“NO NEED”: indigenous staff refused the investigation at town hall

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Emails from 2022 appear to show a group of City Hall employees with Indigenous roots or interests refused to respond to a survey in time for a series of Truth and Reconciliation Day events – even though this survey only had one question.

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An administrative assistant from the shelter, support and housing division sent an email to members of the Ambe Maamowisdaa Employees Circle. The email was sent on the afternoon of September 27, 2022, three days before Truth and Reconciliation Day.

The staff member asked the group, often referred to simply as Ambe, if they could complete a one-question survey by 11 a.m. the next day. “Staff from the Human Resources and Equity Department (the City’s Human Resources Department)…seek your feedback on including recognition of African ancestry in corporate events (Truth and Justice Day). reconciliation) which will take place this week,” he wrote.

City officials declined to comment. Sun in time for publication.

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City Hall has previously refused to answer questions about Ambe, including the number of its members. The email chain that followed this investigative request involves responses from just three city employees.

One of them, a public health nurse, was the first to respond.

“I wanted to know if we could discuss this as a group so that it… could be a decision made collectively and not just by individuals responding to a survey. I would like to talk about this within our Ambe circle, all of us together,” she wrote.

A few minutes later, a project manager wrote that she agreed with the nurse, but “I suggest we all take the survey and then can discuss it at our meeting tomorrow.” I’m going to refrain from saying how I feel about this for now and will do so openly tomorrow.

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The nurse responded: “We don’t need to respond at one point to something that is important to us as an Aboriginal staff group. This can be done when we meet in a circle on Thursday. This week is very important to us as Indigenous people for our truth and reconciliation with Canada and we cannot settle for a rushed individual inquiry, especially if we have concerns and rights that we need to share together.

The email exchange resumed on October 3, when a director who works at Metro Hall said he shared the nurse’s “concern about being rushed to make a decision on something like this, without having and hearing all of Ambe’s voice.”

“Can someone update me on what happened?” » he asked.

The project manager responded: “I just wanted to clarify that the survey question was about… the events of last week, specifically the 30th. It was not about whether it should be used regularly in the city. This is why they requested that the investigation be carried out before the 28th.”

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The emails were forwarded to Sun as part of a request for access to information on the city’s use of its African ancestral recognition. If there are more than three Ambe members, it is unclear why there is no trace of them in these emails.

THE Sun has already reported on the power Ambe appears to wield at City Hall.

Last year, a municipal bureaucrat told colleagues on a task force charged with removing Etobicoke’s old coat of arms: they would take the “leadership” of Ambe. The group also requested that an Indigenous symbol replace the coat of arms.

Russell Baker, the city’s head of media relations and issues management, denied Ambe had any role in making “political decisions.”

Baker provided few other details about Ambe, which he said is staffed by “municipal staff who identify as First Nations, Inuit and Métis.”

jholmes@postmedia.com

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