Meeting Minutes
PIPSC HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIVERSITY COMMITTEE (HRDC)
Date: April 25, 2025
Place: Virtual
Meeting time: 9AM to 5PM ET
Meeting minutes taken by: Marielle Nadon
| Present: | Regrets: |
| Katie Francis – PIPSC VP – NCR- Chair Niraj Nitheanandan – CP – ATL – Member Harry Timla – AFS – ONT – Member Sally Hanna – SP – NCR – Member Madeeha Choudhry – CS – B.C., Yukon- Member Chinyere Okafor – SH – Prairies, NWT – Member (1 hour)Sean Stiff – CP – NCR – Friend of the Committee Mary Lycett – AFS – NCR – Friend of the Committee Richard Gaboton – PIPSC Staff Ressource Marielle Nadon – PIPSC Admin. Assistant | |
| Guests: | |
| Marie-Hélène Tougas (PIPSC Staff) Sean O’Reilly (PIPSC President) Julie Poon (PIPSC Staff) Sara Delaney (PIPSC Staff) |
| 1.Call to Order, Land Acknowledgement |
| Katie Francis opens the meeting with words of welcome. Sean performed the land acknowledgement. He proposes a tutorial on how to write and craft a land acknowledgement and offers his help doing so. |
| 2. Approval of Agenda and Previous Meeting Minutes |
| The agenda is modified to add a discussion on the Toronto Pride Parade. The agenda is approved. There is a minor change in the previous (March) meeting minutes on a price stated. The minutes are corrected and approved. |
| 3. Caucus Updates |
| Women Caucus – Chinyere – They met in April. The last chair had to step down from her role for the moment. They discussed a logo for their caucus, which has been sent for approval to the HRDC members. A guest speaker will join them at their next meeting to discuss pre-menopause and menopause. A Google Chat for the caucus would be interesting. Everyone approves of the Women’s Caucus logo. Indigenous Caucus – Sean – Nothing to add. Andria Desjardins and him worked on a logo a couple years ago. He will share it on Google Drive. 2SLGBTQIA+ Caucus – Katie – She reached out to the two co-chair (Stacy McLaren and Gordon Bulmer), there is no update for the moment. Worker of Colour Caucus – Harry and Sally – They had a meeting in April. They shared what HRDC is working on with every participant. They would like to write a resolution on increasing the size of the HRDC Committee. Harry reached out to the Education Team at PIPSC to see if they could do a presentation at one of the HRDC meetings. They would like a Zoom account. Black Caucus – Katie for Jennie Esnard – They plan to meet next week with a guest speaker to update them on the BCAS People with Disabilities Caucus – Mary – Katie and Mary met two weeks ago to discuss the accessibility and accommodation policies at PIPSC. They are looking to get a written accommodation policy – they found the one written for PIPSC staff that helped shape one for members. The caucus also targets issues like food accommodation and allergies. Mary has been pushing for closed-captioning for hearing impaired people for events like AGM and learned that it will be offered at the next PIPSC AGM. |
| 4. Caucus – Chat on Google and staff support |
Katie explains that caucus had staff support before but for the moment, PIPSC doesn’t have the capacity to help individually each caucus as before. Some PIPSC staff can help with training on how to create a webinar. Marielle to provide the caucus chair an updated list of members on their caucus in order to create a Google Chat. |
| 5. Research Team Update on 2022 Survey (Julie Poon & Sara Delaney) |
| PIPSC can more meaningfully support its membership by:Providing targeted support to groups experiencing marginalisationAddressing resistance to EDI efforts PIPSC did a survey in 2022, the response rate was 3%.There was a high percentage of ‘I prefer to not answer’ – It may suggest that members feel like their identity won’t be supported and/or understood. Sean emphasizes that it’s important that HRDC develops a message strategy on why unions need to be involved in diversity and inclusion initiatives. Richard spoke about some projects he works on, including reconciliation, which he would like to connect with Indigenous Caucus for that. They are also looking to connect with an Indigenous graphic designer (at PSAC) to help with some courses that PIPSC could offer. Katie speaks about microaggression happening when we send out EDIA emails which put a lot on the person that receives these responses. This is a situation we have come to accept while we shouldn’t – she would like to look into this in the future. Harry would like to strategize on how to have more participation for a next survey. Richard, Julie and Sara will work together to create another survey, hopefully this year. Richard suggests using similar questions from the 2022 surveys to see if there is any improvement. Katie suggests inviting David Sutherland (VP, in charge of Training Committee) to their next meeting in order to propose some idea of training and know what the Committee is working on at the moment. |
| 6. PIPSC’s initiatives on anti-discrimination (Marie-Hélène) |
| Marie-Hélène’s team compiled how many discrimination files they received to see how they were handled in the past and where they can improve. They took the last decision made by BCA as a learning opportunity to know what would be the proper approach and what we should put our focus on. They believe in PIPSC participation regarding advancing the discrimination causes. Marie-Hélène emphasizes that they need to collect data. They have ongoing reports but only 3% answered their questions and mostly not the targeted group of people (equity seeking people). Marie-Hélène suggests that the 2022 questions asked in the survey should be revised by an expert to ask the right question and strategize how to have a better response rate before redistributing it. Harry encourages the future survey to have a note reminding members that the more they answer and provide information, the better we can help them in the future. Marie-Hélène will continue to provide new information to Katie in order to share with the HRDC members. |
| 7. HRDC Restructure (Sean O’Reilly) |
| Katie invited Sean O. to discuss bylaws around the HRDC Committee and the number of members a Committee can hold. It has been brought to their attention that members are chosen per region while the HRDC could benefit from a structure based on equity seeking groups. They would also like to have funding for each caucus. Sean O. expresses that the HRDC has accomplished a lot in the past year. The caucus is a good tool. He suggests the Committee makes a plan that would explain the use for the money to get a budget for the caucus. Maybe presenting this idea to AC and requesting suggestions from them would be helpful. Sean S. shares his concerns about social media or direct communication not addressing EDIA topics often. Sean O. promised to do better in the near future. Everyone discusses the microaggression email received while sending out EDIA contents and brainstorm what could be done about them. The goal will be to get a new structure implemented by 2026. |
| 8. Toronto Pride Parade |
Harry brought the thought of HRDC attending the Toronto Pride Parade at the Ontario Regional Executive Meeting. The Ontario region suggested seeking support from Better Together for funding. They will revisit this decision based on the participant turnout this year for the next one. Ontario Region will send out an email to reunite members to watch the Toronto Parade together. Harry to take attendance for this year’s Parade for next year’s request. The next HRDC will be in Toronto to enable attendance to the Ontario region Pride event. |
| 9. Recognition for equity leaders |
| Discussed in closed session. |
| 10. Round Table and Next Meeting |
| Mary – Mary arrived later in the meeting and took the opportunity of the round table to make an update on the Disability Caucus (update at #3). Sean – He shared an event ‘Movement is Medicine: Walk-Run-Wheel’ that will be held on May 5th for missing Indigenous women, girls and two spirit individuals. Madeeha – There were good action items from this meeting and she appreciated a lot of ideas that came out of the discussion. Harry – He would like to learn how to write/say the land acknowledgement and proceed with it at the next meeting in June. Sean gives him his support. Niraj – Today’s meeting presentations have been helpful. Sally – Nothing to add. Katie adjourned the meeting, seconded by Madeeha and Mary. |