Local Black activists seek direct access to city leaders and police

Members of Edmonton’s Black community are calling for a forum to provide recommendations directly to city leaders and the police service, citing lack of power to influence change through the current anti-racism advisory committee.

Concerns on the effectiveness of the 12-member public board created last fall to advise council on issues of racism were raised Wednesday during the third session of council’s public hearing on proposed changes to policing in Edmonton, including a $16.3-million funding reduction in 2021.

African Canadian Civic Engagement Council president Dunia Nur, one of about 40 presenters to council, voiced disappointment with the committee’s mandate to provide feedback and highlight community initiatives for funding, but not make recommendations to councillors and police on addressing systemic racism. Work to develop the committee was a grassroots movement more than three years in the making from young Black people in the city and Nur said the group feels unheard in what the city ultimately created.

“The committee does not have the teeth to actually make recommendations and concrete tangible actions that can really make the city an anti-racist city and address anti-black racism specifically” she said in an interview with Postmedia. “The bylaw the city created is very weak and didn’t honour what we asked for as a community.”

This renewed conversation about policing should have already been happening through the committee, Nur argued in calling for an ongoing dialogue so community members can be listened to. The public hearing on a 12-point motion in front of city councillors was sparked by calls to divest funds and change the police model following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

“I only feel heard when actions are taken. So being heard, being valued, being listened to and being respected is when my words do not fall on somebody’s ear that will move away,” she said. “We’ve been doing this for years even when the crisis was not being seen or heard and it was invisible.”

Mayor Don Iveson, addressing media for the first time since the start of the hearing Monday, said he is hopeful city council can act on the calls for a new forum to address racism issues in the city and will propose an addition to the motion. Much of the formal work of the anti-racism advisory committee has been paused throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and Iveson said he is also advocating for the city to bring back laid-off employees who help run these committees.

“We need some place for the issues that we’re hearing about here to come in, including historic issues like the troubled legacy of Frank Oliver and what it means to continue to have a statue and parks named after someone with a dubious track record of supporting cultural genocide,” he said. “I clearly think that there is a need for some mechanism like that and that is a gap in our motion right now.”

About half of the 179 residents who were registered to speak by Wednesday’s noon deadline are still awaiting their turn to address council. With a session already added next Monday morning, council voted to continue the meeting all day next Wednesday after 79 people registered since Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, councillors asked Tuesday for the city’s new wards for the 2021 election to be given Indigenous names after the last-minute idea was brought forward by Macewan University’s Indigenous Centre and Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity.

The city’s naming committee initially suggested the wards be named geographically, but will now work with the Indigenous community to recommend 12 Indigenous place names for the new wards which will be presented to council by the end of September.