeholder consultation um which began at the end of June and is continuing through September into October uh we are currently planning on uh reporting back to uh the planning housing committee and city council with a recommended official plan Amendment and uh mapping changes uh and then pending council's decision uh we would be uh uh looking to move into sort of phase two of this work which would be uh identifying or sort potentially redesignating those lands identified as new avenues um to uh streamline uh the uh uh to streamline uh policy approvals for uh uh development along the Avenues so we do have two discussion questions um uh so I'll just go through those but of course we can um deviate and and and take other questions so uh one question that we had for the the committee um is around uh you know what should we be considering in addressing the experience of black communities businesses and individuals in this work um so you know one of the things that we've been thinking about through this exercise is the potential for displacement and and gentrification as a result of this work so as mentioned Avenues are you know a tool uh within the official plan to direct growth into areas that we think um can accommodate that growth um and so um you know while there are you know potential upsides of identifying Avenues in new parts of Toronto there's also potential um implications of of that and so we'd be interested hearing any thoughts on that uh and then secondly um just based on what you've heard today what whether or not you think there are certain um stakeholder groups that we should be uh really prioritizing in our uh with respect to our engagement as we move forward with this work thank you we'll move on to questions do we have any questions on this item will Oh and before we continue sorry will I just want to remind folks online to keep their cameras on just in the interest of maintaining Quorum as we've lost some members in person thank you Lucina uh thank you sorry sorry willly we'll just wait for that confirmation thanks good okay thank you very much well you go ahead and then uh Kathy thank you Lucina uh thank you Kyle uh what's your name I forgot your name sorry Cora Cara thank you so much for your for your presentation um before I delve into your questions um I was wondering if you could just clarify something in your presentation you spoke about um item ph10 point3 specifically the planning and housing commit directed staff to report back with an Opa and mapping in quarter 4 for 2024 could you clarify is this Opa 558 specifically or just general Opa I just want to understand what you mean by that um and then I'll let me go give you some feedback um so just make note of that important piece um so with regards to um the engagement piece so your I think your first question is how do you how do we better engage with black communities across the city of Toronto um and black businesses and individuals in policy work uh like the Avenue news policy review so I'd like for you folks to consider the following first the inclusive engagement so making sure that you involve black communities in all stages of policy development and later on in its implementation to ensure their voices experience and experiences are reflected secondly is an equity focused impacts assessment uh so conducts thorough assessments to understand how policies will impact black communities focusing on mitigating potential negative effects and enhancing positive outcomes thirdly a tar targeted support So develop specific initiatives to support blackowned businesses and address barriers they face in accessing opportunities uh fourthly the cultural competency training uh ensure that City staff and partners involved in the Implement implementing policies I just want to get most sense of that um are you trained in culturally in cultural compet competencies and anti-black racism uh to Foster inclusive and Equitable practices so I I want to have a better sense of Your Capacity as a team that's doing this important work uh lastly transparent communication so um I think it's important uh to maintain open and transparent communication with black communities about policy changes what are the opportunities and outcomes to build trust and accountability um you also asked uh a really important questions like who do you need to engage with who are the Stak holders um so I'll start off saying I think it's important to engage with neighborhood associations um thinking about uh the members of fastra of fanta so I hope you have that on the list uh black community organizations so engaging with local groups that represent black residents to understand Community specific needs and challenges uh and we can support you identifying those uh specific organizations blacktone businesses including ens sure that you connect with black entrepreneurs and business owners to discuss the economic opportunities uh but as well as any barriers that they may want us to consider um I think you also need to connect with advocacy and civil rights groups so to ensure that there's collaboration with organizations focus on anti-black racism and social justice to ensure that policies are Equitable um I think it's also important to also engage with youth and educational institutions uh so how involving Young people and educational bodies to address long-term impacts and opportunities for black communities thinking of the school of cities uh being one example um there is the Toronto youth cabinet uh the city's own sort of uh forum for youth involvement um and I think it's also important to think about which local leaders uh and and and and basically how do you collect information from local residents of Toronto on um influencing uh this uh policy development so to to ensure that they there a they feel a direct stake in this important work uh so if you could maybe clarify uh my first point related to Opa because uh you know we're in the midst of a housing crisis uh so I want to better appreciate the work that's been done but also what is the direction from the planning and housing committee when it comes to uh implementing the city's own bylaw for example Opa 5 8 but it wasn't very clear to me so I just want to get that response thank you for the uh the question and and for the um the feedback um so just on Opa 558 so that is the OPA that updated the definition of affordable rental housing so that is a different Opa than what would be proposed through this initiative um our initiative doesn't have a Opa number right now um so uh those are those are different matters could you clarify what what what is the OPA that's coming to the planning housing committee could you just give us some app I want to appreciate what work you're doing so the OPA would be proposing um so that the few slides that I went over I can go over them again just very quickly so these slides here so one uh so the OPA would be looking at proposing policy changes to streamline the study requirements along the Avenues it would also be looking to implement the typology framework um so the three typologies that we've identified here and their companion policies that relate to the plan built form uh the sort of line uses that would be encouraged or required as well as that commercial replacement policy um and then for the mapping changes um that would be looking to make um you know updates to this map 2 the urban structure map identifying where new avenues are across Toronto okay thank you uh Kathy go ahead thank you very much for the presentation I have uh two questions so back to the typology framework I certainly understand um that the use the land use in those um different corridors um would be different but there's no definition for what defines a main street avenue corridor from a residential Avenue Corridor um but it makes a big difference in terms of how you land is used along those corridors so if you could um address that question and in terms of um your questions to us uh what should be considered in terms of experience of black communities businesses individuals is the hisor the history of those communities there's a long history of development uh being used to actually break up the black community and so understanding what had what what is not only important to the community which you get from engaging with the community but understanding how it is that those communities developed and evolved so little Jamaica is certainly the closest example that we have right now but if you go back to the turn of the century St John's Ward was a vibrant immigrant as well as black community that are bulldozed to put City Hall so we're sitting on top of St John's Ward so what is very important I think is is understanding um the importance of those communities to the communities that are there um when thinking about the development thank you very much for that feedback and we'll we'll definitely take that back and and build that into our project um as it relates to the question um so uh I'll try and keep this as simple as possible because it's easy to get uh into the jar jargon but uh so for the in terms of where the typology would apply so the typology would apply to all the existing Avenues and all the new avenues but in terms of which Avenue would be identified as which typology so the main street avenue corridors um we're proposing would be identified in areas that already serve a commercial role so that could be you know the traditional main streets that we think about uh like you know your blor and Dan fors and queen streets uh but also you know when you look to toico North York Scaro those are areas that don't have these sort of traditional main streets as such instead you know it's the strip plazas and the malls that kind of serve um the commercial function for local residents and so those would be um those areas that have those strip plazas would also um be uh areas that we would identify likely as this Main Street Avenue Corridor so the ention is that these areas continue to play that that commercial that important commercial function for the local neighborhoods and uh again um just stressing the point around that commercial replacement policy so recognizing that these areas do already serve a function that um at minimum we would want to maintain ensure that uh that space is maintained should those areas be be redeveloped um as in terms of the residential Avenue corridors so those would be identified in areas that serve a residential function so you know there are large long stretches of of um streets and Scaro and toore North York even Toronto East York where it's primarily residential people aren't currently going there um to access their daily amenities and so uh our proposal would be that those areas would uh maintain their their commercial sorry their residential role um and then the mixed use Avenue nodes so those would be identified in areas where you have two avenues that are intersecting um and where uh there are suitable uh Redevelopment opportunity so not every instance of two Avenues intersecting would would likely be identified as a node but if there is a um areas where there's a large surface parking lot or or vacant land perhaps those would be areas where uh the mixed use Avenue node would be identified and that would be reflected in the um the draft proposed map that we would bring forward to the planning housing committee so it's not that typology as you as you as you noted isn't part of the map that we showed but would be um uh uh when we uh uh go forward to planning housing committee and city council can I just quickly follow up uh yeah 30 seconds all right so just just to clarify so when I look on this map I see that uh Gerard Street East would probably fit your definition of what would be a main street but presently that area just has like twostory like independent businesses So based upon what you're telling me is that saying that that would be a corridor that would be you know Target would be uh slated for um high-rise development so I think along that stretch that would likely be um a like a corridor so that would mean that the plan to build form would be potentially midrise um and the I guess I should just stress that the the idea of the of the plan built form is that it's sort of providing Direction around the kind of growth the sort of maximum level of growth the city would want to see in that area um you know I think what we've seen along if you look at you know stretches of of blor Street and even Gerard I mean the that uh Gerard's been identified as an Avenue for the past 20 years and very the growth has been very incremental um and so um I think we're anticipating that even with this new uh policy framework that that would continue um and that these policies would help to maintain the the function that this area that those kinds of areas already serve um and perhaps enhance them even more by bringing more people into the area okay thank you so much um I actually have a quick question um and please bear with me as I uh sort of gather my thoughts but it follows Cathy's Point um to to an extent on the displacement historical and ongoing displacement of communities um and you did mention the risk for gentrification as a very real concern and consideration in your work um one thing that I noted in the presentation was um the principle of avoiding areas with High um uh a high degree I guess of rental housing and avoiding the Redevelopment of those areas which I think um it makes sense I think when you're looking at it from that anti-gentrification lens and wanting to avoid that displacement of folks um but I'm simultaneously also wondering of the equity impacts of building walkable cities and proximity to Avenues for folks who are in rental housing and the you know the the the fact you know the reality is that like home ownership is a very it's a challenge right in Toronto and and so I guess how is the policy review or how is your team I guess considering that balance between Redevelopment and also um you know building uh age friendly communities demension friendly communities where you can think find things you know within a an a certain radius of your neighborhood and um you know just creating accessible cities that are accessible to everybody including those who are renters um so I'm just curious about that and that balance between Redevelopment and uh yeah the rental I guess the rental space and folks who occupy those spaces so I I can just start um and then I'll pass it over to see if Kyle has anything to add but I would just say that um City Planning um we do have a lot of um ongoing initiatives and another initiative um that we didn't mention today because it's not part of this work but it is closely related is um our apartment um apartment neighborhood infill study which is going to be looking at how existing apartment neighborhoods can accommodate development but in the form of infill so in the spaces around the existing buildings so not demolition or replacement of the buildings um so I think that's a piece that um you know an important piece of work that would sort of address those those issues and those concerns in terms of providing uh complete communities while maintaining the existing uh apartment uh housing stock um so I think that's another um and that one um is a little bit I would say um beh like behind our work in terms of where they are in the process but um I'm sure at some point um they will will be looking to um speak to uh people around this table as well I'll pass it over I don't know if you have anything to add nothing else to add at this point thanks thank you very much uh do we have any other questions on this item no questions okay uh so hearing uh no other questions one last question I just came to my mind sorry um how will this policy development in your opinion uh help address the affordability housing affordability crisis like I you know know my earlier remarks focus on Opa 558 was I trying to get to that point so it would be great to hear your feedback thanks for the question and you know I think in the consultations that we've had uh thus far we've been pretty Frank in admitting that the Avenue policy review is not a silver bullet for the housing affordability crisis um that we've been dealing with for decades now um that being said you know the reason why it's part of the housing action plan is because um you know there's a recognition that through this Avenue's work um we can look to uh accommodate uh more people within our existing neighborhoods um and you know I think some economists would probably argue that more housing Supply can help um alleviate um those growth pressures um that that we seeing come to Toronto um I don't have the I didn't have the slide on here just for the sake of uh trying to keep this uh concise but um you know by 2051 um you know we're expecting hundreds of thousands of more people to move to Toronto and um if we're not keeping up with the housing to meet that demand then um you know it's likely that we would see increases in in housing prices both in terms of ownership and Rental so uh you know the Avenue policies are limited in their ability to deliver affordable housing um there are other initiatives that are looking to do that this is very much focused on um again providing more housing options in existing neighborhoods and um just as importantly to help create um more complete communities throughout Toronto by creating those uh commercial spaces and institutional spaces uh to bring those Services closer to where people live thank you very much um so are there any speakers to this item okay uh so Dr Newton Thompson go ahead you have five minutes thank you very much thanks for the presentation and um I just wanted to First really agree with Dr mosow and and you know that we need to really look at the history of of and I'm looking at the questions and answers that's what I'm speaking to so we should really look at the history and the experiences in black communities in the areas that we want to be developing but um in terms of the consultation the in the second question you're asking who are the important stakeholders that we should engage with in the black community I think you can find stakeholders in mosques in churches in barber shops in beauty salons in kid in restaurants you know black own establishments you can find them there there cuz I personally in the city when I hear their consultations of the black community I never somehow get the information to be involved and I'm thinking that is the case for a lot of other people and you should go where they are I'm finished Okay so before uh I accept any other speakers could we have folks online turn on their camera so we can confirm Quorum again um Helo just wanting to confirm that you're still present sorry yes I'm not sure why my phone camera is not letting me connect there we go okay thank thank you so much so we're just going to pause uh business while we wait for another member to enter the room thank you everyone for your patience e e e e okay um so I've been advised by the clerk that we have lost Quorum um so as per procedures we have to unfortunately wait uh 15 minutes um to see if we can get cor back and if not we'll have to adjourn the meeting for today thank you everyone again for your patience e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e hello members this is the clerk um 15 minutes has elapsed and the time is 2:30 so I'm going to call the role George Amo not present Beverly Jean Daniel not present Halo Hashi hi present present thank you wed Kali Ali present Queen kakoi present Shannon Lawrence not present Salma not present May Mohammad present councelor Chris Moyes not present Kathy Moscow not present sheris Newton Thompson present Lucina rovo present Rosemary Sadlier pres pres AIA techi Anan not present am manuri William not present uh Quorum has not been achieved uh the meeting is adjourned goodbye everybody bye everyone have a good rest of your day take care for