INNISFAIL — The town's Welcoming & Inclusive Community Committee has been launched for the fourth time to give citizens a voice on how best to manage any issues of racism that surface in the community.
The initiative (WICC), created and co-chaired by two prominent local citizens, Jason Heistad and Pat Bidart, follows the Town of Innisfail's direction from council to create its own Anti-Racial Discrimination & Anti-Racism Policy.
The first meeting of the new group, which attracted nine citizens, was held June 29. A second meeting was held July 13.
"We wanted to make sure Innisfail, as in the past, is shown as a great community and have conversations about racism in our community and build from that," said Heistad, a former town councillor and secretary-treasurer of the Alberta Union of Public Employees. He added all citizens from any nation and colour are invited to the meetings.
"I think it is the right time. If you don't initiate and have conversations right away then it is forgotten. I think this is an opportunity," added Heistad. "This isn't being political on different views. It is about our community."
Heistad and Bidart both said the inspiration to relaunch WICC with a focus on anti-racism came during the town's highly publicized anti-racism rally on June 13.
"Friends of mine from Halifax to Victoria said, 'do you live in that community?' I was quite aghast because what was happening was not really our community," said Bidart, who spends now spends a great deal of her time working in the Caribbean island country of Saint Lucia as a senior technical advisor for Colleges and Institutes Canada. "I thought I can't keep my mouth shut because what was happening was not reflective of what our community is.
"The welcoming committees that have been developed over the years have been about action," she added. "There is an issue. They address it."
During the new committee's first meeting, participants drafted its vision that it ensure Innisfail is a welcoming and inclusive community where people of diverse backgrounds live, work and play together.
The committee also set its goals. Members agreed that conversations with citizens must take place to identify the issues and challenges citizens of different backgrounds encounter in Innisfail.
The committee pledged to support educating people in the community about what a welcoming and inclusive community is or should be. Members further want to promote awareness, training and education, as well as build community capacity and cultural understanding. The committee has also set a goal to develop a dialogue with local schools, businesses and the town about issues of concern connected to anti-racism.
Bidart said it is her view that the end goal of the committee is to ensure citizens from any background will be able to come to Innisfail and feel accepted that Innisfail is their community. She added the task ahead has additional importance today because Innisfail was left with a "tarnished" name from the recent adverse publicity over the anti-racism rally.
"When people think of Innisfail they think of it as this racist community," she said. "We worked really hard through the other welcoming community committees to make sure our community was welcoming and inclusive, and that people would want to come and live here.
"If I was a newcomer and googled Central Alberta and came up with Innisfail do you think I would move here if I had coloured skin? I doubt it," she added. "That to me was so embarrassing because when we did the first committee and when we had the foreign workers and different people moving in the whole goal was to have this community that people would want to live, work and play."
All of which town officials salute, she said adding the mission of the committee aligns with the goals of the Town of Innisfail's draft anti-racism policy.
"It great news to have and see WICC resurrected in the community to put the spotlight within our community regarding racism or discrimination and is welcomed to continue the conversation from a community level," said Todd Becker, noting the town's draft policy, which is expected to be formally approved by council later this summer, is geared on the town as an organization on how it conducts its business and the expectations that follow. "What WICC is doing and what the town is doing should align very well in trying to create awareness on racism and discrimination."
