Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles
In the aftermath of a challenging year, both Canada and the US are focused on recovering from the economic and social damage that the COVID pandemic wrought. The crisis has shed an even harsher light on the necessity for more equitable and inclusive societies. The Government of Canada is deeply committed to this goal both at home and abroad. The Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles is naturally at the forefront of this effort given Southern California’s social, cultural, and economic global heft. This offers us the opportunity to project Canadian values, to share Canada’s priorities of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Southwest region, and for our team to engage at all levels and across all sectors, with a focus on equity-deserving groups, particularly women, Latinx and Black communities.
The Consulate’s efforts are divided into two main categories: internal and external. First, we are taking stock of the environment within our own team and reflecting on changes we need to promote internally. Concretely, this includes the implementation of our vanguard Equity Pledge, the work of our Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (J.E.D.I.) Council and ensuring that we strive toward best practises in recruiting, human resource management and workplace dynamics, including incorporating the commitments to measure and communicate outcomes.
Secondly, and more externally focused, we are highlighting the values of diversity and inclusion in local public engagements as per our broad mission goal. For events/webinars, panels or public speaking opportunities in which we participate, whether of a commercial, cultural or public diplomacy nature, we strive to include visible and invisible equity-deserving groups including women, racialized minorities and the LGBTQ2I community.
When it comes to the business community that we serve, our commercial program promotes the participation of companies led by entrepreneurs from historically underrepresented groups, either by delivering initiatives exclusively for these targeted participants or by applying a strong DEI focus across all of our business development activities and events. This includes actively promoting opportunities to targeted business and trade associations in Canada, and adapting some of our initiatives to their particular needs (which we recently identified via a study we conducted on Indigenous and Black entrepreneur communities).
We have also been applying DEI considerations as asset criteria in our competitive programs and have been including members of these underrepresented communities on our selection committees. In addition, we are proactively seeking partnerships with local business groups and chambers representing equity-deserving groups in order to broaden the pool of partners and service providers to support our key initiatives. As a result, the upcoming year will see us deliver nine commercial initiatives exclusively for clients from inclusive trade groups, and eight additional initiatives with a strong DEI component, across all of our priority sectors in the Southwest U.S. market.
Finally, to measure and manage our progress, we will seek voluntary disclosure of DEI status from our clients and stakeholders, within the limit of privacy laws, tracking services and activities in our CRM and producing an annual commercial report card. We will use data to identify remaining challenges and future opportunities to actively promote diversity, equity and inclusion in everything we do at the Consulate.