Reimagining our Cities
In honour of International Women’s Day, YWCA City Shift hosted its second Reimagining our Cities panel event called: Advancing equity in a polarized time. The event also marked the City Shift project’s official wrap-up, so guests were encouraged to engage with resources, ideas and interactive elements from the project.
Hosted at Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, Councillor Dennis Thomas of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation opened the event and welcomed the packed theatre, and Fiona Lam, Vancouver Poet Laureate, gave a reading of “Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo.
Next, Shachi Kurl, President of the Angus Reid Institute and keynote speaker addressed how 63% of Canadians have centrist views, but decreasingly see themselves reflected in public discourse. Canadians are “capable of holding two views that may be in conflict in their heads at the same time,” she said, and that we must work to "create some space, language, a template for all of us to be able to have conversations… with passion, yes, but without anger and without judgment.”
Michelle Eliot, host of CBC Radio’s BC Today, then moderated the panel of women municipal leaders and experts. The panel included Aftab Erfan, Executive Director of SFU Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue and Associate Member at SFU School of Public Policy; Andrea Reimer, Adjunct Professor, UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Founder & Principal, Tawaw Strategies; Ginger Gosnell-Myers, Fellow focused on Decolonization and Urban Indigenous Planning, SFU Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue; and Rachael Segal, Political Strategist and Founder of Beyond a Ballot.
Each panellist brough a unique perspective and spoke about how polarization is prevalent in their sphere, and the interactive event invited attendees to submit questions to the panel, adding to the lively discussion. Topics ranged from social media and media literacy, to who has power and how, plus advice on how to be thoughtfully engaged citizens in our democracy. One of the key takeaways the panellists agreed on was the fundamental importance of taking time to listen and understand one another, and to remain open to an array of viewpoints.
When exiting the theatre, guests were asked to share their thoughts and feelings post event. Some examples were, “Open to difficult conversations,” “Hopeful,” “Ready to create change” and “Energized.” Guests were also invited to pick up copies of City Shift’s Equity Kickstart Guide for Cities, the Pocket-Sized Guide to Engaging with Local Government, and resources on equitable city building from Women Transforming Cities, Renovate the Public Hearing, City Hive and REACH Cities. We also displayed artwork from an earlier zine- making workshop, where community members used art to reimagine our cities with equity and inclusion as guiding principles.
“As we wrap up City Shift, we know we need to create more opportunities to hear diverse voices and perspectives in our communities, especially those that have been historically marginalized and excluded,” said Shauna Shortt, City Shift Project Lead. “The work of creating more equitable and inclusive communities has never been more important.”
We are grateful to CBC Vancouver for sponsoring this event, and to Women and Gender Equality Canada for funding our impactful YWCA City Shift project.
For more information on our advocacy work, contact Shauna Shortt at sshortt@ywcavan.org.
