Police town hall May 7th part 1 (00:00:00 to 01: 0:00} {1hr}
Jason: Hello everybody, we are going to get started right away here, we don't have any mikes today so we're going to be projecting; where in a theatre space so hopefully everybody can hear the panellists; there are seats up front so if you'd like to move down and not sit in the back row like troublemaker…please come on down front
**
Jason: When you get to pick on ** I think. So, just starts, I want to recognize the lands that we are on today. So, recognize the land as an expression of gratitude and appreciation to those whose territory reside on, and a way of honouring the first nations people who have been living and working on the land from time of the memorial. It is important to understand a longstanding history that has brought you to reside on the land and to seek to understand your place in that history. Land acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense or of historical context. Colonialism is a current ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation. Acknowledging the land is indigenous protocol; the Blackfoot Deneigh and stony people have been here long before Alberta and Canada were established; their languages, culture, tradition, civil laws precede colonization. Our history with this land predates our sort of history with this land, predates a hundred fifty years. With that, we would like to recognize the traditional territories of the Blackfoot and people of treaty seven regions in southern Alberta which includes the sistika, the **, the ** and the story Dakota first nations, including the ** first nation. We also like to recognize that this is home to** nation Alberta region. So, for those of you who attended our last townhall, the beginning format is going to be relatively the same and then we're going to get into question and answer. I'll try and go through a little quicker than last time. I understand it was a bit lengthy. So purpose, so why are we here today? Why are we doing these town halls? So, the first thing is that we want to do is, we want to inform our community on the conversations that have taken place between community stakeholders and law enforcement to date. There's been a lot of conversations I'm taking place that started in 2016, and a lot of people are unaware of those conversations. So, we want to go through the timeline and highlight what conversations have taken place thus far. We want to grab the community insights on law enforcement engagement with a variety of communities **. So, the G.S.T. or gender and sexual diverse community ** is very diverse. Within that community we have a variety of races, religions, creeds, colors; we have a vast representation and it's a very dynamic culture. So, we want to make sure that we're gaining insight from a variety of people within our community. Three; we want to identify ongoing systemic challenges faced by people within our community; we want to know what those pinpoints are; we want to know what challenges we still face and we want to love how we can build trust and find solutions moving forward so that we have better ongoing relationships between community and law enforcement. And then last we want to communicate what resources are available to the community. So, if you are having negative experiences with law enforcement or within your own community, where you go and how you address those challenges appropriately. Anything to add? Perfect. So, panel members, I'm going to do a quick introduction of our panel members and then they're going to say a few words as to why they're here and provide a little context on the conversations that have been taking place. So, to my immediate right here, we have Spirits representing the Voices which is a coalition of we are Trans people of color indigenous individuals within our community; Sath** Chief County Police Services, Elisa **VP. of Government Affairs… Wizard do it all for ** Brian ** Chair of the Calgary Police Commission; and I can't believe I’m blanking on your name.
James: That’s OK, James Bellamy…
Jason: James Bellamy; Chief of Police gender and sexual diverse advisory committee?
James: Yeah.
Jason: Perfect, I always get it backwards. So, I'm going to let them go in order and kind of introduce themselves and say a little bit of why they are here. So ** wold you like to start? Spirit: Sure. Just quickly, I wrote up a little bit more than probably would my colleagues here might have prepared, mostly because of the last townhall, I feel like a lot of the questions were towards Voice**. So, I just thought I'd share a kind of a bit more of a Voice’s perspective here. So, first of all hello, I am Spirit. I'm a representative of Voices, and what I want to talk about today's intersectionality and why it's important today. this isn't a lecture so encourage you all to look at Kimberly Crenshaw, a champion in the study of inter of intersectionality is not about reinforcing the impact of identity on the system and structures we live under every day. But to see how those very systems and structures make certain agencies face the consequences of vulnerability; vulnerabilities that aren't experienced by others. So, intersectionality asks the question, what's going on? What kind of discrimination is going on here and what are the policies and intersectional failures of play a role in contributing to the exclusion of some people and not of others? Two years ago, when people of color were sharing their stories to police services, it was obvious that there was something going on and that intersectional failure was being experienced in our city here in Calgary. And, intersectional failure is essentially when discrimination happens and there are no allies there to hear you or to see you. Voices would rise initially as a grassroot to share stories and a means to have conversations on the intersection of failure that was being experienced in our city. And by the ** community. This isn't only a Calgary thing but also across North America; this conversation is a much larger conversation about intersectionality and seeing where the system is failing folks in our community. We see in ** with the ** case; you can see …you can say what you will about the trial and the case and the outcome itself, but how his mother was treated when she had received the news of her murdered son by police was a display of a lack of empathy, compassion and respect on the side of police, something that people of color are all too familiar with. We're used to having their dignity shattered in front of our faces by people in public service positions. We've been telling our stories for years and years about it, but it hasn't always seemed to work. And, trying to create change through storytelling is both exhausting and yet empowering. Exhausting because, when will we be heard; empowering because it cannot access to others in our community who have also experienced discrimination. So, I'll continue that legacy today and I'll tell my story. My name is Spirit River, I identify as two spirits and I'm from the ** beginning first nation of the Blackfoot for the Confederacy. My **name is **which describes a running Wolf that endures. I'm twenty four years old, and I'm an undergrad at University taking a B.A. in Public Policy and Economics. I used to grow my hair really want to practice my culture. I don't anymore because of an experience I've had at Tim’s in the city. I had asked to use the washroom and not too long after I had police barging to the public washroom, banging on my stall door and asked me to step out. I don't remember every detail as it was a rather shameful and embarrassing and traumatic experience, especially with other men in in there, but you see the cashiers in the place assumed that I was doing drugs in the bathroom. For the first time I felt ashamed of being native. I stopped growing my hair that long for cultural reasons and I thought I will never trust another police officer again. Does that seem dramatic? Well I've grown up with stories where my relatives were brought to the outskirts of the city without shoes by police. It's not like that now, and I'm not trying to say that it's like that now, but today ** prevents us from reporting discriminating acts from police. Part of my story is that I've once; our communities to shift away from that fear and into an era where Senator Sinclair envisioned with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. People doubt it, but I think that we can do it and people in Voices think that way as well. I think we need to push away from prioritizing finding a worthy solution, and prioritizing those small moments that build trust, and avoid those moments that bring betrayal. Instead of the word solutions, we should say of looking at how to stimulate those small moments of trust building. These town halls are one example of trust building. And so, it is not wearing a uniform at the Pride Parade. Are these thoughts answers? No, but those moments of trust are the solution and it's an ongoing process, and it has been that way since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the civil rights movements back in the seventy's. Who are Voices to sit here talk to you about this? Well, many of us are leaders in the community, many of us teach youth, work with youth or pursue activism. And many teach youth that are in LGBT community, and when teaching about LGBT culture of self-acceptance and self- expression, we know we need to teach about our other quire siblings who are black or brown folks, continue to experience discrimination from police and many public service workers. Together it's voices, we are reminder to LGBT your community that we're part of your community too, we've been with you since the beginning and our plight is still not over yet. So, I hope we remember that as we continue speaking today. Jason: Thank you. Sath, would you like to share-
Sath: Skip me please
(laughing)
Sath: That’s a tough thing to follow. And it was very nice and very real; I think it's…what you just said is probably…His introductions are a little different than the last time, because they talked about the family where they came from and so I’m just going to kind of respond to that a little bit I think. Institutions in our communities that really failed a lot of people in this world over the years. And I think it's our goal that… by the way, I’m a husband and I have two girls; and I think it's our goal to kind of well its my promise actually that ensure, to do my best to make sure that these types of Institutional justices in their communities, to build understanding to be more sensitive around the things that are going on in our communities or are happening that people are made to account when these things …when things fail. I think for us to really advance this conversation, it takes honesty and it takes somebody standing in front of the room and opening up talking about the experience, knowing full well that there are really put themselves out there. So, I think, one of the main messages I want to kind of say is that it's our responsibility. Because we do hold a lot of power in these communities as it is other institutions that we do things right; we do it with humility, and then we just keep on talking. So, that's going to be my introduction.
Elise: I am…
Jason: **
Elise: My name's Elise, I'm vice president of Calgary Pride, I’ve have been a part of the organization since June 2016 serving as Director of Communications. I'm from Toronto and moved to Calgary in 2013. What I'm looking from this engagement process is self-representation, I think it's really key when building any type of framework as to how to create community groups or how to, individuals; whatever it may be, to engage each other a bit more effectively; there needs self-representation of what those voices need and what is it is that can be done to kind of solve those issues. So, that's what I'm looking for and that's me.
Brian: My name's Brian ** and I'm chairman of the Calgary Police Commission. The Calgary Police Commission is a civilian oversight body for the Calgary a police service. So, we have one employee that's the Chief of Police; we are all civilians. There's nine members of the public none of which can have a background in policing as mandated by statute… and we have two city councillors, currently council has gone down and Sutherland, and we report to both through the minister of justice and solicitor general, but we are one of the city council and the idea behind the police commission is that we're… our job is to represent Calgarians. We're not politicians with the exception of our two councillors, were members of the public and so if members of the community have concerns with the police service, there’re our concerns are we have the police service in monthly, The Chief with all of his executive, and we ask questions of the service on how they engage in policing; we're currently working on issues from gender diversity to… and inclusiveness to human resources, policies, body worn cameras use of force; review that's being done by former chief justice Whitman. And so… and police disciplined budget. So, when I heard about last year… as last year's event happened I became involved and engaged with the pride executive in the mayor's office and we sat down and had a conversation. It became really apparent to me that we had a lot of work to do, so we began a dialogue and one of the first things we did was decided that the service wanted to march in T. shirts, and I offered to participate and so I did because I wanted to show my support for G.S.T. members in the police service. And there are a number of members of the community in the police service; as well as the community, I've been attending pride for years with my family taking my children since they were three and four. And so, I wanted to both support the event the outreach to the community, and my hope for this is to get a better understanding. I think we've had a really good dialogue this year, we've worked on a lot of things together. But it's a start at the end of the process; so, we have a lot of work to continue. I hope the conversation will continue for years to come but at the same time I'm also hoping that we can make progress on how the service can be welcomed into the community and become great allies for the community.
Jason: Thank you
James: My name is James Bellamy and I am part of the current community. My history in public service; I worked as the on the board of directors for the Calgary fairy tales film presentation society; serve there for five years which ** and Rachel. It was my privilege to be there. I retired from that work two years ago, and it was actually through the issues that came up last year when I thought I wanted to get back into public service in our current community and create some type of communication to help with that. And so, I pursued on my own an opportunity to see if I could find a position in in this whole conversation, and I’m the newest member of the Calgary chief of police gender and diversity …sexual diversity Board… Advisory Board. And I want you to understand as one of the newest members, what I get excited about from this community is that we are an active board, and all of the board members come from diverse backgrounds; both gender and sexual diversity representing different members of our community. And we are there to represent you as our community bridge to the C.P.S. board; C P S community. We have a diversity officer, she co-chairs but she is only one member of C.P.S. on our Board, the rest are non C.P.S. members and we’re there to create a voice for you. I'm excited to be a part of that and direct and I recognize that I am a sis- gender white Polish male, but I am gay. And I do understand in my own small way, some of the issues that I've had to struggle through as a father of four kids and being quire in our community, as well too and as a business owner; some of the challenges that I have because of my sexual orientation. And I hope that through this, thank you Jason and to Pride for opening up these townhalls and to continue to contribute to the conversation in our city, so that all peoples are representative of all voices are heard, especially those that haven't been heard very well in the past. And, I grew a lot in the last townhall meeting and in the process of constant understanding and education, but that's why.
Jason: Thank you. I guess I didn't introduce myself, so for those of you that don't know me, I'm Jason Kingsley; I'm the executive producer president of Calgary Pride along with some other hats, so I'm just here to help moderate this conversation today. So next; time line so where have the…. Before we go any further, I just want to mention we are going to stop at eight o'clock today. So, for those of you that want to stick around and chat, some of the members may be able to stick around and chat as well and I want to let people know that we are recording audio today, but not video. So, there will be a record of these conversations; they are being transcribed and we will have that information available up on our website later so that it is transparent for anybody that wants access to that information. So, the timeline… and I'm trying to get through this as quick as I can. So, basically, we started in 2006… pre-2006, is when the conversations really kind of started with police in terms of engaging with our diversity liaison officer within C.P.S. And from there what happened was, an individual in our local community who, I believe identifies as a sis- white male, put forward a series of demands to Calgary Pride similar to what was seen in Toronto out of the Black Lives Matter protest. Well Calgary Pride was looking to try and figure out who this individual was and what communities were at play, the P.O.C. community Calgary was doing the same thing from my understanding, trying to figure out who this individual was, and do they have a voice, and do they represent that community. So, both sides of the equation were trying to do some of this work, and so out of that kind of catalyst is where Voices came from and was formed to help provide that voice for P.O.C, because this individual did not represent that; if I may speak on behalf of Voices and that, if that’s accurate.
Spirit: It's perfect.
Jason: So, out of that there are some conversations that took place between Voices and Calgary Pride and eventually C.P.S. prior to the festival in 2016. By the time we were all able to meet, it was about a week or two before the festival, there was a lot of conversation and a lot of sharing in that room. At that time, no decisions were made, and further consultation was wanted within community. So, February; where we at? So, we had our meeting prior to that day, police participated in uniform that year. In February we went to a conference, or I attended a conference in Halifax, I had the pleasure of meeting the Halifax Chief of Police. In Halifax, just to give some contacts; the chief of police and Halifax police made a decision to withdraw so that they themselves could better understand and research the issues that they were facing within their community locally there in Halifax. And so, the chief of police was at that Conference sharing that decision and that story. I had an opportunity to meet and to chat with him. I came back in February and requested a meeting with the chief of police. At that time, they said we think that's a great idea. So, we were able to schedule a meeting, the meeting ended up being with the chief of police and with the chiefs **. Prior to that, we had to meet with some community stakeholders, so we had indigenous representation, Trans representation and we had a conversation around what did we want to talk about in this meeting. So, in April we met as a group, so we have representation from Voices from the indigenous community, from the trans community; to meet with executives and there were no demands that were put forward or anything like that, it was a very collaborative conversation and there were some recommendations that were talked about and some requests that were made around, you know, this is feedback from the community. So, there are three; one is a representation with no uniforms in the private parade to show ally ship in a meaningful way to under-represented communities. Diversity education at the senior executive level for C.P.S. which was actually an idea that was kind of discussed and brought forward by the chief himself. And then, some sort of acknowledge or apology by C.P.S. in line with what we're seeing coming out of the federal government with Trudeau for things that have happened within our community. The tone of the meeting, as I said, was very collaborative, policeage, you know, it's your event, we will support however you want us to support; they want to be there to support it but it's our event ultimately. So, after that, in June I was invited to C.P.S. by Sath to have a conversation, ended up meeting with a group of C.P.S. members and we talked about some of the issues further. At that time, they'd done more consultation with members of course internally and shared that there were some concerns from L.G.B.T members of the force, and how they wanted to identify and represent with a uniform and what that meant to them as members of our community. In July, in the spirit of partnership, we drafted a press release after we had made our decision, we shared it with the police and with Voices, and then we shared that press release with the community, Voices shared their press release with the community; there's a lot of…there's a lot of misinformation around those press releases and around what was said and who said what, and the context in which things were said. Police released one later in the day as well, and I know that there is some missteps around the use of the word disappointment, and some members of our community last townhall shared their perception of that and what that meant to our community. And in conversation, I know there are times though, while our officers are disappointed they can't march in uniform. And I had a conversation after the fact with the chief ** said, you know, there's a big difference between our officers who are disappointed that they can’t wear their uniforms, and we as an institution are disappointed with Pride as an organisation, which is how it was interpreted sensationalized by the media. So, the media played a big role sensationalizing that's, and we saw that in the headlines where all you read was “Calgary Police Disappointed”, right, because those are the headlines we saw, so that was taken out of context. So, we continue to have consultation and facilitation within our community, we heard a lot of voices from our community on both sides of the equation through social media and other channels, about their support for displeasure with decisions that were made; we heard from some prominent individuals and business leaders that they were disappointed that they didn't get consulted throughout this process. And so, we decided that we needed to have broader conversations and to provide opportunity for community to come and have a voice, which is part of where these town halls were conceptualized and why we are moving forward in this manner this year.
So, in August, after that, Voices and we all had media; we met with stakeholders so the mayor's office once this went out, especially that headline went out, the police were disappointed, we were contacted by the mayor's office and they said we'd like to help facilitate some dialogue. So, we were invited to a meeting with the chief of police C.P.S., and with the Police Commission. So, we attended, we had some Trans representation at that meeting. Calgary Pride acknowledge that Voices was not in attendance at that meeting. And then, we had somebody from the Chiefs gender and sexual diversity advisory committee attend that meeting as well. And so, some of what we learned to that meeting for example was there was some disconnect between the advisory committee and community, and even some disconnect internally with the advisory committee and in that, Calgary Pride had to invite the member of the advisory committee to the meeting rather than C.P.S. inviting them to the meeting. So, we need to work on so that communication. Calgary Pride continues to consult; so again, throughout the year we continue to hear feedback and consultation from community about this. And from that process, with the mayor's office, we released a joint press release together as a community to try and show that this was a collaborative process, and to try and help combat some of the sensationalization within the media, and misrepresentation of the information. In addition to that, Brian ** posed a bond who is the superintendent **myself appeared on breakfast television to talk about the collaborative process that had taken place, then in October to December, we continued a course to have conversations ongoing with community; in December I was invited in to audit the diversity training that was going to be offered to the Chief of Police, Deputy chief and their superintendents. The training was a great first step in this conversation and the recruits were getting diversity training and do receive diversity training. However, this knowledge wasn't being communicated top down, and so we needed to make sure that the upper levels of management had an understanding of diversity and some of the challenges that are faced by our community. And so, we were invited to participate as observers and I said, I'm happy to come in provided the feedback, and ** actually, rather than come in provide feedback after the fact, would you like to come and take a look before we even offer the training? And so, I met with the diversity liaison officer as well as James Coxonbury, who is a leader within our community and Jane is the one who actually with facilitated the training. And so, I went through the training with them, the content, and it's very similar to all of LTB 101 or gendered sexual diversity basics that a lot of our organizations in the community offer, so it's a great beginning to that conversation. We continue to participate in other conversations as well, so we were contacted by the Ministry of Justice in Alberta to participate in a consultation around prechecks and this precheck policy that they're working on. So, we provided feedback to them on that process, ** at least was paramount in that feedback. We had follow up meetings with the mayor's office through phone conference calls to let them know where the conversation was at. They've requested some further follow up, so we're going to have some conversations in June following these town halls as well. In January, they actually conducted the diversity training, there is about twenty individuals that attended; so, the chief attended, the deputy chief, and about 18 superintendents came to that training. In March we met with C.P.S. to discuss these town halls, the strategy, what we were presenting, why we wanted to hold them, and we wanted to make sure that we had engagement from C.P.S. from the Police Commission and from the Chiefs advisory board. I had a meeting at coffee; Diana was nice enough to set up a coffee to introduce me to their new supervisor who is oversees diversity, a liaison officers at C.P.S.. And then, here we are now so April…Oh in April, we had coverage of these town halls, so they contacted Sath and did an interview so that information's out there and we will show that in a minute. And that’s where we're at today, so we're doing town halls, currently we have three scheduled, this is the second, our third one is tomorrow, it's going to be at the Center for Newcomers. And then just last week I also participated in an event at campus and there were some other individuals in the room that were at that meeting. Not quite what I thought it was through that meeting, we thought he'd be a little more feedback on the process of recruitment, it was a bit more of a recruitment events, but the city is looking at trying to diversify their boards committees and commissions. So, that includes things like the police commission and trying to ensure that there is more diversity and inclusion on some of these public serving and civilian boards going forward, that are providing oversight to groups like Calgary police services. Which is why we included this timeline and why it's kind of relevant. So, that's just a quick overview there's been countless other phone calls and conversations among the community and with the stakeholders up here, but a lot of people are unaware of the length of the conversation. There was the general perception in our community for a lot of people that we talked to, that it was a knee jerk reaction to black lives matter in Toronto, and it was none of those things. It was through conversation and representation from different groups and stakeholders, but we did acknowledge and recognize that there was a broader community that wanted to be engaged as well in the conversation. And so, that's why we’re here today. So, this is the joint statement that went out, it is up on our websites, so you won't be able to read it all up here. But if you are interested in reading that, please go to our website. It is signed off by myself, by ** who's the chief of police, **Erin Thornston who is the chief's advisory committee who's here today. Brian** who is chair of the Commission and then ** as well. This is just an excerpt from breakfast television; the interview and everything is up on YouTube and you can search that up as well if you want to go and take a look at that conversation. This is the Q. and A ahead of the town halls that Sath participated in, so if you want to go and read that article, you're free to do so as well by some more context for some of these conversations. So, available resources, before we get into the question and answer period, we want to just make sure that people are aware of some of the available resources in case some of these conversations are…Elise, do you want to speak to this again? Because you spoke of it the last time…
Elise: Sure, if you like. Some of these conversations ** anybody, if it brings up some issues where you feel like you want to speak to someone within the mental health industry, these are at the support systems above. I think you mentioned one is well, I'm not sure if its covered in this…
Jason: We did add them, yeah.
Elise: Wonderful.
Jason: And I believe you are here is well Jonathan, in an official capacity. So, Jonathan is with Calgary Counselling, and he is a social worker who's here in an official capacity. If people want to have a one on one conversation and are feeling triggered or emotional and needs some mental health support. So, these are just some resources available; people do require them, so we have the distressed Center, Alberta Health Services, C.M.E. operational reach program, Canadian Mental Health Association and Calgary Counselling, the union residential school hotline and then the…**attend Healing Lodge…if I said that correctly…close enough. Perfectly OK. So, questions and answers from panel member. So, last time, part of our process of making sure that you're inclusive, is we created an online opportunity for individuals to ask questions ahead of time if they are unable to attend in person or if they felt uncomfortable in presenting their questions in person. We've had some submitted at the last town hall which we addressed, we haven't had any submitted ahead of time for this one, so we're going to go right to public questions from you. So, anybody that would like to speak, there are mikes on the side, but there are many directional special fancy mikes, so you don't need to walk up to the mike; you can just stand to talk loudly. They are just there so we can try to pick up the sound that's coming in. So, it should be fine, and they are all connected to our recorders just so that we can transcribe it. so, please feel free to address to the whole panel or specific individuals your questions.
Audience: Thank you. Can I asked two questions?
Jason: You may, sure
Audience: As a person who has participated in private events for many years, may I ask…I know the police would like to continue participating in the parades in their uniforms; is there a clear objective to how a C.P.S. to be able to walk in uniform ** to specific measures that have been identified. Does the Pride community plan for that to happen in the future? And if so, are there things you are asking C.P.S. to do or demonstrate in order for them to do so?
Elise: OK, let's start with the latter question first. So, the purpose of these town halls is to gather this strategic action that need to be taken place in order to make sure that there's a commitment demonstrated by Calgary Police services that shows an understanding of what's happening with the marshalized communities within the G.S.T. community. In terms of whether this…did you ask if this year there's going to be uniformed police within the parade?
Audience: I think that will be ** Elise: In terms of deciding that, that's not the core purpose of what this town hall is for; it's really just discussing what it is in terms of needs to build a framework of trust between marginalized communities of the G.S.T. community alongside Calgary Police Services. That decision though will be made in later months, but the core purpose of this town hall is really to facilitate discussion between two groups that really haven't had much discussion.
Brian: Sorry, I love your question because I have the same question, and I've been doing this for a year working with Pride; it's been an amazing relationship working really well together. But, I actually came into this not tonight after the last panel and have the same question. What is the path for participation, and the reason I think your question is so important for pride and for the group in this room is that, they C.P.S. clearly wants to be allies in this process and they've opened up in a lot of ways; they've opened up their training, they’ve had Jason as a training expert evaluate and participate in their training programs…
Audience: I think Calgary has done… across Canada, Calgary has done the best outreach
Brian: Yeah. Yeah, I agree and like I said, at the start of there's a lot of work to still… to do. One of the things I failed to mention as well as became clear to me really quickly last year was, as a community oversight group for the service, I've been working very hard on diversity on our commission, and we had our first indigenous member joint… commissioner joining last year. And I'd very much like to see a member of the G.S.T. community join; the applications come open in June, and I've …we been working on that. So, we're trying to take a lot of steps within the commissioning service to see a pathway. But, without a clear pathway into participation we're not sure where the service stands and so, I think it questions important. I do respect what Elise said, we want to have a discussion amongst a group and open the dialogue, but I also want to see us… I think it's really important as well when you contrast for example with some of the political parties that have gone in a different direction with professional police service that's really engaged on training and I would reach to the community. And so, I think it can be a real success story for this community, so I'd like to see the path develop as well so that we understand. Elise: And I think you made a really great comment. And I think at Calgary, we’re doing quite well in terms of the engagement between GST communities and the services in comparison to other major cities in Canada, so you're absolutely right about that
Audience: It's fantastic to see it happen. **
Brian: And, frankly Jason and Elisa become friends, that's part of this process; like I enjoy working here.
Audience: That’s great. Is the Pride Parade a protest or a celebration?
Jason: Sorry, before we continue, I just want to give Spirit an opportunity from Voices perspective to kind of comment on uniform participation kind of what your perspectives are, because you're part of that initial conversation around some of those recommendations, so I just make sure that you have a voice today.
Spirit: Well, to kind of going back to what I talked about before and how this is an ongoing process of trying to build trust between police and people of color, and just the diverse nature of the ** community that has people of color within them. Sorry, what was your other question?
Audience: It is the pride parade a protest or celebration? And, I will just use a couple points ** down, promise. How do you state or relate or Inform to your sponsors and participants what the purpose is, whether it's a protest or celebration? If it is a protest, does your sponsors know that it is a protest and do they agree that their resources are to be used as a protest or protest purposes? And, if it is a protest, who are you protesting against? So, that…if it’s a protest or not.
Spirit: So, one really interesting thing about Pride parade…see, that’s a really amazing question and a question I get asked so much. And one thing that is amazing about Pride Parade is that it goes back to the civil rights movement. And it goes back to when the L G B T community and the people of color that were LGBT themselves, rose up against the discriminatory laws, and discriminatory practices from police to all of LGTB people, including people of color. And, Pride has been a way to reaffirm that message that we are proud of who we are, that we are, in that sense, that we are protests, that we are trying to verbalise their identity and trying to normalize things like LGBT, which weren’t normalized, you know, even twenty years ago. So, it is important to look at this for what it is, and it is a protest, and if you don't know that than you don't know the history of our communities. And, that's the major aspect that we all have to understand, is that Pride Parades started as a protest, and it started with people of color in the mix. So, it's really important to understand that. One phrase that is popularly said, is a trans person of color, trans female, a woman of color is one of the first people to throw the first bricks at Stormont, and I think that's something we have to remember.
James: If I was hearing a possible question in that question, there may be a recognition of its history as to where it start, is that its same mandate today? And I think that as time progresses and as society progresses, do our social events progress in some way as well too, and if so, then does the entire community still see it as a protest? I think those things are you know, its history but where is it today in our community?
Elise: I guess you'd have to ask whose level of experience are you asking that perspective from, because within the G.S.T. community, though it is quite diverse, there's diversity within that community. And so, depending on who you're asking some would say that you're celebrating that experience because they feel that they're fully integrated into the society and they're welcomed and things like that; and then there's others that may not feel that way. And so, I guess I'm very much a firm believer, I've never been someone that believes in that kind of generalization of a situation or experience. I realize that even within a diverse community, there's definitely voices and different level of experiences within that. So, that's the one thing I just wanted to…
Sath: The only I would mention is that Spirit brings me back this last time; to this is a whole community **trust peace, is that it takes effort and work in the world today to build trust with any situation, to build who you are and I think it's… we're really trying and it's going to take a lot of effort and I just think that it's important to recognise that the police are the community and the communities are the police; that we're not separate from the community. We actually have many diverse people within our policing itself, and they represent different communities and I think it's just important for us to recognise; that is we are it and we love that; that's what Calgary's really... it bugs me when I hear things going on in Toronto, when I hear things going on …because there’s so many times… yeah, we need to reflect and say, are we like this? Because, so many times I say to myself, we're not like this, ** with some individuals but generally I think we're trying to be a ** thinking, try to be sensitive around all of our diverse communities and every…not just diverse communities but everyone in our communities and that's what we do.
Brian: So, for me, when we talk about the civil rights movement, I think it's broader than a protest against brutality by the police. If you look at the US civil rights movement, one of the biggest accomplishments was its evolution into the Civil Rights Act, whether the protest… it was a protest about the laws as well, that police enforce, and so… and it evolved and resulted in real legislative change, and you see today, people who weren't allies have become allies, and so, I see that as the Calgary Police Services has evolved, they have a lot of work to do but they're reaching out their hands as allies and trying to engage in the type of training and diversity practices; they have G.S.T. members in their ranks that want part of their identity that they've expressed is very much. It's both their member of the community and their member of the policing community. That's a huge step for us and so, when I contrast that to my mind where you have a group that wants to recognize, and if it has work to do and wants to learn with, for example, a political party that is constantly adverse to the interests of the community, I think that would be a powerful symbol for this community to show there is a path forward to participation and that even recognizing it's a start of a conversation. I think that to show that we are going to treat a professional policing organization in a different manner as they try to reach out and grow, that a party that's constantly now a political party that's constantly ** for the community, I think that would be a powerful message from the outside, and that’s what I see.
Spirit: And I sort of quickly say too that, this is …like, Voice isn’t coming from the perspective that, you know, where you know, we’re similar to maybe some radical groups or anything like that, we're very much going to have that conversation and Pride is just one of those things that bother a lot of people in our communities about what it's kind of turned into. For your question, is it like, do the corporations know? Well, it shouldn't even matter about the corporations, it should matter more about the people first, and it matter about where are we from when stonewall occurred, and from when you know, same sex laws came into practice, and when Indigenous people had the rights to vote, and, you know, residential school and so forth. So, it's really just about understanding and having this conversation that we're having right now, I think it's really important to underline.
Sath: There is just one last thing, then your question is over. One of the things that we encounter, especially in our city, is the idea of a police commission. So, to really understand, the United States don't have many commissions. So what that commission does is that it separate police from the state, right, so it doesn't… we are never told by the… American to tell us what to do, if it goes against morals and ethics it's not just the rule of law, it's about standing up for people that might be in a courthouse with a tepee and saying, no we're going to actually bring this person coffee, we're actually going to make sure that they're safe we're going to make sure that they're… they've got** we're going to make sure that all those things are done; where you might have politicians say, we're going to get **get them away from there, because of course we have to allow people to be who they are, and have that level of integrity and if you look at the history of the world when the police become part of the states, whether you're talking about Germany or whatever, when the police become part of the state, they just become another straw. And, the idea here is that the commission they stop politicians from being able to tell us we need to go do something, we will not stand up for them because that's what really separates from us. There’re other cities, and I think Winnipeg just got** Commission**many, many. Winnipeg was just 3 years ago, they got commissioned, you go to any state, you'll see that the chief always connects with the mayor. And you don't want that, you want that separation so that the mayor's never directing the police on what to do, because it's never really about** I will stop there.
(laughing)
Jason: Yeah you are being recorded so. So, before we move on, I know that there's a couple other questions. I just want to address the other component of what you asked. So, for me, yes Pride came from the Gay Liberation Movement, and so, we don't use the word protest, but it is a political event And so, is being a political of being a celebration mutually exclusive? Can it not be political and a celebration at the same time? And so, you know, we were reminded recently that yes, for a lot of segments of our community Sisk Gay white males, I have all the rights in the world. For trans individual in our communities, it wasn't federally protected until June 2017 of last year. So, the trans community is about twenty years behind other segments of our community. And so, for members of our community, it is still very much a political event, it is a place for visibility and awareness and we need to remember that and remember the roots of where we came from. On the sponsorship side, our sponsors are absolutely aware that it is a political event. Our presenting sponsor here in Calgary is ATB, I have a very good relationship with the managing director of community investment, around issues like the police. They are aware, we send them our press releases so that in case they get questions saying why is Pride doing this, and you give them money; that they're prepared to answer those questions. When everything was happening, they actually had their media team monitoring the news to help also provide us, because we're a small non-profit and don't necessarily even have those resources. So, are they aware? Yes; Is it political? Yes; is it a celebration? Absolutely. For people like me, I have a lot of rights in the world, I have a lot to celebrate, I am very privileged. For people in our community, no. They're not quite there, they don't necessarily want to celebrate; they're still protesting. And so, our role is to help provide them a voice so that they can protest; to step aside, because I've had my voice, I have my rights. I'm married, I have a house, I have an education; there's people our community don't have that, ok. And so, that's in essence what Pride is and so, at this point, Calgary is really unique in that, because of that the parade is for everyone and the parade will always be for everyone. So, even though we have presenting sponsors and within sponsorship there's something called exclusivity, where you don't let other sponsors play the same sandbox; who's giving you the most money and all this kind of stuff, nobody is ever allowed to dictate who can be can't participate in the parade in those regards. So, they can’t say we're exclusive, so no other banks can participate, all banks can participate. The conversation in Calgary was never whether police could or couldn't participate, it was how are they going to present in a meaningful way, meaningful ally ship within our company, right. The only groups that we've looked at and not allowing are groups that actively discriminate. So, if we had hate groups or, you know, certain political parties with certain platforms, we want to see demonstration of support of the community, otherwise it's just a marketing mechanism and that's not what it's about. So that the prey truly is for everyone, and we made a conscious effort specifically where in other cities, it is a sponsorship property that they sell. So, you have the Viagra parade or the Trojan parade. We purposely do not sell that sponsorship, because we will not name our parade with a corporate name. The parade is from the gay liberation movement, it is for everyone and it will always be for everyone in Calgary. That's how we've put it forward. Does that answer your question?
Audience: Yes sir.
Brian: I wouldn’t mind saying one thing to you both. I mean, I know I brought it up before but to have a G.S.T. member on the commission is not a small thing, we have evolved as a commission if you… you can go look at the photos online and, it used to be you know, eleven white males on the commission. We now have, you know, five minorities, four women… I'm trying to get to parity and you know, having the first indigenous woman on the commission has made a big difference. I think it would make a powerful difference and if your concern, as a member of the community, is having a say over police policy. But, joining the oversight body of the police service, there can be no more powerful role, and the ability to have an impact and ask…we have a seven-hour meeting once a month, the media and we absolutely grill them, Sath drench them; we ask of a lot of questions and the ability to ask about policy and what you're doing and implement real change, it's a really powerful mechanism. So, I think it's to Sath’s point about having civilian oversight body. There's you know, there's a great show on Netflix right now about one of the federal oversight police services in Oakland California, they've been on oversight for ten years. They have incredibly poor record, and at the end of the movie, they create a police commission to have civilian oversight. So, Calgary is so far ahead on that it would be such an important piece to have a member of this community **commission.
Jason: Perfect. Just a tip, if you want to market it, don't mention seven-hour meetings.
(laughing)
Brian: Yeah, sorry, it's a lot of work.
Jason: When we speak mindful at times, we want to get these more questions, so I thought one up front here, and then we will go to one over there, and then we have a couple more so … Audience: Yeah, I'll be really quick. So, my question**another piece of context to that. My name is Brandy and** and they way it was positioned when we were all having this conversation together it was like, don’t wear uniforms, don’t **trying to find the middle ground. like, just no racoons with all these officers and I guess, it’s part of their uniform, if they did wear uniform, we had to have them out there with us, so I just wanted to add that.
James: Yeah, we did explore a lot of options absolutely and ask police, can you wear our uniform without your side arm, but if you’re in uniform, you have to wear your side arm and all these things. And, what about ceremonial dress, because they have ceremonial uniforms right. So, we did have a lot of these conversations, thank you for mentioning that.
Audience: Hi, I have a couple things if there's a question there. (laughing) My Name is Mike, I don't know if it’s good or bad that I don't have a lot of interaction with the Calgary police, but I'll tell you one quick one. Few years ago, we were holding a rally here in Calgary, to…I’m going to cry…To stop a bill called ‘Bill Ted’ which was the P.T. government was going to force… was going to allow schools to have gay** alliances but force them off of campuses. So, kids twelve, nine, whoever wanted a GST to have one, but they would have to get on a bus and leave. So, obviously, we were very upset by that and we held a rally within twelve hours, it was crazy and chaotic, and all these things came together we were down in the legislature, and as we're getting ready to speak counsellor…I think it was counsellor Andy Buck, came up to me and said…is he here?
Andy: Yes.
Audience: Oh my god. OK.
(laughing)
Andy: Now you’re going to make me cry.
Audience: I didn’t know you were here. Ok, I think about that all the time because, he came up and he said, ‘well, why don't you tell me you were going to do this?’ then I said, ‘well, I didn’t even know you existed’. I didn't know that Calgary police would be there to protect me, to protect every member of our community. And that was the scariest day of my life, because if you know anything about Alberta is that we don't have a lot of gay rallies and all of a sudden, I was the face of one, and it was very terrifying and there was a bunch of media, and I just stare at Andy the whole time because he said he was going to protect me and I felt protected. So, I just want to share that about the Calgary police. With this decision, last year… while I didn't understand any of it, I fully support it because I will fight for our community, every letter, every color, ever variation of it to my dying day. But, what I would love to see this year… and I did lots of press, lots of media last year. I will always defend our community, but I think with super important is there has to be an evolution, there has to be a step forward. I think would be…I would be disappointed to see all of that work that everyone has put in here on all sides, for it to be the exact same decision that we came to last year. There… I believe there has to be a way forward, we…. so many members of government that celebrate us now, and maybe use us some time… probably wouldn’t have voted the same way they would have ten years ago, you know, we celebrate them on Parliament Hill **raise Pride flag ** some things like that. We have to reward evolution of thought. When I came to my parents, my dad left the room, got on a plane and flew away…literally. But, this week, we spent two weeks together with the boyfriend, and we stayed in a hotel together and we did all these things, and I can't hold that against him. He got information that was new to him that took me twenty four years to figure out, high school bullies, took them thirteen years to figure out. And so, I have to wear that evolution of thought. So, like everyone else, I'm going to quote Grey's Anatomy…
(laughing)
Because, there's a scene in season six, like forty seven years ago, when one of the characters was coming… you have to remember this was eleven years ago. So, it’s a different T.V. landscape. I think sometimes we forget how fast our movement is moving, and so… OK. So, Cali just started dating Arizona. Arizona has always been gay, Cali just came out so, and Cali and her dad just got a big fight about it, and Arizona says he hasn't done anything here, you're the one that changed the game.
Cali: You didn't expect a little understanding when you came out to your parents
Arizona: I never had boyfriends, never had a poster of Cindy Crawford on my wall, and I wasn't just looking at her hole. It wasn’t news to my mom when I brought home somebody named Joanne, but you dated men your whole life, you love men, you even marry one. But, here is about thirty years of a relationship, he's been consistent for thirty years and all of a sudden, you’re a whole new girl. So, cut her some slack, sit down and have a conversation, give them room to be a little shocked.
Cali: I hate you
Arizona: Because I am right.
So, honestly that scene is always stayed with me and it's always been incredibly important for me to not hold people to something they may have said ten, twenty, thirty years ago if I believe that they've changed. So, do I care that you get the letters right? No, I don't get the letters right. do I care if you might confuse all these new terms that we have, and all the new terms are great, but we have to understand there are new for everyone and we have to appreciate; I think as long as people are willing to learn and willing to try, willing to help, we have to reward that. So, thank you so much to Calgary Pride for doing this and thinking everyone. I think it's really incredible to have this conversation so thank you.
Jason: Anybody like to comment on that…not a question.
Spirit: It really reminds me of a story I have. I was raised primarily on the reserve. And the policing there is a little bit different; I think it's different with so many different… different reserves, some cases worse than others. Mine is actually really good and I've had positive relationship with police growing up. In fact, when I graduated high school, and I might be getting into trouble so there are some **here I don't know.
(laughing)
And they came up to us…I think there's only like, I think seven of us there that were graduating that year which is a big number for the reserve and he came, and he sat us all down before the graduation ceremony happened and he was like because like…I know what you guys you can be doing tonight; like it's going to grad party and you guys are going to party. And he acted so much more like a leader in the community that…like that's how I grew up; I grew up looking at these folks as people that are real leaders in the community and I've had my best interests at heart, because I know one of the things they said is that we are going to be out there tonight, and if you need help call us, because we will come and help you. We won’t throw you in jail, we understand what you're going through while you party tonight but call us if you need help. And, I've never ever felt fear from these officers in my own community until I went outside of it. And I think it's really important to understand that outside of the community, and inside many of the communities as well, is that it can mean life or death for many of us. Or it could mean sexual violence for many of us, and we have to remember that. And I want to of course, Pride and Calgary Police Services I have done amazing things to bring this conversation and to reconcile some of these things. But, we have to understand the urgency of intersectionality, and that it is at that it can mean life or death. 01:05:20
Jason: Any comments or we can move on to the next question
Brian: I would just say I've had a bit of similar experience to Mike in that, you know, we spend these meetings critiquing and criticizing police service. At our commission meetings, we ask really tough questions. And then, they're out there protecting us and protecting the public and it always strikes me. And also strikes me that no matter what happens in this conversation, Calgary Police Service is going to be outside… and they're going to be in uniform, they're going to be protecting all of us as we observe. And, I know we all take that for granted. I do sometimes, but I sometimes stop myself and think about how remarkable that is that this group of individuals, they stand up there; they're the individuals that say no to bullying, and have our backs and I think that's, you know, recognizing that I don't always, and I try to remind myself sometimes as well.
James: One thing that you said that was important for me to understand and that's the evolution of thought, but I think as well is the process. For me, I realize that like a dad when my kid was born they were completely unconscious to the idea they needed shoes. But eventually, as they got to be two or three, the idea that they needed shoes was great, but they also understood they didn't know how to put them on. When they got to be five or six, they mastered the art of tying their shoes, but it still… you could see their little brains working so hard, trying to figure out how to tie a lace. OK, I did it dad, we get it right and eventually, now unfortunately, they probably tie their shoes while driving their vehicle unconsciously, even though they're not supposed to. But, they are really good at it, right. I think as a member of the community, I'm still learning what the intersectionality aspect, all the diversity in our community as well too. and, I would just ask for the community to be gracious as people are trying to catch up with our own progressions; their people, allies in my community who are living our experiences everybody, who are still trying to get some of the terminology straight and the idea straight, and why we're asking for these things. And I think we just have to recognize the evolution of change of thought, and the process people have to go through in order to get to the unconsciously competent stage of being able to be a factor in the community.
Sath: To further that too, we also need to make sure that we're willing to go outside of our comfort zone because now, at this point, I don't even untie my laces, I just slide my shoes right on without even thinking about it. So, sometimes we need to untie the lace, and learn how to retie it again.
James: Absolutely.
Jason: Next question, yeah.
Audience: **question **especially because my brain isn’t working very well. I think it's important to recognize that C.B.S. needs to do diversity training work in the realm of sexuality and so, I think it's really great that I was there to audit the diversity training there but I think one of the key piece around this conversation is that each sexuality of experiences is not… clear experience is not the same for white people as it is for racially different people. And so, I am wondering, was Voices invited to that audit and if they weren’t, why not?
Jason: No, Voices was not invited to that training. Why not? I'm just going to be authentic at this point. Voices has identified to myself and to Pride thus far, they day wanted the opportunity to connect and create a relationship with C.P.S. in their own time. And so, I have passed along the contact information to members of Voices, and so I left not that door and that opportunity open for Voices to step through. So, I can't really speak to Voices and they need to go through their process and take the steps that they need to take in their own time. So, that's all I can comment on as to why they weren’t invited to that conversation. I was invited, I have an expertise in diversity training and that's what I studied and things like that. So, I was asked to do that because I was already offering diversity training, so they said can you come and see if this is on par with what is being taught by other communities and organisation. So that's the first part, the second part was, it was a beginning to the conversation. I agree intersectionality is important, and I can tell you some of the benefit that came out of that. Since that, if I can share and I believe that you're the one who told me that, you know it was well received that they're actually looking at doing it now with the Indigenous community …with the indigenous diversity liaison officer to bring engine is training for the senior executive team because I realize that this is a gap. So again, we need to look at what are the gaps and how can we take those steps forward. So, the first step is they need to understand the gaps and the need to do a basic training with those, so they understood; they're doing some indigenous training. Once they have the basic knowledge, can we expand on that? Can we do intersectionality training? Absolutely; can we do intercultural competencies? Absolutely; can we go into, you know, we can do a whole training on nothing but trans and trans issues, which is a whole separate training and people like James Demears who's here today, does specific training…sorry to single you out James…of specific training on trans and trans issues and it's a whole training in and of itself, right. So, is there always more training that can be done? Absolutely.
Spirit: It's an excellent question. And sorry, you don’t sound sick at all. Even the last town hall we had, there were two different groups talked about trade, so even how we develop our policy, how we look at what we do with our jails system and how do we do that. And so, I think we connected with tutors last time; we just want to learn. Just tell us what… where to go, what… because we don't know all these things. Whereas we're like a team out there trying to take a close up or try to think what all these things that we have to try to get to, and I think we're still going to miss one or two so then we're hoping that they'll step forward and say we can probably help you a little bit over here too; there's no community group up there who are not willing to do **.
Brain: One thing that struck me last time and this time, is how incredibility the members of Voices group are. And, how open-minded I think you were and I think that sadly, it's probably important for us as service men and for the commission, we'd love to see some engagement and ** I think C.P.S. could learn a lot from the group. So, I can't speak for C.P.S. even though I can ask them questions about whether they're engaged…
Sath: How come? Why not? (laughing)
Brian: Yeah, but I think it's really a good question and I will be asking the commissioner who ** .
Spirit: I can just speak a little bit for Voices; we have that is one of our, I guess, agenda is to play around with what our community has already kind of done in terms of diversity training. One thing I think Voices wasn’t necessarily prepared for was the level of cooperation that Pride and C.P.S. had kind of demonstrate; after the press release chaos, I feel like there has been trust developing between you know, people of color, LGTB folks and police. I think one thing that Voice has been kind of figuring out, because it's been pointed out that our community is evolving so fast, that we're still trying to figure out what this new age looks like in terms of what we've learned from, you know, past leaders like Kimberly, and different sexuality. For Voices right now, I have been working… because I'm in policy studies, we've been working on trying to figure out, what does it look like now not as a grassroots group that are trying to share stories, but as more of a like, interest group that trying to promote intersectionality and promoting those kind of relationships in their community. And, I think that's a conversation that across North America we're having that you see with black lives matter and such; like what does race relations look now, where they aren't as tangible or physical as policy, but more about how our systems and structures have been altered because of those things in the past. So, I think right now, we're trying to figure that out and getting ourselves more organized. We are wanting to be more active in our community, that is one question we have to ask is how…do you want to just dissolve or we would we like to leave space for another group, or do we want to keep doing this and I think a lot of us seeing that there is obviously a strong need for a group like this to be able to listen and to do more community capacity building events with people of color that are LGBT and hear those stories and to find that connection within our own community.
James: I think I'd like to remind you all as well too, that the G.D.S. board members who are active members and for some people, it may be a trigger for them to talk directly to an employee officer as their first point of contact. We are that place that does advocate for the ** community and a place where the board members are part of the community and so we were encouraged people who want to return to us as another place or were these conversations concert, we can represent them.
Jason: And we have another couple of questions here, one, two, three, four… before we get on though, I have a question that I would like to pose to the panel along the same line. So, many of our conversations seem to really be centering around some kind of diversity or you know, you talk to go looking with the communities is already doing, what needs to be adapted. So, a lot of time we talk about adapting existing space; how can we take the existing parade and make it so that police can participate or make it so that **make it feel welcome and safe. So, we're talking about adapting these different things to meet the needs of specific groups. So, there's an idea that was put forth by George Dye, and it says, “Inclusion is not bringing people into what already exists, it is making a new space, or a better space”. So, a part of what we heard over the last town hall, is we heard a lot of what are the issues, but not a lot of, what do you need as a community; and so, I want to pose, especially to Voices and maybe...And maybe even some of you can answer to your question to some of these as well, what would that look like?
Spirit: Well, I think I may go back to what I said before about, you know, looking at trust. And, I think we can look at that in our own relationships and how trust kind of starts at the smallest of moments. And, betrayal can kind of happen in also the smallest moments as well. I think if you don't take that opportunity to engage in something that builds trust, then when you walk away from that opportunity, you're leaving betrayal behind. And, I think that that's a huge thing that we have to look at. And understand that these private… that these town halls and that how we're talking about police engagements in Pride; those are all part of that process. And I think that might have been a big part of what Voices is trying to do now is, we're just trying to be present and visible, and so that we can all see each other clearly. I think that you know, when I think of solutions or anything like that, I think visible things really help. I think you know, the fact that the police officer came and said, you know, made himself visible in his uniform during when I was graduating, and he told us those things like that was the symbolic way of doing that. Because, he was wearing the uniform that many of my people are frightened of. And, I had the luxury of growing up and yeah, of course, being intimidated but I wasn’t fearful for my life that many people of color experience. And I think that it really kind of just starts there. And, I think you can you can have fun, and I think you can be creative about how those symbols look. And I think the symbol of police in the parade, not wearing their uniforms, was a very like… something you could look at. I mean, it was something that made the news and something that was very …that probably spoke to a lot of people of color. And I think that you know, when you think of the thing they happened in the States with Starbucks, where they escorted two black men out just because they were, you know, waiting to have a business conversation there, and you think about health those kind of situations kind of go down, it's about trying to do …It's trying to create that aura of safety. And I think afterwards, I think people of color, I think that's one of the safest spaces to go in now is Starbucks, right. Because, all of that attention was placed on there, and I can say, I think I can probably go in there and not worry about being escorted out because of this event that was a symbolic thing that happened, and that's changing; that's the actual answer if we're going to look at it, right. And it doesn't always have to come to that moment where someone's dignity with shattered to cause change. I think we can look at other ways to do that, to be proactive about it. and part of that is having this conversation inside the organization of the police, and having that conversation about uniforms, and how we engage in the public. Because, I think you know as we spoke, public trust is everything and I think that builds public trust when you see those kind of things and you see yourself represented, and that's something we've been speaking about you know, since critical race theory and all these different things by our race relations now came out; these are the stories that we've been talking about.
Jason: Alright, thank you. So, I hear there's opportunity potentially, to look at creating something new.
Spirit: Yeah, I think it's the fun part.
Jason: I will get back to you. I know there's some people have been waiting so…
Audience: So, we've been talking a lot of building trust… with building trust and I think an important way of building a relationship with people is admitting when you're wrong and having that willingness to say, I did something, I'm story that I did that, how can we move forward. So, looking at the **situation the ** apologize for what they are done in a lot of ways, and they're working on becoming better. And, I think there's something that there's a real opportunity for the police commission enforcement, yes. And I think there probably is a really important role to play with that sort of thing. Back in the early 2000’s there is that **Calgary, there's been people that have been affected with ** Calgary, there is people that don’t feel safe; maybe if they're trans dress people of color interacting with police. And **for anything that's probably because the police haven’t accepted that they've done things wrong, and there hasn't been a public acknowledgement or apology for that and so I think this is something that's a real opportunity, and I think that the police commissioner, the police chief needs to show own that they've done things wrong, and that they need to publicly say that they are sorry for what they've done in the past and they're committed to move forward.
Brian: So, why don’t we ** commission** those wasn't part of enforcement. But, why don’t we take that away** and have a conversation with the commission about that. We welcome… it's a good point I think we should take it away and talk about it.
James: I think it might be fair to say Sam, that the conversation has started already and has been engaged and is in process, and your comment lends voice to the fact of its urgency. But to encourage you that, they are taking the initiative to flush this out.
Brian: And that's coming from the C.P.S. side?
James: Yes,
Sath: Yeah, it was one of the three recommendations that was put forward in our initial meeting. I have had a follow up conversation within the last couple weeks about it and was informed that there librarian at C.P.S. have been looking into some of the history and they've actually had conversations with Kevin Allen, who runs the history project in Calgary, specifically around some of the historical components of situational, you know, happenings. So, it is a conversation that is happening, and like James said, I think that lend a voice to the community needed some of the urgency. Thank you.
Audience: I think it’s really important though is that this doesn't become just a checkbox exercise, right. So, this is going to be genuine; It's got to be sincere and I know it is, so I'm happy. Elise: I just have to add, it has be consistent, right. Like, it should just be something that we do in wake of someone saying that there's something wrong happening within our community. It should be consistently done so that we were actively engaged in people to hear voices, so thank you for your point.
Jason: That… yes absolutely.
Audience: Oh, OK. I just want to develop on what my **why he thinks it is not **for LGBT people to not include the police force in the **. Imagine there is a guy who use to **beat the shit out of you, ** and now, he is acting all cool and forgiving and he **work place celebration you organize once a year. It is not unreasonable to say no thanks, I don’t what that end of discussion. I know you guys have been proactive and working on how**can be involved in public Pride or like ** how would you put that into **or would you respond to this message.
Brian: I can say that does not describe a conversation we have had; it’s always been incredibly respectful CPS is in no way demanding you to participate. It’s been a year-long conversation, a ton of work and dialogue within the group and I think I contrast that again to some political parties which I think is more closely align to the scenario you just described where there haven’t been allies but they are demanding to participate in Pride and** Calgary. The police service, my observation, is trying to demonstrate as a professional organisation, while we can engage in the community so, I would say, both Deputy Chief ** and I, settle it during the last session, they would like to** but it’s not their decision, it’s the community decision and its Pride’s decision. They are just trying to show…they are just trying to show that they have evolved, and they might one day get a birthday, like that’s all they are looking for; they are not demanding you to come to the party.
James: It's speaks to me because when I was in high school, I was a closeted gay man and I acted as a bully at times. And it was in the last year that I finally found my high school colleague who was the end of my discussions at times and we're getting together in June as I go back to my home city to have a conversation about this because I hope that I’ve changed enough as an individual; that he will allow me to be his friend again. And, I think that that's the other side of that illustration is that, people can change and even though back in 1977, I was a bully in high school, I'm not today and I want to reconcile with the man who I might have caused some tough days a high school with, because of my own home sexuality that was causing it. So, I think that people can change, and I think we've seen demonstration by C.P.S. that they are truly wanting, not to be an arrogant bully at a birthday party asking to go…no, demanding to be there, but looking to earn their way back into the relationship through reconciliation.
Audience: I have to say, **I am just reading off** not my own perspective.
Jason: And that’s a good perspective but just want in this conversation, I just wanted to contribute to that.
Audience: First, I just want to say sir, if I was half as wise as you are right, I am twenty-four years…I don’t know ** I know it's early days in the training process and in the conversation, but I'm wondering if you have considered the metrics by which you are going to measure your programs. Are there statistics, are there…is there any information kept on people feeling bullied or being bullied, or incidents you know… like, I know there's a lot of anecdotal... there a lot of stories, a lot of people but has any of that been researched the counted or, how are you going to count or look forward you know that you reach?
Sath: It's a really good question, that's really tough question to answer. Because, measuring what your output are in this…because it's not …the world we're getting to is into collaborative practice, so it's not just the police doing its business right. Because, most of the bullying and harassment issues rarely make it in the big picture to the police. It’s usually done in schools, it’s done in the workplaces, it's done in areas that where they don't phone the police. So, if you really want to get a good picture, you have to start creating these collectives where we're doing lots of programming now, where in Alberta now, we help in the education systems, so we can start getting some more data, but it's a hard story to tell right now. we capture all of our data in regards to how many bullying calls we go to, how many harassment calls we go to, so we have an idea. I just don't know if it’s a very good resource.
Audience: I am guessing towards the police themselves, because I think his conversations about what the police…
James: Where they have failed?
Sath: Yes, where you know… So, explained that ** Audience: So, incident where the police have been accused as acting as bullies or acting in a disturbing or discriminating against various groups.
Brian: See if I can hop on that a little. One of the police bodies is a complaint with the public complaints director, and we have a complaint oversight committee, and so all those group which are members of the commission, have line of sight on some of the public complaints against… by members of the public against conduct by the service. And we do track all of those complaints, and if those… if they're validated they elevate to an actual disciplinary process within the service. So, we track the number of complaints they report, and we report on it monthly at our commission meetings about how many complaints and the status of complaints. And we keep track of it… for those… to get to the …public complaints are more common, but to get to the formal disciplinary process, we right now have probably about seventy-six outstanding public complaints that are working their way through the system. Often, they get elevated to a disciplinary process within the service and reported back to this service body. There's also the mechanisms that the service run as well where they receive complaints… I don't know, I haven't asked this question **
Sath: Was going to ask
(laughing)
Brian: Is what they track, what the service track for complaints that they take directly through their… through their system.
Audience: And have they differentiated that these complaints**
Brian: I'm writing it down on my pad, I will get the answer and I will be part of our public meeting.
Sath: It’s good. I'm sorry I missed that but it’s pretty good.
**
Sath: There's somebody here from Voices I think, so…
Jason: Yeah, we have one more over here and then we will come back over.
Audience: It was just a **
Oh, it was just a ** Elise: I was going to say that all those stats being corrected might not be an actual representation about what people are experiencing, because often time, if you had a difficult interaction with police, the last person you want to go to complain about it is the police. And so, **the conversation, it would be great to have a third party, kind of what we want our organisation to do too.
Sath: It’s a good point, because one of the first meetings when I was a brand new deputy and I went to ** with the chief… with Jason, right, and we actually talked about providing education to the board to share it, we will bring in people to talk about how the process works, to create some confidence on what it is, but having some type of a safe space to ** is probably important as well.
Elise: Can I just add to that? I think that…I am a strategists professionally, and so I'm not sure how accurate or how possible it is to have some type of system where it would accurately reflect what the concerns are whether it be about discrimination that a police officer did to a civilian or whatever it may be, but what can come to place, and it kind of goes in line with your question that you asked earlier, I think there can be certain tactics done to make sure that it demonstrates how the police services is engaged in the community. So consistently, how many town halls have been done this year? With whom? What stakeholders represented by community? Annually, or biannually, producing a community report that outlines specific tactics that been done that support diversity and inclusion within Calgary. Things like that, I think that's going to be more of an accurate representation and I'm really thinking from my perspective as a what I would love to see. But, webinars, things that demonstrate who are the people in Calgary police services that represent us and that we could go to, to get information and education about what Calgary Police Services does in terms of diversity education. I think these are the tactics that are, kind of, and I'm just kind of speaking at a topic here but broadly speaking, I think these are the tactics I would love to see Calgary police services do to demonstrate and kind of a commitment to our community first and foremost, and lastly, to just set a tone a transparency that would let anybody know exactly what activities are doing to really engage diverse stakeholders within our community.
Jason: Absolutely and I know I've had conversations with police, specifically around… police are not good about talking about themselves. So, like... how many hours have you volunteer already? If you look at any typical kind of corporate organisation, a lot of them produce a corporate social responsibility report, highlighting their environmentalism, and their social impact all these things; we don't see that from police or from fire or right… they just don't talk about that sort of stuff. So, and again, maybe that some take away, maybe that's something that they need to start talking about so that our community can start to see some of that. In terms of the metric, there are metrics internally not necessarily related to the complaint, because the commission tracks the complaint process but there are internal metrics around diversity inclusion, there's something called the global diversity inclusion benchmark where you can actually look at measuring your organizational diversity inclusion and all these things which, again, training and stuff are at the beginning of that conversation right. And I know there's people internally like Tammy Posivan, who’s working on special projects around that which, I believe, is going to be presented soon. So, hopefully, you know, I'm excited to hear what Tammy is going to be presenting on, but there are metrics, there are strategies, there are tactics there are right …are we there yet?
Elise: No, and are we ever going to be? And, I don’t want to kind of put out this false sense of…
No.
Elise: Perfectionism or…. kind of destination that we're going to arrive at that when satisfied, but as our committees evolve those metrics are going to evolve, those solutions are going to evolve.
Jason: Can I just say that…I don't want to lose your point because, you… kind of a light buld went off when you were speaking because we also had a conversation before we started about the ** process which is… I will get too into the weeds, but we… there's more former police officers that investigate police officers and how that doesn't really work very well, and with your conversation, when members of the public don't report and there is this kind of poor interaction with C.P.S.. If they go home that's a problem and don't report it, but a lot of them don't want to go through a formal process and that… frankly, that's a fairly destructive process, it's a institutional process that doesn't work. And so, you've kind of suggested something that, I think, we should explore a little bit about whether we could create some kind of… more reconciliation based process where we could have just that conversation where people going to say, listen I have this you know, I had someone you know we've just had a bad experience on a traffic stop, and they felt the officer was, you know, too abrupt with them. I think if they just had the conversation with an officer and explain what was going on, what they were thinking about, it probably would have it was all for everyone. But, if the only mechanisms are a formal investigation or nothing, everyone is choosing nothing. So, I just want you to know, I heard what you said, and I actually think anything came of that for a while and few have ideas like that.
Spirit: I have a little bit of an idea, and I was wondering, why if this is the thing that's being talked about or not. So, progress Alberta did a series of workshops on place Curdie, and one really interesting thing that I've seen with that many cities in Canada have **fix for place carting towards men and women of different ethnicities. So, black folks and indigenous folks and white folks, and I think there was another one, I am not totally sure, Indigenous people, for the most cases, were place, were I guess interrogated or had police, you know, interactions more so than black folks and white folks in general. I could go on a lot about inequality and how that has affected our societies but, why don't we look at those numbers and think about how we can shrink them and look at how that can be across borders and not just internally inside of Calgary police services. I think that opens the conversation up across, you know, to people of color and so forth to be able to look out what are …why are these numbers so high, obviously. OK So, police have to… seem to have to engage with Indigenous people more, so you know. One statistic I know is that, majority of the homeless folks here in Calgary are indigenous despite the fact that we make up, you know, the smallest percentage here in Calgary. So, looking at those statistics and wondering how whether the conversations that we need to talk about systemically, because this isn't a thing that's going solve in Calgary police services in their headquarters or Pride or Voices, this is a systemic thing that goes across all identities and I'm just wondering so like why are there… was just wondering with not as an attacker just, why are those numbers hide? Why does Calgary not cut those numbers like other ones, and I could be wrong, that could have changed but that's one question and I propose to the panel.
Sath: We actually changed the whole ** thing around Toronto. Actually, we haven't waited for …and we did some cultivations with ** we actually didn't wait for the problems to teach our processes, so we actually have got a quite a robust system in place and It's called the… it's not called the ** it's …there's a whole theory why its called ** in the first place. But, our numbers are pretty open. We've actually offered to any community talk about the process, how it works; would be more than open to coming to private voices to talk about what our lawful authority is, how we have to keep the treaty safety; if we get a call that someone is on the playground for example, we have a duty to communicate with the public. So, what does that look like. So, we have some… There's a whole regime around how we look at them, whether they're lawful, whether they're… and then… so, there's a structure behind that and then…
Jason: Yeah, could we take that off maybe, and if people are interested more in a conversation around rechecks or Carding, maybe Tom and Kelly approach you after **and you can tell them how you can get more information on that. Just because…
Spirit: One thing about it, it's just that a way for our metric to look at numbers that we could shrink at that are, I think what we're talking about here today.
Jason: Yeah, absolutely. I just want to be mindful of time, we have about fifteen minutes left and I know we have some more questions, so…
Audience: Just a comment if I may, that people may react to if they like. I've been participating in Pride for about twenty years. And in that time, I have seen acceptance of some in our society increase, folks like myself and other voices of come into focus as that's been happening, and it's really been quite an amazing thing to be a part of; and there’s so much left to do. And I want to just first of all say that this process is absolutely amazing. I am just so proud of everyone here in this demonstration of partnership and collaboration. It's certainly as it stands right now today, I am coming from a place of privilege without a shadow of a doubt, and I want to…and I hear keen, quite keen and interested to listen and learn. But, I want to share one experience of mine from many years ago relating to the police and their participation in Pride. When the police first started participating in Pride and they were in uniform, it was actually for me a symbol of support that was incredibly meaningful and powerful. Although at the time, I was certainly well aware of some of the things that happened in the past, very well aware, the interestingly, my reaction was to be filled with relief and optimism and seen police in uniform participating in the parade. So, thinking back, I actually felt supported and strong after that experience. And one of the other things that happen, and I don't know if it's perhaps as a result of the trust that I felt out of that, it opened my mind to recognize the sacrifices that these folks who wear the uniform every day make for all of us. And frankly that's almost unthinkable to me, so I know others have different experiences, but I want to thank everyone for what they are doing.
Jason: Thank you. Does anybody want to comment on that or…?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Jason: Before we go on, quick I know Michelle, you are next. Whoever has a question just go on and put your hand up real quick just so I can make sure I don’t miss people. Ok, so Michelle, you can go ahead.
Michelle: Ok, I think it’s absolutely great so many people have had so many interactions with police; the police actually how a complaints and compliments line and what a great place for you to put your compliments towards them. I come from ** where ** was killed, and I have to counsel his family regularly because of how they were treated by the Calgary police. And I want to bring up because, we put out our statement, and I said this for the last panel as well that we put out our statement on August 24, 2016, and we asked for a lot of these things and we also asked for they apologize for the raids. We asked for a lot of this training as well, and yet we were really included in a lot of that. So, I just…I know we've been talking about oh, we are doing a lot of the of this good work, but can we maybe recognize that it came from the statement, and it came from hours and tears and pain from all of the indigenous people and people of color that had to work at this, and despite all of that, it just seems like they're still not really understanding to our voice and I remember Pride and seeing police that protested by wearing their uniform and mocked us as we protested it. So, that was last year or the year before, so you know, want to give a little bit of, it is great to feel good, yes there's been this great progress but, do I feel safe alone with a police officer? No, my job… my actual job is to build bridges between indigenous and the police, and we have to secretly kind of talk with established relationships with a District for, hey, this police officer… because we don't want to do the whole formal thing, he calls this loser Lou, can you do something about that; maybe talk to him about diversity training, and while it's great to have, you know, Chief of police and the higher ups getting that training, we need that. We have to remember that the boots on the ground are necessarily reflective, and that's not why I, as an indigenous woman on the streets of, you know, a greater force one area I'm experiencing, and neither is my community. And, I would really hate for Voices to put out a statement and none of that statement is reflective of, you know, the conversation about the progress when we put this out. And, we’ve really been trying to talk over reconciliation and there's no, you know, conversation about what whose flying reported reconciliation in any of this. So, I just want to just throw that out there that we do have lots of work and I want to agree, and I want to feel really good and I agree that there's been this kind of progress. I just need to remind everybody that, if I will have statements from other people tonight on the type of abuse or mistreatment they have received from police, and I have talked relentlessly for years with missing and murdered indigenous women families, because they are the ones that have the most abuse inflicted on them, somebody is a murdered and you know, and rather than getting a compassionate officer coming in telling them, instead, they're getting their place looked around, the kids apprehended and a bigger awful violence is inflicted on them with that. So, I just want to remind that we have a ton of work to do, and we're not there yet. You know, we… people were saying well these are new terms and concepts. Well, I know there are people who still don't know what missing or murdered indigenous women/ girls true spirit are. I'm still educating people what true spirit is and I'm straight. So, you know, if I'm having to advocate for my own family whose marginalising that way, and the people in my community today of what they're going to through, I just wish there was an understanding the fact that the U.C.P. could come out and say, you know, those Indians get everything, we are sick and tired of it, publicly, and that was in their convention, you know, we have to understand how marginalised we are as a community and how hurtful it is to see, you know, a police officer in uniform literally mock us for our ask, that can we please have an apology, can you please consider not wearing guns and understand that this is coming from a place where, you know, R.C.M.P. translates into those who take us away in some of the some of our languages. So, just really needs a lot more education and you know, that education not just to the boots on the ground, but to the LGBT communities so that you understand, you know, the historical roots the bigger concept of the land of knowledge which was **. So, and part of our statement and asking Pride to acknowledge that. So, lots of progress yes, lots of work still to do.
Spirit: I just want to quickly say too, the reason why I’m here today, is because of the Cultin Kosher situation. And from that community actually Cultin Kosher was my neighbour. And I went to an event at the university where I knew a lot of my community members were going to be, of course excited but of course also a memorial and also a way of getting information out for the community. And I saw elders there that I grew up with; like think of the people that, you know, are elders like your grandparents and how you respect them. Like, this is how we look at her a grandmother…at our elders from a community. And, seeing them crying and begging for the young generation to look at their careers and do something with the current situation that we're facing right now. To beg us, you know, to look at policy; to get that language is such a big call right now in our communities. And, the reason why I'm here and why so many indigenous people are starting to take on these roles, is because of the urgency that's in our communities. And we have to remember that.
Michelle: So, that date reporting, a lot of sex workers, they have a safe way to talk about bad dates and that was something I've been talking about, we need a bad cop report sheet that is transparent away from the police so that we can collect data, and have shared data and say OK, this is what we collected over the year, here you go. But, we need that infrastructure and that's really hard to ask ** people there to create that infrastructure. So, you have the resources with all these commissions and unveil ability, if we could have an independent bad cop report sheet that would be fabulous.
Brian: All right and I do want to take a moment, because you asked for some recognition about everything that the indigenous community has gone through and…
Audience: Can you speak up?
Brian: Sorry, you asked for some recognition about everything the Indigenous community has going through, and I think that's important story. I certainly see that… and I hear you and I think that you brought this issue forward, and I think it's amazing that you're all stepping forward to take these roles. We'll try to meet you from the commission side, and I know the service very much wants to meet those motions as well…it's a start…we recognize it's only a start but we hear you. Audience: Thank you.
Jason: So, we have about five minutes left, and we have Andy Buck in the back. Are there any other questions? We will have probably one more question after Andy if there's any more burning questions.
Brian: I am not emailing, I am taking notes so I don’t forget.
Andy: Yeah, Jason. I just want to pick up on something that you said earlier.
Jason: Oh-uh
Andy: When you talked about Pride Parade is for everyone. What would you… accepting that those decision that has been made for this upcoming parade, but from a gay, trans-gender police officer perspective, what would you say to any of those officers that may raise an eyebrow about and comment about the parade being for anybody and say to you that well, not if you’re a police officer? As a police officer, I am able to come as much also, what would be your reaction to that?
Jason: Well, I'm not a police officer so I don't understand and will never understand the attachment to the uniform, and so to me, and I can only speak from my perspective, at the end of the day police officers have the opportunity to take that uniform off. And that's the lens that I typically look through. So, you know if somebody like likes that, he goes on vacation with his kids, he said he…married, he has kids, he you go swimming, he goes to the beach, he can take the uniform off. Right, now I understand there's a mentality around you never really take the uniform off, and these kind of things which I don’t quite understand but…and I want a police to comment on that as well, but then again, I'm not a person of color so I don't fully understand it. But, for somebody who's from some of these marginalized communities or people of color, if they go on vacation, they can take that off…
Sath: I tried to cut my hair and that didn't work…
Jason: Yeah, at the end of the day…
Elise: I tried to dress corporate and I got stopped and asked where I'm going to at six pm when I was heading back to my condo?
Jason: So, for a lot of us in the community, the framework that we look through that we operate through is a clear framework, is the G.S.T. framework. So, they can come and represent as part of community, as part of their you know, their trans identity, their… right, nobody… that's what this event is about, it's not about police identity. And so, again, I don't understand the correlation with the uniform and the other flipside is, we never said police couldn't identify; they wore a T. shirt that identified them as police, they just couldn't identify the way that they wanted to identify. And so, what the community has asked is, can you represent a way that's meaningful to the most marginalized voices in our community. They can still represent as police; they wore a T. shirt that said we are C.P.S... To mean, like everybody knew that they were police, Sath commented on the amount of comments they got, it was one of his favourite moments in policing, the amount of positive response they got of the parade, everybody still knew there were police, they’re still identified as police; they're also identified as members of community; they're also showing ally ship to those most marginalised within the community. That's what I would say to that.
Spirit: But, those comments happens every year though. It’s not …wasn't just last year that we have positive comments. The police get generally pretty good comments…
Jason: Well, and that's why, I mean, they get good comments regardless of whether they're wearing the uniform or the T. shirt.
Spirit: But, it's not… the mentality of the police thing is, it isn't just about the uniform, we actually invoke that on our people; you are by legislation, we are required...24/7 we are accountable 24/7 on how we are to react, and how we behave. And, that's the expectation for all the world holding a high office; when you hold this high office, you have to be accountable, that's when you have uniform on.
Jason: Of course.
Spirit: Also, when you don't have the uniform on, so it is part of our… a lot of our people's identity.
Elise: Yeah, for sure. But, I guess I found a little bit of offense in drawing a parallel between a uniform and my lived experience. Because, even though men mentally, if you take the uniform off, you're still… mentally you see yourself as a police officer, there's no way for me to turn this off; this is who I am. Regardless of whether I speak, how I dress, how I present myself, there's still a bias implicitly with some people that see me a certain way. So, I don't like the police officer that has the ability to take off the uniform and still maintain the mental image of the police officer internally, I don't have that luxury.
Brian: I think… I've spent some time because I find… to be honest, I find police officers fascinating from the outside. And I've spent some time thinking about it, and there's an ethos to the public service and it's associated with the uniform; it's similar for members of the military and I saw it last year with members of the fire and EMS, there's a commodity between groups first responders, they look out for each other and they see the uniform is very symbolic, and it does become part of who they are as an individual and I recognize that it's not the same as one sexuality, but it's very important for fire military police service; it does become a big part of their identity and this is me from the outside and so I just don't want to minimalize for G.S.T. members in the police service. They do… it is a big part of their identity and it's really painful for a group that was marginalized, that's worked their way in and into the service, and become accepted by their comrades. It is very painful for them to be asked to take their uniform off. I just… I don't want to minimalize that impact on them as well, and it's not as simple for them as just wearing a T. shirt that identifies them. I think that's important for people to understand.
Jason: And, that's also part of my question around creating a new space for people. So, last year there was an event called Unity in uniform that was put on by members of the community for people in uniform to go and represent in uniform. And so, I think there is opportunity to new space, and to recognise a new identity, because there may be officers that are clear, that are people of color, that identify as such, but also identify with that uniform. So, what does that look like and that's part of what we're exploring is part of those questions. I just want to say, because the parade is that component where we try and create the most space for the most amount of people, we're never going to get it right for absolutely every single person. It’s just not realistic, but I do want to say that while police are still there in T. shirts, they're also they're in uniform, in a security capacity that was visible, they were at Pride in the park which is what we call our after party of princes Island, at their booth in uniform engaging with communities in uniform. So, it's not as if police were not allowed to represent anywhere in uniforms, they were there in the park, they were there in the security capacity. So basically, out of four, it was one opportunity of visibility that they were asked to represent in a meaningful way to commute one of the one of the four. So, I think there's opportunity to create a new space. So, I know there's a bunch of hands up. I promised the committee, because last time we went way over time that I would end up right at eight today to be mindful and respectful of people's time. So, I think we're going to stop it there for tonight, but I do want to encourage if you have further times just to please come down and engage… I'm going to stick around. I won't speak for the rest of the group, but we will be here and if you do have more questions, you're doing one tomorrow again, six pm until eight pm, we will be at the Centre for Newcomers which is in the north east inside the TNT mall across from Marlboro. Thank you very much everyone for coming…
(Applause)
Jason: One more closing remark, the parade is one day a year, Pride is one week a year. A lot of these conversation is what we are trying to do is look at what’s happening the other 364 days a year as well. So, keep that in mind if you do have future questions, submit them through our website by tomorrow or come to the meeting, thank you.