Hall | In a world of symbolic gestures, we challenged Canada to be better. Here’s how we did

2025/07/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

Five years ago, the world changed — and so did we.

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and a global reckoning on racial injustice, we chose to act. In July 2020, more than 500 organizations across Canada joined us to say enough is enough: enough of looking the other way, and enough of a system that too often overlooks or sidelines Black Canadians while claiming to support progress.

The leaders of these organizations signed on to the BlackNorth Initiative Pledge committing to dismantle anti-Black racism in their organizations and beyond. They include CEOs, board chairs, and senior executives from Canada’s largest banks, law firms, corporations, universities, government agencies and non-profit institutions.

As we mark the five-year anniversary of the BlackNorth Initiative, we say with clarity and conviction: we have made change happen. It was not symbolic. It was structural.

Executives have been hired. Boards have diversified. Procurement systems have been restructured. Black youth are breaking into sectors that once kept them out. Equity has moved from the margins of corporate decks to the core of strategic operations. We have redefined what leadership looks like in Canada and who gets to be seen as a leader.

The numbers bear this out. Notably, among TSX-listed companies that committed to the BlackNorth Initiative’s voluntary pledge, Black board representation reached 3.3 per cent, double that of non-BNI companies at 1.6 per cent. The proportion of Black executives also rose from 1.0 per cent in 2020 to 1.5 per cent in 2022, aligning with the 1.5 per cent representation seen among BNI signatories.

These findings underscore the power of voluntary commitments to drive real, systemic change and to foster greater inclusion at the highest levels of leadership.

And the results go beyond numbers. Companies that signed the pledge are speaking up. Leaders across sectors have testified that committing to the Pledge has strengthened their talent pipelines, innovation capacity, and overall performance.

This is the ripple effect of equity done right. Diverse companies are better companies.

And yet, even now, the urgency has not faded.

Wes Hall is the founder and chairman of the BlackNorth Initiative and founder & CEO of Kingsdale Advisors & Executive Chairman & Founder of WeShall Investments. Dahabo Ahmed Omer is the CEO of the BlackNorth Initiative.

Source: Opinion | In a world of symbolic gestures, we challenged Canada to be better. Here’s how we did

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Two years after signing BlackNorth Initiative, majority of companies have failed to make substantial progress on diversity, survey shows

2022/08/01 Leave a comment

Good to see the tracking. Good highlighting of some of the better practices that can be more broadly applied (both for Blacks and other minorities):

Some of the largest companies in Canada that announced high-profile commitments to address anti-Black systemic racism two years ago have made major strides in improving the number of Black employees hired and elevated into executive roles, a Globe and Mail analysis has found.

But those companies remain among a minority of signatories of the BlackNorth Initiative – a 2020 pledge aimed at tackling systemic racism – to make substantial progress toward the diversity goals they committed to meet over five years.

On three prominent metrics – the number of Black employees, Black executives and Black directors – only about 10 per cent of the 481 companies that signed on have reported an improvement in any of those categories over the past two years.

Among 145 companies that responded to The Globe’s survey in the spring of 2022, the median percentage of Black employees increased to 4.8 per cent, up from 3.7 per cent in 2020, before companies signed the BlackNorth pledge.

But 70 per cent of companies that signed the pledge either did not respond to The Globe’s survey this spring about the racial composition of their work force, or said they did not track that data. Thus, improvements in the number of Black and other racialized employees since 2020 were only apparent among the minority of companies that responded to The Globe with detailed data.

“I think it’s safe to say that a low response rate correlates to the slow amount of change that is happening,” said Kike Ojo-Thompson, founder and chief executive of the KOJO Institute, a Toronto-based diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy.

While projects such as the initiative encourage companies to assess themselves and provide external accountability, they also highlight areas in which corporate Canada has yet to improve.

To Dahabo Ahmed-Omer, executive director of the BlackNorth Initiative, it’s no surprise that many companies are slow to make progress. “It’s not just about putting a signature on the dotted line. That’s not what this initiative is about,” she said.

The initiative, a Toronto-based non-profit organization, was founded by Bay Street financier and philanthropist Wes Hall in July, 2020, amid a wave of global Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd by a white police officer. Broadly speaking, the initiative encouraged employers to commit to targets to raise the number of Black employees, and to ensure no barriers exist for Black employees trying to advance.

Companies were challenged to commit to a seven-pronged pledge over five years, including promises to have at least 3.5 per cent of board and executive roles occupied by Black people by 2025, and ensure Black student hires make up 5 per cent of the overall intern population of a workplace. Signatories also committed to investing at least 3 per cent of corporate donations in organizations that create economic opportunities in the Black community.

The initiative was swiftly embraced by corporate Canada. Within days of its launch, more than 200 prominent companies, including Rogers Communications Inc., most of the Big Five banks, and multinational heavyweights such as Coca-Cola and Adidas signed on. Many were quick to issue news releases, reiterating their commitments to diversity, and promising to address anti-Black systemic racism within their workplaces.

Over the following 12 months, close to 500 companies of all sizes – including The Globe – signed on. BlackNorth itself expanded – in headcount and the value of corporate donations it received – as it became the pre-eminent entity advising corporate Canada on diversity and equity.

This spring, The Globe surveyed all 481 companies that have signed the pledge to assess progress toward the five-year goals. The survey was similar to The Globe’s survey last yearof 209 companies that signed the pledge in July, 2020.

The Globe asked companies to respond to an 18-question survey based on the seven goals in the pledge, and gave companies roughly six weeks to respond.

The questions were designed to determine how the diversity of the companies’ work forces – particularly the composition of Black employees – has changed since the summer of 2020. The Globe also collected data on the number of Black directors and executives.

The Globe showed some improvement itself in the number of Black executives and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) employees in its work force. Currently, 10 per cent of executive roles are held by Black employees, up from zero in 2020.

The Globe doesn’t track the total number of Black employees, but says 30 per cent of employees are now BIPOC, up from 25 per cent before The Globe signed the pledge in late 2020. However, as a private company with a small board, The Globe does not have a Black board member.

Critically, just 30 per cent of BlackNorth signatories – or 145 companies – responded to The Globe’s survey, significantly lower than last year’s response rate. Twelve additional companies did not respond, but provided separate written submissions on how they worked toward meeting their diversity goals.

Among the companies that responded, many either chose not to disclose numerical data on the racial composition of their organizations, or said they did not track it.

However, almost all the companies that responded, even those that did not last year, said they have established diversity leadership councils and come up with a strategic “diversity and inclusion plan,” which were two requirements of the BlackNorth pledge.

Other key findings of The Globe survey from the 145 companies that responded:

  • The median number of Black employees across those companies increased over the past two years – from 3.7 per cent in 2020, to 4 per cent in 2021, to 4.8 per cent in 2022.
  • The median number of BIPOC employees also increased – from 25.6 per cent in 2020, to 31.9 per cent in 2021, to 33 per cent in 2022.
  • The median number of Black executives increased from 0 per cent in 2020, to 1 per cent in 2021, to 2 per cent in 2022.
  • A majority of companies tracked the number of Black directors on their boards. The median percentage increased from 0 per cent in 2020 and 2021, to 0.5 per cent currently.
  • There was a marked improvement in the number of companies that tracked diversity data since signing the BNI pledge. For example, before signing, just 40 per cent of the 145 companies said they tracked data on the number of Black employees. In 2022, the proportion increased to 60 per cent.
  • 30 companies with more than 5,000 employees – including Manulife Financial Corp., SickKids hospital and HSBC Canada – made significant gains in the number of Black directors. The median number of Black board members was 6.5 per cent in 2022, increasing from 2.35 per cent last year.

The results were, for the most part, better than last year, when a majority of companies made little to no improvement in hiring or elevating the number of Black people, mainly because they did not have the right systems in place to track diversity data.

…

Source: Two years after signing BlackNorth Initiative, majority of companies have failed to make substantial progress on diversity, survey shows

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21 racialized Canadians who could help the Order of Canada look more like Canada

2020/12/07 Leave a comment

Did a quick diversity analysis: 10 Black, 5 Chinese, 2 South Asian, 1 Japanese, 1 Indigenous (surprising that Murray Sinclair has not already been awarded the Order), and no Arab/West Asian or Southeast Asian. 15 women, 5 men. Weighted towards activists:

Earlier this week, the BlackNorth Initiative made a point that seemingly too few people had realized: the 114 people named to the Order of Canada this year were overwhelmingly white and men.

The organization, led by the Canadian Council of Business Leaders Against Anti-Black Systemic Racism, sent a letter to Gov. Gen. Julie Payette, whose office hands out the awards, calling for change. 

Only one Black Canadian, Denham Jolly, was listed when the honours were announced Nov. 27, along with a few Indigenous and Asian recipients. Outside of this year, the more than 4,000 Canadians appointed to the Order of Canada are mostly white. Since 2013, only 4.8 per cent of appointees have been visible minorities, while they account for 22.3 per cent of the population of Canada, based on research from Andrew Griffith, who focuses on diversity in politics, and reported by CBC News.

The Star asked community organizations, staff and members of the public which racialized Canadians they think could receive a nomination in the future.

Anyone can make a nomination and the nominees don’t have to be Canadian citizens, rather simply someone who has “enriched the lives of others and made our country a better place” over their lifetime. Elected officials and judges are ineligible while in office. 

These are some of the suggestions: 

M. NourbeSe Philip is an award-winning poet, writer and lawyer born in Tobago and based in Toronto. Philip’s work has helped build an understanding of the Caribbean experience in Canada. Before writing full-time, she was a practising lawyer for seven years. Her work includes “Harriet’s Daughter,” “Caribana: African Roots & Continuities” and “Zong!” In 1990, Philip was named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. 

Maryka Omatsu was the first Asian woman judge, appointed to the Ontario Court 1993. She is a member of the Order of Ontario as of 2015. Omatsu played a key role in achieving redress for Japanese Canadians interned during the Second World War and is the author of “Bittersweet Passage,” a book that documented the Japanese Canadian community’s campaign for an apology and an acknowledgment of the racism they endured during WWII.

Adelle Blackett is a law professor at McGill University. As a legal scholar, her work has focused on human rights and labour law. In 2009, Quebec’s national assembly appointed her to the province’s human rights commission. She’s received several awards and fellowships over the years, including from Barreau du Québec for her social commitment and her contributions to the advancement of women, and from the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers for her contributions to the legal community and community at large. She was also elected a fellow to the Royal Society of Canada in 2020 and was a 2016 fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

Gary Yee is a lawyer who has devoted his career and community activities to legal clinics, adjudicative tribunals, access to justice and anti-racism. Yee was the president of the Chinese Canadian National Council, where he spearheaded the redress campaign for the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act. 

Paul Taylor has worked in food security and anti-poverty in both Toronto and Vancouver. He is currently the executive director of FoodShare Toronto. Taylor works to both feed and support communities while changing narratives and perceptions about the causes of food insecurity and advocating for workers’ rights. In 2020, Taylor was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.

Dr. Alan Tai-Wai Li has been a physician with the Regent Park Community Health Centre since the 1980s. Li has worked in HIV/AIDS research through the Ontario HIV Treatment Network and the Committee for Accessible AIDS Treatment. His work has focused on many marginalized communities including newcomers and racialized communities living with HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ people, people struggling with mental health and addictions, and those experiencing poverty and homelessness.

Lynn Jones has spent her life campaigning for civil rights in Nova Scotia as an educator, and a community and labour organizer. She grew up at a time when her hometown of Truro, N.S., was segregated in a family of activists. She worked with Saint Mary’s University to create the Lynn Jones African-Canadian and Diaspora Heritage Collection, which documents her family’s activism and 50 years of Black Nova Scotian history. Jones was also a vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, where she pushed for an anti-racism report on unions and their communities in Canada in 1995.

Vivek Shraya is a Calgary artist who works across music, literature, visual art, theatre and film. Her bestselling book “I’m Afraid of Men” explores the role masculinity has played throughout her life as a trans woman. Shraya is founder of the publishing imprint VS and has taught creative writing at the University of Calgary. Her album with the Queer Songbook Orchestra, “Part-Time Woman,” was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize.

Amy Go has been a social worker for over 30 years and worked to break down barriers for immigrants and racialized people. Go has worked to promote culturally appropriate long-term care through her work as executive director at the Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care. She co-created the CARE Centre for Internationally Educated Nurses in 2001, helping women around the globe pass registration exams to work in their profession. She is also the founding president of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice.

Akua Benjamin has been involved in numerous community groups and initiatives advocating for change, and challenging racist policies and structures. Groups in which she has played leadership roles include the Black Action Defence Committee, National Action Committee on the Status of Women and the Congress of Black Women. In 2003, she became the first Black director at Ryerson University. She was a social work professor at Ryerson University for decades and is now head of the Akua Benjamin Project at Ryerson.

Winnie Ng is a long-time social justice and union activist. For more than three decades, Ng championed workers’ rights through her involvement in labour organizations and networks, including as acting executive director of the Labour Education Centre, the Canadian Labour Congress’s Ontario regional director and Ryerson’s CAW-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy. 

Afua Cooper has made contributions to Black studies and art in Canada. Cooper is a sociology professor at Dalhousie University where she was the James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies from 2011 to 2017. She founded the Black Canadian Studies Association and was Halifax’s seventh poet laureate. Her book “The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal” was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award.

Murray Sinclair served the justice system in Manitoba for decades. He was the first Indigenous judge appointed in Manitoba and the second in Canada. The senator was chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, conducting hearings across the country on the impact of residential schools on Indigenous people, culminating in a report on a way forward toward reconciliation. (Note: officials are ineligible while serving.) 

Baldev Mutta has been in social work for more than 40 years. He founded Punjabi Community Health Services, which started in Mississauga and expanded across Ontario. He has worked for the last 28 years developing a holistic model to address substance abuse, mental health and family violence in South Asian communities and increase access to services for these communities.

Debbie Douglas is the executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. She has highlighted issues of equity and inclusion including race, gender and sexual orientation within the immigration system and advocated for safe, welcoming spaces in settlement and integration. She has received several awards, including a Women of Distinction Award from YWCA Toronto, the Amino Malko Award from the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture and an Urban Alliance on Race Relations Racial Equity Award. 

Susan Eng is a lawyer and has been involved in community efforts, including as a founding board member of the Chinese Canadian National Council and as part of the campaign for redress for the Chinese Canadian head tax. Eng was a chair of the Toronto Police Services Board and a vice-president of Canadian Association of Retired Persons. 

Angela Marie MacDougall is the executive director of Vancouver’s Battered Women’s Support Services. MacDougall has advocated for women’s empowerment and against violence against women, and worked on strategies to create gender equity. The City of Vancouver named her a Remarkable Woman in 2014.

OmiSoore Dryden is the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies in the faculty of medicine at Dalhousie University. She has studied the experiences of Black Canadians in the health-care system. She led research into the barriers that gay, bisexual and trans men encounter when attempting to donate blood in Canada.

Grace-Edward Galabuzi is a Ryerson University professor researching experiences of recent immigrants and racialized groups in the Canadian labour market; race and poverty, and social exclusion. Galabuzi also worked in the Ontario government as a senior policy analyst on justice issues in the early ’90s.

Avvy Go is a lawyer and director of the Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. Go has worked largely in legal clinics serving low-income individuals and families, immigrants and refugees. She has also served on several boards and councils including the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council and the Ontario Justice Education Network. Outside of her legal practice, Go organized in the community for causes related to poverty, racism and Chinese Canadians.

Ingrid Waldron is a sociologist and professor in the faculty of health at Dalhousie University. Her work has encompassed the impacts of racial inequities on health. Over the last eight years, through the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health (ENRICH) Project, she has studied the social and health effects of environmental racism in Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/12/05/21-racialized-canadians-who-could-help-the-order-of-canada-look-more-like-canada.html

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BlackNorth Initiative calls for ‘too white’ Order of Canada to ‘reflect the deep cultural mosaic of our country’

2020/12/02 Leave a comment

While the overall point of under-representation of visible minorities and Black Canadians in particular is factually correct, Wes Hall does not appear to understand how the Order selection process works. It is based upon nominations, which are reviewed by the selection committee which makes the recommendations, for the formal approval of the Governor General.

Rather than calling on the Governor General, the correct and more effective approach is to ensure more nominations of visible minority and other under-represented groups.

Proposing the nomination of dead Canadians is a non-starter as this would have to be open to all and most award programs are for the living, not the deceased, the most prominent being the Nobels.

Recognition of Viola Desmond on the $10 bill is both more significant and more appropriate.

In doing the background research for the chart above (and associated deck https://multiculturalmeanderings.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/order-of-canada-2013-20-diversity-1.pdf ), the Governor General’s office provided with earlier gender data that showed that the selection committee made an effort to improve women’s representation: while only 26.9 percent of nominations were women, 32.6 percent of appointments were women (2010-14 data):

The BlackNorth Initiative has spoken out about the racial gap in home ownership among Black people, the lack of Black people in boardrooms — and now it has turned its attention to one of the country’s highest civilian honours: The Order of Canada.

In a letter to Julie Payette, Canada’s Governor General, whose office hands out the awards, the initiative points out that only one Black Canadian was included out of the 114 recipients in 2020.

“If the Order of Canada is truly meant to reflect our country, then why do we not honour, dignify and celebrate the contributions of countless Black Canadian leaders who have pre-eminence, national and international service, and achievement?” asks the letter, signed by the initiative’s founder and chairman Wes Hall.

“The problem is that the vast majority of those 7,000 people who have received the Order are white and do not reflect the deep cultural mosaic of our country, especially Blacks.” 

Hall is also the executive chairman and founder of Kingsdale Advisors, which advises many of Canada’s large publicly traded companies. Hall says his experience working as a Black man in Canada led to many business leaders reaching out to him, resulting in the BlackNorth Initiative.

“I’m curious to see the reaction to this letter,” he said in an interview with the Star. “Our job is to keep shedding light on the systemic racism in our society, and hope they change their process.” 

The letter makes a number of recommendations, including the investiture of five Black Canadian leaders: businessman Michael Lee-Chin; athlete and Olympic gold-medallist Donovan Bailey; lawyer Robert Sutherland (born in Jamaica in 1830, died in Toronto in 1878); businesswoman and activist Viola Irene Desmond, who died in 1965; and social worker and Canada’s first Black MLA, Rosemary Brown, who died in 2003. The latter three have died, and the Order of Canada isn’t awarded to people posthumously — they’re given to living people. 

Hall says this was deliberate. He points out that the only 2020 Black recipient, B. Denham Jolly — who was awarded for his contribution to the promotion of equality and opportunity within the Greater Toronto Area — is already 85.

“I could die tomorrow, and no one would know about my accomplishment to society,” said Hall. 

He points out in the letter to Payette that, since 2013, only 4.8 per cent of the Order of Canada appointments are made up of visible minorities, “well below the 30 per cent of the population who identified as visible minority.”

“71.4 per cent of appointees in 2019 were men. The low number of women among the 2019 appointees — just 28.6 per cent of the total — and the low number of visible minorities — just 5.4 per cent — show the Order of Canada falling short of representing Canada’s diverse population,” the letter reads. 

Accusing the Order of Canada of forgetting countless Black Canadians, the letter urges Payette to do the “right thing.” 

“This chronic lack of recognition of Black Canadians must end. The time is now to set a path forward to equality, equity and justice for Black Canadians.”

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/12/01/blacknorth-initiative-calls-for-too-white-order-of-canada-to-reflect-the-deep-cultural-mosaic-of-our-country.html

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Want a more diverse work force? Move beyond inclusion to belonging

2020/07/28 Leave a comment

A private sector view from Jaqui Parchment, CEO of Mercer Canada and a director of the BlackNorth Initiative:

In recent weeks, individuals and organizations across North America and beyond have engaged in important conversations about systemic racism and how it is embedded in our institutions, workplaces and daily lives. It’s been heartening to hear from people from diverse backgrounds expressing a desire to learn, to reflect and to consider the roles they can play in addressing these issues. These conversations, while difficult and stemming from recent instances of horrific violence, are necessary if we want to create lasting change.

In order to do so, however, we need to think beyond short-term solutions. Instead, from a business perspective, we need to focus on improving the employee experience for a more diverse Canadian work force. We need to shift our thinking to move from a focus on diversity and inclusion alone, and start cultivating a more deeply-rooted sense of belonging in our workplaces.

This requires a fundamental shift in the way we do business. Leaders must encourage open communication and really listening to their staff, be willing to make the necessary changes, conduct themselves with compassion and put their people first. It’s not just the right thing to do; it’s also the smart thing to do: A workplace where employees can bring their full selves is one where they will be engaged, productive and want to stay.

The focus on belonging at work is deeply personal to me. As one of the few Black chief executives in Canada, and as a woman in the corporate world, I came up through the ranks at a time when diversity was neither prized nor a focus. I sat in meetings, attended networking events and activities and started to notice and think about the thousand seemingly small things that happen at work every day that might make an employee feel like they don’t belong. This could be the food that’s served, the music that plays at an event, the kind of networking activities that are hosted, and who is represented at conferences, speaking engagements, town halls, as co-authors of research, and in a company’s branding.

In addition to ensuring a diverse group of voices are heard, there is also tremendous power in people feeling seen, represented, reflected and promoted at work, both within the organization and externally. These things might seem small or innocuous individually, but in aggregate they send important messages, showing employees of colour what is possible for them to accomplish and letting them know that they are seen and valued by their companies. These actions signal to employees and clients who belongs, and who does not, who the corporate world is designed for, and who is excluded from consideration.

I carried these ideas with me as I advanced to my current position as CEO of Mercer Canada, where I now have the opportunity to build a workplace where everyone feels like they belong. With colleagues whose families come from more than 78 different countries in our Toronto office alone, we recognize that we need to ensure we reflect this diversity whenever possible. We started in our Toronto office by reviewing our client entertainment practices. Where hockey games and golf tournaments were previously the biggest client events, we’ve now looked for more representative ways of engaging all our clients and finding opportunities for all our colleagues. Instead of hosting events with food, music and images representing little to no racial diversity, we’ll serve food and play music from various cultures, and ensure our images are representative of a diverse work force.

In terms of charitable efforts, we have chosen to support local initiatives in our community that better reflect the needs of a diverse society, recognizing that people are more likely to feel they belong if their companies are prepared to align with the social justice issues and philanthropy initiatives relevant to their communities.

It’s time for the difficult and necessary work of looking inward and making fundamental changes to our workplaces. This work can and must begin right now if we are going to capitalize on a time when, finally, real change seems possible.

Source: Want a more diverse work force? Move beyond inclusion to belonging

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