New Westminster hopes to enhance the diversity of its committees by having more First Nations voices on its advisory committees.
Council recently approved a motion by Coun. Chuck Puchmayr to amend the terms of reference for civic committee membership to allow for a minimum of one First Nations representatives on each city committee, as delegated by the any of the regional First Nations communities interested in participating. Puchmayr said he spoke to Qayqayt First Nation Chief Rhonda Larrabee about the motion.
“She is quite interested in this,” he said. “She stated that they have no capacity to sit on every committee, that this is a lot of work.”
If no First Nations representative is put forward by First Nations organizations in the Lower Mainland, Puchmayr suggested the city should accept a community member identifying as First Nations.
“What I’d like to see is this motion, if passed, be referred directly to the new reconciliation committee that hopefully will be formed soon,” he said. “They can take this as a basis and report back to council on the resolution.”
Council referred the issue to the city clerk’s department, which is working on a report about how to increase diversity on city committees. Last November, council approved a motion to direct staff to research, review and report back on best practices regarding embedding a diversity mandate into the city’s current committee programs and policies.
“I thought the diversity discussion was going to include a whole bunch of possible characteristics that a person might have. One of those characteristics might be being among the three-and-a-half per cent of our population who are aboriginal,” said Coun. Jaimie McEvoy.
