Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination (CMARD)

You are viewing an archived web page, collected at the request of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) using Archive-It. This page was captured on 10:30:23 Jan 24, 2016, and is part of the UNESCO collection. The information on this web page may be out of date. See All versions of this archived page.

Loading media information hide

Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination (CMARD)
The Canadian Commission for UNESCO invites municipalities from across Canada to join a Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination and be part of a larger international coalition being promoted by UNESCO.

The Pan-Canadian Working Group led by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCU) with the help of its partners across Canada developed a "Call for a Canadian Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination". The Call was launched at the Canadian Association of Statutory Human Rights Agencies (CASHRA) Annual Meeting in June 2005 in Saskatoon. This initiative obtained the support from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in September 2005, the Union of Municipalities of Quebec and the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association in 2006.

In close cooperation with Human Rights Commissions in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF), associations of municipalities in different provinces as well as the National Association of Friendship Centres for aboriginal peoples, CMARD continues to extend across Canada.

Download the Call for a Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination (in PDF format, 221 Kb)

How can municipalities participate?

Municipal governments are invited to:

Contact the Canadian Commission for UNESCO to learn more about the Coalition;
Discuss the benefits of joining the Coalition with community organizations and other stakeholders;
Send a letter from the mayor to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO expressing the municipality’s interest in joining the Coalition;
Develop and promote the initiative within the municipality;
Take steps to have the municipal council pass a resolution to sign the Declaration of the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination, supporting the Common Commitments listed in this booklet and pledging to develop or reaffirm its own plan of action;
Evaluate activities already being undertaken by the municipality that correspond to one or more of the Common Commitments;
Identify new actions relating to one or more of the Common Commitments that the municipality will undertake in the coming years;
Monitor, evaluate and report on progress made;
Encourage other municipal governments to join the Coalition.

Municipalities having joined the Coalition:
About twenty municipalities have joined the Coalition (as of January 2008) including Calgary, Edmonton, Gatineau, Montreal, Oakville, Saskatoon, Toronto, Vaughan, Windsor, Winnipeg, etc.

Research
A research agenda has been developed in order to help build tools to support municipalities’ effort in monitoring.

The Centre de recherche sur l’immigration, l’ethnicité et la citoyenneté (CRIEC) of the University of Québec in Montréal, has carried out a preliminary study concerning the indicators used by the big cities of the world, called: "Indicators for the evaluation of municipal politics fighting discrimination". The study aimed at examining the possibilities of comparison and the sharing of experiences between policy makers at the local level within the framework of the Coalition.

New areas for research will be further explored in 2007 through a series of consultations.

See also: Discussion Paper Series.

For more information, please contact:
Ms Cynthia Lacasse
Canadian Commission for UNESCO
350 Albert Street, P.O. Box 1047
Ottawa, ON K1P 5V8
E-mail: cynthia.lacasse@unesco.ca
Tel.: 1-613-566-4414 ext. 4550
Website: www.unesco.ca

Development at the provincial level:

The Ontario Human Rights Commission has already contributed and given a strong support to the working group and to the publication of the booklet launching the call. In Ontario the OHRC hosted the initiative on its website and calls for an Ontario gathering in March 2007. Toronto has been a close partner from the outset of this initiative and City Council joined the Coalition in April 2006. Windsor also joined in March and Thunder Bay in September 2006;

In Alberta the initiative is hosted on the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission’s website and an Alberta version of the booklet has been published and widely distributed. The provincial Minister of Community Development (now Alberta Tourism, Parks, Recreation and Culture) has written Alberta municipalities to indicate his support and to encourage them to consider joining CMARD; with the encouragement and involvement of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, a network of municipalities engaged in combating racism and discrimination is developing in Alberta. With the support of the provincial government, provincial associations of municipalities like the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) have started to develop tools that will assist their members and others;

Union of Municipalities of Quebec (UMQ) has presented a supportive presentation at the hearings of the Ministry of Immigration and Intercultural Relations in October 2006. Montreal is the first city in the province of Quebec to join the Coalition. The friendship Centre association of Quebec has also mentioned the Coalition in its presentation to the same hearings.

News

An international coalition of cities against racism launched at the Nantes World Forum on Human Rights 2008-06-27 9:00 am UNESCOPRESS
UNESCO launched an international coalition of cities against racism and discrimination at the 3rd World Forum on Human Rights in Nantes (France) which takes place from 30 June to 3 July. The agreement on the coalition was signed on 30 June, during the Forum’s opening ceremony, by Pierre Sané, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, and representatives of the 6 regional coalitions of cities against racism and discrimination.

Canadian Coalition launches a call to youth 2007-08-10 1:25 pm UNESCO
The Canadian Commission for UNESCO is launching a call to youth interested in getting involved in the Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination through Le Rouage, a publication of the Conseil permanent de la jeunesse du Québec (CPJ) targeting youth and organisations working with youth.

13 Canadian municipalities confirm their commitment against racism and discrimination 2007-07-12 10:00 pm UNESCO
On June 1, 2007 in Calgary, 13 municipalities from across Canada met on the occasion of the Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to sign a Declaration affirming their commitment against racism and discrimination and their wish to unite to share lessons learned.



		UNESCO SHS Have feedback? Email the SHS Webmaster