{"id":29212,"date":"2021-04-29T13:33:49","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T17:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=29212"},"modified":"2021-04-29T13:33:52","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T17:33:52","slug":"anti-black-racism-task-force-member-questions-mission-of-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/anti-black-racism-task-force-member-questions-mission-of-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Black Racism Task Force member questions mission of Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the last few months, members of Aurora\u2019s Anti-Racism and Anti-Black Racism Task Force have been providing input on a proposed new mural celebrating Canada\u2019s diversity, but there is much more work to be done beyond the arts sphere, says Task Force member Phiona Durrant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Durrant, a business owner in Aurora\u2019s historic downtown core, has been a member of the Task Force since its inception and made a delegation to Council members last week to express her frustration on the work that has been carried out to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am very concerned about how the committees are built,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat is the plan? What is the strategy? I am wondering if this is a working group because I have not seen any action yet for this group. When a group is created, that is not the action. That is the place where the action is supposed to be taking place, being planned and done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She shared with Council that she felt \u201clost and unsafe\u201d within the group because it is not clear what their goal is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the hiccup or the problem is the group was created and the Town put a wall project on us and left us with that,\u201d she continued. \u201cFrom November to now, all we\u2019re talking about is a wall and nothing to deal with what the terms of reference says. Also, no practical procedures and guidelines have been given to me on how to do this successfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow I feel that the task force I am on, which is supposed to be effective and great, I feel it is divided,\u201d she said, adding that she felt like the mural was sent to the Task Force as a done deal. \u201cIt is not like something we could critique or have a say on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her comments were taken to heart by Council and they sparked a lengthy discussion not just on the Task Force but the Town\u2019s citizen-led committees as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addressing Ms. Durrant\u2019s concerns, Council members praised the Task Force for the initiatives they undertook for February\u2019s Black History Month, as well as the work Ms. Durrant and her team at the Aurora Black Community Facebook group took on and executed throughout the late winter. But they urged the group to forge ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want you or anyone on a committee to feel unsafe\u2026and to feel like you are not contributing,\u201d said Councillor Sandra Humfryes. \u201cOne of the things I think is a little tricky from what I hear from you and other members is that when they have an idea, they don\u2019t know where that idea goes and you can\u2019t really ratify an idea at a committee-level. The minutes come to Council and we review them through a staff report and then we ratify ideas. We need to understand these issues where we can listen and set the right policies to enable committees to feel they are contributing and they feel good about what they are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Councillor John Gallo\u2019s perspective, \u201cexpectations [of the Task Force] were somewhat different from reality.\u201d He noted that committees once made recommendations to Council, including motions, but this duty was removed in favour of minutes from the meetings coming forward for Council\u2019s review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat changed and if you look at the Committee minutes now, Council just receives and doesn\u2019t necessarily take action on what the Committees were discussing or moving forward,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a bit of a change. Maybe a discussion should happen again. Maybe we should have a higher-level discussion of why we want committees, what we want committees to do, and the value of committees. I think that is somewhat the frustration you\u2019re experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora established the Anti-Racism and Anti-Black Racism Task Force last fall following a motion from Councillor Harold Kim. Speaking to Ms. Durrant\u2019s concerns, Councillor Kim said \u201cthe concept of the Task Force is to give advice and perspective to Council whenever items that pertain to that group is going to be discussed at Council.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it comes to heritage or accessibility, there is a new development, or a renovation that is coming relative to a heritage home, then it will go to that advisory committee for their input [and] their perspective because of their experience and so forth,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the Task Force did not want to provide the perspective on a particular item, the Task Force has the prerogative to say, that is not something we want to weigh in on. I think almost everyone wanted to weigh in on the mural. I empathize [with] those who may not want to talk about the item at hand, but that is the role of the advisory committee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the part of Mayor Mrakas, he encouraged the Task Force to look at goals and \u201cclearly lay them on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that is something all our committees need to do,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it is a great structure to have because it allows you to achieve something and you know what you\u2019re striving for. Once you create the plan and you have goals, then you can break off into sub-groups that want to work on each of those goals and have more informal conversations and bring those conversations back to the structured Task Force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the last few months, members of Aurora\u2019s Anti-Racism and Anti-Black Racism Task Force have been providing input on a proposed new mural celebrating Canada\u2019s diversity, but there is much more work to be done beyond the arts sphere, says Task Force member Phiona Durrant. Ms. Durrant, a business owner in Aurora\u2019s historic downtown core, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7Ba","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 10:33:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}