Alex Vachon White & Nigel Neale
Co-Chairs, EDI Council
Consulate General of Canada in New York
Among Canada’s top priorities is addressing the challenges and systemic barriers faced by underrepresented groups. This cuts across our society at home and abroad.
At the Consulate General of Canada in NY, EDI is embedded in our culture. We understand why we need this; our focus is now squarely focussed on how we make this a cornerstone of our management across the mission.
It starts from the top – our Acting Consul General Khawar Nasim serves as our top champion and established our EDI Council last June by appointing two committed colleagues to drive it forward: Kathrin Gallo and Anthony Alexander.
The Council’s commitment to applying an EDI lens to our work can be framed in two dimensions: externally for our client-facing programs and events, and internally within the corporate structure of the Consulate. Here are some examples:
Helping the National Women’s Hockey League, HQ’d in Brooklyn, with its first-time expansion to Canada via a sixth NWHL franchise, the Toronto Six. This brings professional women’s hockey back to Canada, with a franchise planned for Montreal in 2022-23, and promotes EDI in sports.
Advancing gender equality and increasing the diversity of the Canadian business clients we recruit for our programs with the goal of achieving a minimum 50% representation from inclusive trade groups. We’ve applied this lens to our recent Canadian Technology Accelerator programs in cleantech and digital health, our cell and gene therapy accelerator run out of Philadelphia, and our two Women in Cleantech cohorts. We are intentional and deliberate in our efforts, working with partners across Canada and leveraging our LinkedIn page to reach our clients.
Our Foreign and Public Affairs team has put gender and racial equity at the forefront of cultural and advocacy programming. We continue to engage our Consul General in an ambitious and broad ranging outcall program with diverse stakeholders and seek to profile and support Canadian artists from underrepresented groups. Examples include our Connecting Perspectives initiative, which seeks to connect BIPOC artists from across Canada and the US to create new pieces of art together (virtually) and our partnership with Resolve Philly and our UK colleagues to bring together journalists from Canada, the UK and the US to discuss building structural equity in journalism.
Internally, in addition to establishing the Council through community engagement and developing an Equity Pledge and Action Plan with clear accountabilities, key deliverables include the incorporation of an EDI commitment in our contracts with external vendors, our job posters and our individual performance agreements.
Creating an environment where everyone can bring their whole self to work requires a hard commitment – to our values, to listen, and to take action in order to effect change.