FCM Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion Efforts

FCM is the national voice of Canada’s local governments. Every day, municipalities across the country are working closely with citizens to address local challenges and inspire hope for the future. We are united by a commitment—as we often express it—to build better lives for Canadians. And fundamentally, we hold that every one of those lives should be free from racism, systemic oppression and racialized violence. That freedom should permeate our cities and communities where we live, work, educate and raise our families. It should be reflected in our workplaces, including FCM’s own. However, in all these places, Black, Indigenous and other racialized people continue to face pervasive systemic racism and injustice. Acknowledging this reality is essential to changing it.

FCM has the responsibility and opportunity to drive change. FCM and its Board of Directors have specifically acknowledged that racialized voices are underrepresented on elected municipal councils across the country and that this is reflected in the ranks of FCM’s own nationally elected board and senior leadership. FCM’s member municipalities have their own voice, as governments and as employers, and we recognize those who are openly pledging to do more. FCM commits to engaging and resourcing an assessment of how we can best help municipalities to strengthen local capacity and eliminate systemic racism. We also recognize that building our capacity across the entire board and engaging leadership on this issue is of critical importance. Being a leader who can work through the nuances and complexities of anti-racism and inclusion in Canada is a skill we believe all municipal leaders must develop in order to better serve our communities.

Recognizing the importance of this work, the FCM Board of Directors moved a motion to create a Standing Committee on Anti-Racism and Equity, and its inaugural Committee Chair was appointed in March 2021.

This formalized committee facilitates capacity-building opportunities for the board, establishes a forum to discuss promising practices nationally, highlights opportunities to develop more equitable governance models, and brings forward federal advocacy recommendations to the relevant Standing Committee, Board or Executive Committee as appropriate.

ARE Board Committee work to date

Since its inaugural meeting in September 2021, the ARE committee has taken various measures to make recommendations to the board, including providing and increasing AREI education and training to committee and board members, drafting resolutions, developing a strategic workplan (which included drafting and unanimously passing the ARE Commitment statement), and much more.

Through its board-approved ARE workplan, the ARE committee is working toward advancing FCM as an anti-racist and equitable board and guiding FCM to ground its organizational development, policies, programs and culture within an anti-racist and equity framework. While this work continues to grow and evolve with time, below are a few examples of the ARE committee’s work to date.

ARE commitment statement

The ARE commitment statement was passed by the FCM board in September 2022. This statement was informed by various internal and external stakeholders and was carefully crafted to ensure it is iterative and flexible in its nature while also aspirational toward a future state where we are meaningfully addressing racism and inequity.

Relevant resolutions via the ARE committee:

• Measures to Tackle Islamophobia - Passed in May and September 2022

In 2021, FCM hired its first Senior Director of Anti-Racism, Equity, Inclusion and Reconciliation (AREI+R) to lead the AREI+R work by building FCM’s capacity to build the systems for the integration of the principles and practices of AREI and apply them to programs, policies and processes across the organization. Between 2021 and 2023, the AREI+R team grew from one person to a five-person team, demonstrating FCM’s commitment to building an anti-racist, equitable and inclusive organization. The scope of work is both internal and external, with an additional focus on creating the conditions for members to take up this work and receive FCM support in their efforts.

Following an internal situational assessment, the AREI+R team established the following mission, goal, and objectives:

• Mission: to empower FCM and members to foster diverse, anti-racist, equitable and inclusive programs, policies and communities.
• Goal: to cultivate institutional culture and practices that values, embeds and promotes AREI and Reconciliation and accountability among FCM leadership, management, staff and members.
• Objectives:
  • Build AREI and Reconciliation capacity and confidence of FCM employees and members
  • Integrate AREI and Reconciliation principles and practices in FCM policies, practices, culture, decision making, programs and decision-making
  • Monitor and evaluate AREI and Reconciliation capacity, programs, outcomes and impact

Progress and success to date

Since 2021, there have been significant strides to advance and realize the goals of the AREI and Reconciliation team. This included attaching investments to commitments and appropriately resourcing the work to suitable candidates. Since then, the team and the organization have been on a journey. We have highlighted five successes to date, below.

1. Training all FCM staff (250+) on AREI fundamentals which were designed and developed for FCM

2. AREI Climate Assessment of the current FCM culture
   Over a six-month period, the AREI and Reconciliation team undertook the development, launch and evaluation of the FCM AREI Climate Assessment. The assessment was established to determine a baseline of staff perception and experiences of FCM’s culture, leadership and practices. The assessment consisted of an online survey and a series of courageous conversations. With a 71% engagement rate (215 FCM employees), the FCM and Reconciliation team is confident in the work that lies ahead to develop an action plan that integrates principles of AREI and Reconciliation into all areas of the organization.
   
   Implementing an AREI assessment enables organizations to surface issues and target them in a strategic and tailored way. It is important to know that upon finishing the assessment, it is critical to follow up with an action plan that addresses your municipality’s unique challenges.
   
   *Tip: if you are considering developing and launching a climate assessment within your municipality, please ensure that you can resource an action plan following the assessment.

3. Produced and have piloted a draft equity lens with the goal to launch early 2024
   Consisting of a set of AREI+R related questions, the Equity Lens is an analytic tool applied to key decisions, policies, events, and programs to identify AREI related gaps, implications, practices, strategies, and equity impact. The Equity Lens will serve as a resource for the consistent and measurable application of AREI+R principles and practices in implementing the FCM. so equity strategy, currently under development.

4. Developed AREI+R policy and Competency Framework
   The FCM AREI+R Policy outlines the organization commitment, expectations, roles and responsibilities for all FCM staff and board members.  The AREI Competency Framework clarifies the knowledge, skills and abilities staff are to demonstrate to facilitate performance management and assist staff members in identifying their current level of competency and the creation of a tailored learning and development plan. The framework employs a maturity model that presents a progression of KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities).

5. Drafted FCM’s first AREI Glossary Playbook that goes beyond providing definitions to fostering AREI language acquisition by explaining the context and evolution of language.

As demonstrated by all the success and progress to date, the FCM AREI and Reconciliation team is laying the critical foundation to position FCM as a leading AREI organization and to enable its members to build capacity and confidence in this area.

FCM and Statistics Canada

In March 2023, Statistics Canada, in partnership with FCM, launched the Centre for Municipal and Local Data (CMLD) portal, an important product of the sustained collaboration between the two organizations since October 2020.

This new data catalogue offers pertinent information for municipalities, such as the integration of census data, as well as statistics on housing, health, crime and more. This program also allows comparisons across select Canadian municipalities on standard financial indicators, including those relating to infrastructure spending and a mapping function, which displays a set of key indicators geographically and through data visualizations. Overall, this partnership advances municipalities' ability to better understand their communities from an intersectional perspective which will enable more inclusive and equitable policy making. This data can also be used to further cross-examine the relevance of current municipal policies and whom they are specifically serving. If municipalities lack a comprehensive picture of the communities they serve, it makes it increasingly difficult to pinpoint problems, deploy resources, initiate work, track and evaluate progress. This data catalogue can support and inform necessary and meaningful changes to truly build better communities where everyone is given equal opportunity to thrive.

“As the level of government closest to the everyday lives of Canadians, municipalities depend on reliable data to make important policy decisions that are impactful, equitable, inclusive, and will improve Canadians’ quality of life in tangible ways. FCM congratulates StatCan on its new portal and looks forward to continuing to work together to advance the data-related needs of municipalities.”
— Carole Saab, Chief Executive Officer, Federation of Canadian Municipalities

“A large share of public decisions that shape the fundamental character of our way of life are made at the municipal level. Statistics Canada is proud of its continued partnership with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and remains committed to improving access to municipal-level data, including disaggregated data, and establishing greater data-sharing and collaboration that foster data-driven decision-making to meet the needs of Canadians in their communities.”
— Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada

FCM and UNESCO Coalition of Inclusive Municipalities

This Canadian network brings together municipalities that want to improve their racism, discrimination, exclusion and intolerance policies. Its strength lies in the shared experiences of its members. Together, the municipalities undertake initiatives to eliminate all forms of discrimination with a view to building open and inclusive societies.

In Canada, 96 cities are members of the Coalition of Inclusive Municipalities. They advance initiatives to:

• improve their practices to promote social inclusion,
• establish policies to eradicate all forms of racism and discrimination, and
• promote human rights and diversity.

The members follow through on the Coalition's commitments for respecting, protecting and promoting human rights and diversity.

There are several important and interesting reports and resources available on their website, which are all available for download, including:

• Small and Rural Municipalities
  This toolkit provides practical information and resources for small and rural municipalities to support and strengthen their work in fighting racism and discrimination in all its forms, while also emphasizing the importance and benefits of embracing inclusionary practices.
• The Coalition of Inclusive Municipalities: A Guide for New and Established Members
  This updated toolkit provides practical information and resources for municipalities to support and strengthen their work in fighting racism and discrimination in all its forms, while also emphasizing the importance and benefits of embracing inclusionary practices.
• A call to mobilize against racism and discrimination
  During the pandemic, we saw the disproportionate impact of the crisis on racialized people, Indigenous people, immigrants and families with lower incomes. This is why the struggle against racial discrimination remains a central element in the Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s work.