Human Rights Committee Meeting
MINUTES - September 22, 2009
Attendees:
Timothy Hunt - President
Garth Caron - Vice-President
Evelyn Egger - Treasuer,
Joyce Lewis - Member (CEIU 30856)
Wally Fandrich - Member (UTE 30024)
Raj Hari - PSAC RO Staff
Special Guest: Constable Lynn MacDonald - Calgary Police Service
Meeting was called to order at 5:45pmby Brother Hunt.
Brother Hunt introduced a guest speaker, Constable Lynn MacDonald, who is part of Diversity Resources Unit of the Calgary City Police (CPS) which consists of thirteen (13) separate portfolios all of which are minority groups within the force and within the communities throughout Calgary. Her assignment is currently specific to GBLT and Disabilities (soon to be re-assigned to another officer). She works together with the various other groups. Diversity Group works on three (3) year plan to include campaigns to awareness within the Police force as well as in the community. All portfolios are a part of the Police Chief’s Advisory Board.
Some of the issues Cst. MacDonald touched base on included:
- Trusteeship vs. Guardianship
- Accessibility to provide service to the community (make sure they have vehicle available if they are picking up someone in a wheelchair) in providing police services to all Calgaryresidents
- Catering to all groups, including dealing with the Arian Guard. The policeare following AGto ensure they stay within the human rights guidelines and monitor their marches. Anti- white supremacists protestors are giving the AG the publicity that they want while drawing negative attention to them by initiating violence against the AG. Police don’t feel the AG are as much of a presence in Calgary as reported in the media as they bus in supremacists from around the country to the march to make it look like they have a large following but police feel locally there may be no more than a couple of dozen active members.
- Human rights vs. White supremacists, they are recruiting through the high schools. They had a CD complaint they were using as well to reach kids. Police don’t think High school recruitment has been that successful as schools have a counter awareness program, The AG were even offering to pay rent for new members but police don’t know how that’s working since existing members are being evicted for failure to pay their own rent.
- GBLT - Police have written Policy, Procedures to protect their employees under the Positive Workplace Initiative, which is outlined the their Management Guide. They are rolling out another facet of this training focused on the “Trans” community in February 2010 and expect to have it as a E-learning tool available to all the force in March 2010. This initiative came about as a result of a recent presentation by a transgender police officer from the UKto the Calgarypolice force outlining the difficulties she experienced on the job during the transgender procedure.
- GLBT Awareness campaign - they sponsored a film at the Film Festival to be shown at the Calgary Fairy Tales Film Festival, Orientation to employees for Work and Harassment Levels.
- Each of the groups work to support the employees and to educate the public with regards to acceptance and tolerance for the differences that come with the Diversity in out workplace and community.
The constable commented that if the HR committee was looking for a social justice project that they could support or subsidize one of the films at the festival.
Brother Hunt thanked the Constable for her time and she excused herself to attend yet another meeting in the community (6:20pm). This is the first invited speaker to the Human Rights Committee; Brother Hunt asked that anyone who wishes to seek out and invite speakers, with regards to our mission statement, to attend our meetings should send their requests through the chair of the committee or the Regional Officer (Raj Hari) for our committee.
The committee reviewed minutes of previous meeting. MOTION to accept the minutes from Sister Lewis and seconded by Brother Fandrich.
Report from Chair: Timothy Hunt
Executive has opened a chequing account with Bank of Nova Scotia, with Brothers Hunt & Fandrich and Sister Egger as signing authorities. Two cheques were written on this account since the last meeting for the following items:
New Balance on account $1,409.88, statements have not yet been received, tabled till the next meeting as they become available from the Regional Office.
Email to be sent to Area Council requesting a breakdown of costs for First Annual Labour Day BBQ being held at Olympic Plaza. Thank you to all who volunteered for the event it was a huge success.
Budget discussion ensued with regards to how to allocate the funds the committee was given; a breakdown was suggested with the following results:
Projected Costs: $300/yr - Food $50 Admin $400 Outreach
Decision from the group was to table the Budget to the next meeting scheduled for January 12th, 2010.
Social Justice Fund – Anti Poverty Guidelines were distributed to committee, there is $500- $2500 available for a project “Make Poverty History”. Brother Hunt has a video that was made by AUPE (Alberta Union of Provincial Employees) with respects to “The Mustard Seed”. We will do some preliminary work to find out costs to host a dinner and find out interest in volunteers to serve the meal. This project appears to have potential with the committee as our first project in the community to raise awareness of Human Rights.
ADHOC Meeting set for November 3rd at 5:30pm. We will confirm with members by October 21st. Decision to be made regards to submission for funding from Social Justice Fund via Louise Casselman.
ALL members are encouraged to BRING other members of your respective groups to next meeting.
Motion to adjourn at 7:40pm from Brother Hunt, Sister Egger seconded the motion.
Meeting adjourned 7:40pm.
Next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday January 12th at the Calgary Regional Office.