April 4, 2025
RE: In response to item EX21.14 - Committee Discussion on Indigenous Council Members
Dear Chair and Members of Executive Committee,
We are writing to express our deep concern regarding the decision made by the Executive Committee on item EX21.14. The Aboriginal Affairs Advisory Committee’s (AAAC) original advice to City Council was to “direct the City Manager to report to Executive Committee in Q3 with a jurisdictional scan and recommendations required to initiate the creation of an Indigenous Member of Council”. The decision of the Executive Committee appears to direct staff to carry out a scan that now has a significantly broader scope and no longer specifies research on creating an Indigenous Member of Council, as recommended by the AAAC.
Toronto has the largest Indigenous population in Ontario and the 4th largest Indigenous population of any city in Canada. It’s also important to remember that Indigenous Peoples are “rights and title holders”, not just “stakeholders”, according to the Canadian Constitution. Furthermore, the City of Toronto has established a comprehensive Reconciliation Action Plan, which is intended to address a wide range of challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples. The decision to completely rewrite the proposal by the AAAC and dismiss the opportunity to do research on having an Indigenous member of council appears to fly in the face of the intent of the Plan, as well as the findings from the AAAC Restructuring report by Minokaw Consulting for the City in May 2023.
We therefore ask that the Executive Committee reopen the matter and request staff to complete the scan and make the findings publicly available. We would also like to see the scan include research on other cities globally that Toronto could learn from, and on creating an Indigenous member of Council. We also ask that the committee establish a completion date by Q3, as originally specified by the AAAC.
Sincerely,
Valerie Endicott
On behalf of ClimateFast
