Mayor sends Indigenous councillor idea into consultation purgatory 

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Toronto’s executive committee seems to have no interest in installing an aboriginal city councillor. 

The city’s aboriginal affairs advisory committee had asked the powerful executive committee, led by Mayor Olivia Chow, to task City Manager Paul Johnson with initiating “the creation of an Indigenous member of council.” 

Chow sunk that idea in a hurry, as the committee rushed through the item at the end of its meeting Wednesday evening. 

The item, as approved by Chow’s committee, instead directs the city manager to consider ways to “deepen meaningful representation of the Indigenous community in city decision-making, including through existing channels” such as the aboriginal affairs committee, and to scan “Canadian orders of government and measures taken to increase Indigenous civic input and representation, including through advisory bodies and other mechanisms.” 

It’s unclear how such a position was intended to work, and it appears neither video nor detailed minutes are available for the Jan. 30 meeting of the aboriginal committee from which the item originated. Had Chow not quashed the idea, it presumably would be on the docket for next week’s city council meeting. 

While Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie sits on the aboriginal committee, no councillors spoke on the item at Wednesday’s meeting. 

Activist Daniel Tate told the committee it is “entirely inappropriate and a betrayal of democratic principles to try and manufacture an unelected city council position.

“Installing unelected council members is undemocratic, and when the idea is based on race, it’s divisive,” Tate said, before urging the committee to “spare everyone the embarrassment of sending this to city council for a vote.” 

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The other speaker present, Miguel Avila Velarde, offered a different approach. 

He said Davenport Councillor Alejandra Bravo has “Mapuche roots” and could perhaps serve as an aboriginal representative voluntarily. All the committee has to do is simply “ask nicely, Alejandra, por favour,” he said. 

In a written submission, Lindsay Kretschmer, executive director of the Toronto Aboriginal Support Services Council, said “transformative thinking and doing” is essential to “dismantling the roots of racism.” 

“The way forward recognizes that our issues cannot be resolved by people who today continue to benefit from historically racialized systems,” Kretschmer wrote. 

The Federation of North Toronto Residents Associations also opposed the concept in a written submission, arguing while they support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, creating the council position “would likely provide ammunition to the emerging anti-DEI wave emanating from the U.S., and would therefore be counterproductive to DEI.” 

jholmes@postmedia.com