Date: December 11, 2025
Place: Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel
Meeting time: 9:00PM to 5:00PM ET
Meeting minutes taken by: Marielle Nadon
| Present: | Regrets: |
| Katie Francis – PIPSC VP – NCR – Chair Niraj Nitheanandan – CP – ATL – Member Sally Hanna – SP – NCR – Member Madeeha Choudhry – CS – B.C., Yukon- Member Chinyere Okafor – SH – Prairies, NWT – Member Sean Stiff – CP – NCR – Friend of the Committee Mary Lycett – AFS – NCR – Friend of the Committee Richard Gaboton – PIPSC Staff Ressource | Harry Timla – AFS – ONT – Member Marielle Nadon – PIPSC Admin. Assistant |
| Guests: | |
| Colby Briggs – PIPSC Staff – Guest Speaker Tony Jones – PIPSC Staff – Guest Speaker Nabila Hadibi – Observer – NCR Regional Director & OLIT Chair Stan MacLellan – PIPSC COO – Guest Speaker |
| Words of Welcome, approval of the agenda and previous meeting minutes |
| Katie welcomes everyone to the last HRDC meeting of the year. Dime performs the land acknowledgment. The agenda is adopted by consensus. The HRDC meeting minutes from October 17, 2025 are reviewed. The meeting minutes are approved by consensus with a small change. |
| Equity Caucus update |
Women’s Caucus (Chinyere): They had a meeting with a guest speaker who spoke about nutrition. They were working on a mission statement which Chinyere drafted and they will discuss it more at their next meeting in February or March. Chinyere to put the mission statement on the Shared Drive for other Committee members to review.
Indigenous Caucus (Sean): They have been connecting regularly on the Caucus Google Chat. PIPSC has hired a consulting firm called NVision Insight Group to inform our Reconciliation plan. Sean created a plan to share with other equity caucus groups and HRDC – an Indigenous led curated ebook learning platform that includes a 3 years rollout plan. He plans to seek funding from PIPSC.
Workers with disabilities Caucus (Mary): They had 4 meetings since September. The first one was introductory to get to know all the new members. At the next meeting, an ERO in B.C. did a presentation on duty to accommodate. The last one on November 25, they had a good discussion on accommodation and a case file that they had been working on. The participants also had the chance to have a Q&A with ERO staff.
2SLGBTQIA+ (Stacy & Gordon): Katie believes they had one meeting this year. None of the chairs are present at the meeting.
Black Caucus (Jennie & Dime): They recently had a caucus meeting. They will have a new executive soon (Caitlyn Pierre) as Jennie Esnard will be stepping down in 2026. She will have a meeting with both Dime and Caitlyn to train them.
Workers of Colour Caucus (Sally): This caucus has not met since the last HRDC meeting.
| Board of Directors Updates |
Katie brought the international solidarity proposal to the Board of Directors and it was all discussed in close session, therefore she can’t provide an update on it except that no decision has been made yet. The terms of references have been discussed. Since all of the terms of references for board Committees are old, the board wants to look at all of them. She suggests keeping it in draft form for the moment. The equity statement also received some concerns. They left it with the legal department to be reworded if need be. Nabila adds that the statement was touching two subjects and they may want to separate them into two different statements instead. |
| AGM Resolution Arguments |
Katie will move the two resolutions on the PIPSC AGM floor. She will have two minutes to move the resolutions and ask some thoughts/ideas from the group. Changes in bylaws 17 Nabila suggests shaping it more as adapting to the new terminology – that they want to encompass all the different diversity groups. Adjust how we select the Committee members (by equity group instead of region). Mary suspects that one of the questions that will arise is whether the number of people elected to the committee will change as a result of this new selection process. Katie suggests that she address it directly when explaining the resolution on the floor. Madeeha mentions that she has been on the HRDC 3 years and they never had an Indigenous person on the Committee and we don’t have this representation through the regional model. Sally continues by saying that this Committee is intended to represent equity and diversity, primarily and regions should be secondary. |
| Representational Services (Tony Jones) |
Tony has been asked to speak about representational services and how it relates to cases of harassment and supporting members who face it in the workplace. Each request for representation is assessed based on the facts and the merits. It’s a requirement of our policies that our staff ERO’s assess the merits both initially and as the case evolves. Tony shares a presentation and then answers questions from the group. |
| Public Service Health Care Plan (Colby B.) |
| Colby shares a presentation on the public service health care plan (PSHCP) and answers questions from the group on how equity considerations are applied in the plan review process with the Treasury Board. Strategy: Promote health and wellness through evidence-based medical care plan design.Provide comprehensive coverage to care for members in difficult life situations.Innovate with digital tools, industry partnerships, new technologies and preventive cares.Adopts a long term vision of sustainable, efficient, and affordable health care that delivers top value to current members, retired members and the Canadian public. |
| Chat with new COO (Stan M) |
| Katie introduces Stan as the new PIPSC COO. He has big ideas for equity at PIPSC and Katie thought it would be beneficial to discuss these plans with the committee. Stan had suggested for continuity that outgoing committee members provide incoming board members with current projects so momentum isn’t lost Suggestions/Goals for the future years from members of the 2025 HRDC Committee: A term of 2-3 years for members of the committee for continuity purposesHave funding for the equity caucus to hire guest speakers and host workshopsMore representation in QuebecBetter resources/help for caucus to allow them to thriveEquity training for staff/leaders |
| Hand off to next year’s members |
Mary Lycett, who is a Friend of the Committee for this year, will take over as chair of the Committee for 2026. She explains her vision/action plan for next year. As new chair, Mary committed to carrying forward some of our goals that we had started (e.g. funding for caucuses, etc). |
| AGM/Booth Set-up |
| Katie shares that the committee will have a hospitality room on Friday and Saturday – everyone is welcome to invite anyone who might enjoy joining in. Richard follows up with an update of the Booth – they will have some small swag items and orange hoodies. He also has a QR code to participate in a Trivia game and have a chance to win a gift basket. Another QR code will be to register for an equity caucus. Finally, there will be a reconciliation survey from NVision. |
| Round Table |
| Harry – Absent. Chinyere – She thanks Katie, Richard and Marielle for their work. She congratulates Mary for her future Chair position on the Committee next year. Madeeha – Nothing to add. She appreciated working with the group this year and thanks Katie for her work. Sean – He thanks everyone, he learned a lot this year through each person and the guest speakers. Mary – She thanks Katie for all the work, energy, compassion and the support she has given to the group. Niraj – He thanks Katie and thinks the group accomplished a lot this year. Sally – She thanks everyone and Katie for her leadership and Richard for his help. She congratulates Mary and is optimistic that she will do a great job next year. Dime – He thanks everyone for welcoming him this year. Richard – Next week they will start reflecting on what they will do for Black History Month – it was a big success last February. He would like to put forward an event for March 8 next year. He thanks everyone in the group. Katie – Thanked everyone for their input this year. She believes they had a successful year and that the report speaks to that. She wishes Mary success in her Chair role next year. |