Jennifer Hollett:
Hi, I’m Jennifer Hollett. I’m the executive director of The Walrus. I’m also your host and moderator.

We are thrilled to be joining you online, bringing people together across the country and beyond, live in conversation with The Walrus Talks at Home: DEI, presented by Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

I’d like to start by acknowledging the land that I’m on in Toronto, Ontario, Tkaronto. A land acknowledgement helps us recognize history, thinking about how it informs where we are now, and what changes can be made going forward in a commitment to reconciliation.

Our offices, and where I am in downtown Toronto, are located within the bounds of Treaty 13, signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit. This land is also the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. Today Toronto is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples. Here at The Walrus we’re honoured to contribute to a long tradition of storytelling, and we welcome you all, wherever you are, to reflect on the land. As part of the ongoing work of reconciliaction, if you haven’t done so already, or even recently, we encourage you to read the 94 calls to action recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

A bit about The Walrus. The Walrus is Canada’s Conversation. We cover stories across Canada to offer a deeper understanding of who we are, for those inside and outside the country. This year, from tariffs to taunts of becoming the 51st state, Canada is the conversation. And the country is standing strong. We are responding to this moment with facts, analysis, and even some humour. You can find us online at thewalrus.ca, in print on newsstands, or by subscribing to The Walrus. This is Donald Trump peeping through here in our June issue. You can also listen to us by audio on podcasts, all of our stories are available via audio online, or take part in events like this one.

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Tonight we are exploring a subject that’s at the heart of many cultural and political conversations. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and asking a rather uncomfortable question: is DEI dying?

Recently DEI has faced significant challenges and rollbacks, particularly across the border in the United States. We’ve seen executive orders dismantling inclusion programs, and corporate strategies shifting or scaling back in response to backlash.

But what does EDI, as it’s often called in Canada, with equity first, mean for us here? Are we seeing the same retrenchment? Is there an opportunity to recommit and reimagine what inclusion can look like?

This evening our talkers will explore the tensions and transformations of DEI today, and how we can continue the work of building, ultimately, a more equitable society, not just in principle, but in practice.

With The Walrus Talks at Home each speaker will give their talk one after the other, all live, and this is followed by a moderated Q&A session with our talkers and all of you, our audience at home. So feel free to submit your questions at any point, pop them into the comments section, and when you share your question let us know where you’re joining us from.

We also encourage you to share any highlights from this conversation on social media. Some people even take a picture as they’re watching it and share that. Please tag us at The Walrus, and the hashtag, for tonight is hashtag walrustalks.

Coming up. You’ll be hearing from live Dr. Komal Bhasin, founder of Insayva, Inc. Rich Donovan, chairman and chief executive officer, the Return on Disability Group. Pacinthe Mattar, journalist as well as the contributing writer for The Walrus, and Dr. Yabome Gilpin-Jackson, Vice President, People, Equity and Inclusion, Simon Fraser University.

Thank you all for joining us. I’m looking forward to getting into it. And we’re going to begin tonight with Komal Bhasin. Komal over to you.

Komal Bhasin:
Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you so much for having me. Good evening, everyone.

So look, I want to believe that Canada isn’t following the path of the US, when it comes to DEI. It’s what many of us like to think that we’re more inclusive. We’re less polarized. We’re more polite. But I can tell you, as a consultant, that just last month I experienced the most outright resistance I’ve ever encountered in a decade of doing this work during a DEI or EDI session on governance with a board of directors just outside of Toronto.

And it wasn’t subtle. It was bold, it was harsh, it was unapologetically unfiltered in rejecting the need for DEI efforts in Canada. And importantly, during that exchange, there was reference to the course correction on DEI coming from the US as a positive trend.

That was a challenging moment for me. But, interestingly, I wasn’t surprised. And what I would say is that I’m of two minds right now.

On one hand, I’m deeply concerned. I’m concerned about the erosion of DEI infrastructure that we’ve built. I’m concerned about the ideological influence, that retrenchment, creeping north. The conflation of DEI with political agendas, and the effects on our relationships at work, on our relationships and on the personal front and in our communities. I’m concerned about the silencing effect of being afraid of speaking up about our beliefs and our differences, and even about DEI itself, and the effects that that will have on dialogue and on honest disagreement.

But, on the other hand, I prefer to see things as they are. I’m a pragmatist, and this moment in time reveals what has always been true about EDI or DEI in Canada. We were never as far ahead as we like to believe that we are, and in many cases our impact has been overstated, our efforts have been performative, and our approaches have been siloed except for really specific pockets, where equity work has been long embedded and really serious and really groundbreaking.

The attacks on DEI being out there in the open for the first time, we are getting to see how organizations and leaders and even communities have really felt about DEI all along. And personally, I see this as important. I’d like to see things as they are, and I also see that this moment as an opportunity.

So here’s what I’m paying attention to right now. What I see is more resistance. But I also see more complexity in terms of the kind of DEI advice and guidance my clients need. And that’s where the complexity creates a bit of an opening.

So frankly, the complexity is keeping me pretty busy at work. So when people ask this question of if DEI is dead in Canada or DEI is dying in Canada, for me my work is busy. As someone whose approach is grounded in organizational psychology, leadership, development and relational work (I’m a psychotherapist and an executive coach) I’ve always understood that DEI is not just an ideology or set of values, but it is a practice, a way of relating to one another.

And so this is the thing that I know. No matter what we believe, no matter what side of the debate we’re on, no matter whether we agree or disagree with DEI, no matter how we vote, what we believe about the absolute devastation happening around the world, no matter how we hold our position on those things, we still go back to work tomorrow. We still sit in meetings with each other. We still try to do good alongside the people who we think live and are with. Even when they believe differently from us, we still are of and in the world. And so the question is, how do we do that well, when the very DEI frameworks meant to support us in this task of being with each other are being pulled apart.

Over the past year or so, with this increasing complexity I’ve shifted how I work slightly. And I’ve been focusing on supporting organizations to build what I’m calling relational safety. Relational safety is the capacity to navigate disagreement, identity-based tension, and emotional complexity without shutting down each other, without avoiding hard topics, or minimizing ourselves. It’s about holding tension, staying in dialogue and building skills at rupture and repair. And I’m literally teaching people how to disagree, to hold their position and to remain in relationship. And this is the complexity that DEI is facing, going forward. And I believe that it’s these skills and competencies that will sustain DEI into the future.

And so where do we go from here? Assuming that many of you tuning in are people who want to keep this work alive or reshape it. You’re supporters. And personally, I see three strategic shifts that matter right now. One, I suggest and implore you to let your data guide you. We may need to return back to the foundational arguments of DEI. And what I’m talking about is the need to make the business case again, and really prove that DEI works and that it’s important, and that it’s good for business. It’s good for society, it’s good for productivity, and it’s good for retaining top talent. So let that be your anchor, if necessary.

Two, the kinds of skills I’m talking about, training for relational competence, really focusing on supporting people to be able to be in relationship with each other across identities, ideologies and experiences, and to hold that tension. And that’s the work that I’m doing right now.

And then, I’d say, of course we need to double down on equity, even as the language of DEI is being questioned. The legal and human rights infrastructure that supports DEI remains intact. Employment law, accessibility laws, anti-discrimination policies. These are still active. They’re enforceable. And they’re necessary. And so when the ideological backlash confuses or destabilizes us, we return to these frameworks. They’re not optional. They’re foundational.

Thank you.

Rich Donovan:
Thank you. It’s wonderful to be with you today. My job tonight is to take us to the corporate view of DEI. Unfortunately, we are in a position where DEI is a shallow reaction to real and consequential changes in demand. Most of those changes aren’t really changes. The demands have always been there but societal shifts have simply exposed them.

The problem is: exposing demand is not enough. Brands must act to design experiences for these demands and be rewarded for doing so. Rewarded by the customers, rewarded by the employees, and ultimately rewarded by shareholders who decide this is the right way to go.
The push for DEI stems from real, pressing needs—large parts of the market seeking specific utility. Easy to understand information. Retail built for women – you know, the key shoppers in most households. The unique needs of new Canadians – trying to figure out why does milk come in a bag… never mind how do I open and pour this damned thing. How does socio-political demand translate into user demand in the context of each brand’s experiences?

Well, frankly, DEI has never answered that question. Better customer experiences lead to higher net revenue. Diversity of an employee base is needed not just for equality, but because it takes 4,000 ideas to find two ideas that work. Getting to 4,000 ideas is far easier with diverging perspectives. Research has already proven this. Diverse teams drive innovation, and innovative companies outperform their peers.

So if all this is true why are we still struggling to get this off the ground after thirty years of activity?

Well, unfortunately, DEI has taken the position that this is a relatively easy solve. The reality is, this is not a one size fits all solution that every company can apply. Copy, paste. This takes effort, it takes data, it takes research.

Unlike performative DEI efforts, genuine reaction to demand requires talking to actual users, rethinking systems, funding profitable innovation machines, and delivering better experiences.

The good news is this is all possible to do with the people DEI targets, in general. Companies are proving this works. The biggest companies in the world have built products and experiences around the world. It works. That’s not really up for debate. What is up for debate is switching from a performative base of activity to demand-driven design to not only tap into larger markets but also drive experience innovation that benefits all users.

Consider how Siri or Alexa, initially designed for users with disabilities, have benefited drivers, travelers, those with their hands otherwise occupied, and more. This is proof of taking demand from a traditional EDI group and applying it to a broader market.

This works, it generates revenue, and it’s repeatable.

It’s time to move on from hollow gestures and embrace new kinds of demands as a strategic imperative. By designing for disability and other groups, we can design systems that delight everyone.

What if, instead of viewing inclusion as a compliance or moral issue, we saw it as an opportunity for innovation and growth?

Thank you.

Pacinthe Mattar:
Okay, I am going to be honest. I have hated the word diversity, and by its extension, DEI, for a very long time, and I actually think you know, I think it’s been dead for a long time, even way before this moment. Nearly a decade ago, Angela Davis said something that has not left me. In 2015, she said, “I have a hard time accepting diversity as a synonym for justice.

Diversity is a corporate strategy. It’s a strategy designed to ensure that the institution functions in the same way that it functioned before. Except now you have some black faces and brown faces. It’s a difference that doesn’t make a difference.”

I can’t help but agree with Professor Davis. And nothing has punctured the myth of and failure of DEI and diversity to me than Palestine, and not just in this moment.

For ten years I was a CBC journalist and producer, and in my decade-long career at the CBC, the only interview of mine that was pulled, out of thousands of daily news reports, was an interview with a Palestinian journalist who described being attacked by Israeli forces during a reporting assignment in Jerusalem. This is in 2017.

Not only did the interview not air, no senior leadership would have a conversation with me about why. There was no editorial conversation, no chance to talk this knee-jerk decision through.

Listen, anyone who’s worked in news will tell you editorial disagreements and conversations happen often, sometimes they’re tense. I know this because I’d had other editorial disagreements about anti-Black racism, about anti-Indigenous racism, and I didn’t have any kind of conversation about what happened in the case of the Palestinian interview.

It’s worth noting, however, that the closest thing I got to answers as to why this interview did not run was through the fact checking process when I wrote about this incident for my National Magazine Award-winning essay for The Walrus “Objectivity is a Privilege Afforded to White Journalists.”

Most damningly, when I quit my CBC job later, two years after this incident, sensing I’d hit some kind of wall where I just could not progress beyond the title of “acting” senior roles, I found out, after my departure from somebody on the hiring committee that this interview with the Palestinian journalist had marked me as “biased” in the eyes of senior leadership who then blocked me from getting the senior role I applied for

It was a devastating but super clarifying moment.

All the work that I’d done over my years at the CBC which came with awards and accolades, and which I’m very proud of, by the way, could be completely delegitimized, due to one interview with a Palestinian, an interview about press freedom no less, that didn’t even go to air. This was the starkest example of what’s known as the Palestine Exception to me.

Now, that was 2017 at the CBC.

Just days ago a student at an Ottawa high school was told to stay home from school after delivering her graduation speech as valedictorian of her class, in which she mentioned the 17,000 children killed in the genocide in Gaza. The principal called her and told her her comments had quote “caused harm,” even though they didn’t even violate the school board’s own policies.

It’s worth noting, but shouldn’t really matter, that neither I nor this graduating Ottawa high School valedictorian (her name is Elizabeth Yao) are Palestinian, yet we are still not immune from the long arm of anti-Palestinian racism. This is the unique and insidious way that anti-Palestinian racism or APR can undo protections we have on our employment, our schools, our speech, our press freedom, our civil liberties, If you look to the US even our immigration status. And not just for Palestinians, who have long known this, but for all of us in society.

DEI, till this very moment, has largely failed to address, let alone name anti-Palestinian racism.

I think the time is long past to correct this wrong. I know many people are here because they care about equity, diversity, and inclusion. I’m sure, the last time I looked at the number of people in the room it was over 200, I’m sure there is a lot of influence in this room, and I’m asking you all who are listening to be courageous, though it really shouldn’t take courage to do this.

My challenge to you is this.

In this moment and moving forward, will you do your part to name, challenge, call out anti-Palestinian racism? This, to me, may be one of the biggest challenges of DEI today.

Do you remember when it was controversial to say Black Lives Matter? Do you remember the time when women were seen as too emotional to report on stories about their own gender like, say, the Montreal Massacre? Do you remember a time when LGBT people were afraid to be out at work? This is the reality today for many Palestinian and other Arab communities, many of whom feel and know that in order to make it, they have to hide or minimize their identities, while they simultaneously mourn and grieve for their families in Palestine, in Lebanon and Iran. We owe them our support.

Diversity that does not include and protect the livelihoods, dignity, and experiences of all people, and that’s including Palestinian people, Black people, Indigenous people, disabled people, and their allies is no diversity at all.

Thank you.

Yabome Gilpin-Jackson:
As we consider the question of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) I want to leave you with a simple but profound question:

Canada—who do we want to be?

Regardless of what’s happening south of the border or around the world, I believe we’re in a transformative moment. This is the time to shed the view of Canada as copycats. It’s a time to rise to our own ideals—to close the gap between who we say we are, and the unequal social and economic outcomes too many Canadians still face.

For example, women in Canada are just over half of the working population from public reporting companies but still earn 89 cents to every dollar earned by men—even though Canadian women are among the most educated in the world. And of course when you look at this in a disaggregated way by racialized women, newcomers to Canada, immigrants, etcetera, that gap gets even wider, and that group makes collectively on average about 60% less than men.

We also know that also from publicly reported companies, people with disabilities and Indigenous workers hold just between 0 .5 and 0. 7% of board and senior roles, but make up 9% and 4% of the working population respectively.

Indigenous and Black Canadians represent 5% and 4.3% of the general population, but make up 32% and 9.2% of the incarcerated populations. These are not opinions. They are facts. These aren’t just statistics, these are people. These are our neighbors, our coworkers, our classmates, and even if not our friends, our fellow Canadians.

The business case for equity, diversity, and inclusion has always been here and always been clear. The question facing us today in Canada is one of the moral courage to keep going.

But here’s what makes this moment powerful. We already have a blueprint. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees equality before the law without discrimination. The Canadian Human Rights Act mirrors this aspiration. Both allow for efforts to improve the outcomes of disadvantaged groups through programs and activities that remove bias and barriers to access and opportunity.

As the Employment Equity Act Review Task Force led by Dr. Adelle Blackett reminded us, Canada more than a century ago, signed on to the International Labour Organization’s constitution, committing us to lasting peace built on social justice for workers and reaffirming that commitment in 1944 in the annex to that constitution that “all human beings, regardless of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue their material and spiritual well-being in dignity, security, and equal opportunity.”

The Canadian Race Relations Foundation, who partnered in this effort today said this in their presentation to that task force in 2022, there is an opportunity to make employment equity transformative as it helps Canada as a whole see itself.

So again I ask: who do we want to be?

To those who oppose EDI efforts, rejecting equity work without offering meaningful options, solutions, is not neutral. It is asking us to ignore these systemic inequities that threaten the very fabric of our democracy.

To those committed to EDI and justice—we must be self-reflective. The work must be deeply transformative, not performative. We need to build inclusive systems through meaningful consultation, barrier removal, and real accountability—what the Employment Equity Review Task Force calls substantive equality – a framework which I strive for in all my work moving to what would be transformative in that context.

I speak as someone who lives this complexity.

I am a proud Black woman of African descent, a first-generation immigrant and refugee. My family has deep roots to Canada—when providence and opportunity collided to bring my parents here and around the world to work and study in the 60s and 70s and before that, a historical connection to the Black Loyalists whose search for freedom was part of the founding of Freetown Sierra Leone where some of my family is from.

So it is that I was born in Germany, raised in Sierra Leone, displaced by a war there that was entrenched in global postcolonial trade imbalances and blood diamonds among other challenges and eventually came to Canada—only to be marked again as “other.”

Today, I watch my Canadian-born children still being asked where they’re really from—or I contend with supporting them after being called the N-word in our schools or being told no one wants to play with them because they are Black.

But we—my family, Indigenous peoples, racialized Canadians, people of all genders, abilities, religions, backgrounds, persuasions—cannot be erased. We are part of the Canadian story.

We are living in a moment of deep polarization, but it’s time to double down.

To listen more deeply.

To design institutions that make room for all.

And through our public institutions—especially universities that face singular challenges right now—we must protect their role in educating, questioning, and imagining a more just Canada.

Because in the end, it’s not enough to say we believe in freedom, dignity, and belonging for some not all Canadians.

This is about the unfinished work and promise of Canada.

So again, I ask, Canada, who do we want to be?

Thank you.

Jennifer Hollett:
Thank you so much. Thank you Dr. Komal Basin, Rich Donovan, Pacinthe Mattar, and just now Dr. Yabome Gilpin-Jackson.

All right. Chat is already lit up. We’re excited to open this up and get into it. To our audience at home, let us know where you’re joining us from today. Okay, we have audience members registered from all over, including Regina. Hello and welcome. Burlington, Burnaby, Port Perry, Sudbury. What’s up to Bowmanville, Winnipeg, Scarborough, Halifax, and Calgary.

Also we have a number of folks joining from south of the border as well. Hello to those registered from Colorado, California, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. That’s great to see.

A reminder. If you have a question as we move into the Q and A portion, please submit it via zoom chat. I’m now going to welcome back our talkers for our Q&A session. Just turn your cameras back on, and we’ll get into it.

Excellent! Nice to see you again.

Something that came up in tonight’s talks and comes up a lot in this work is the word performative, and I think, as we take a look at the history of DEI, the backlash of DEI, the country we want to be, I’d be curious to hear from this group what is performative versus lwhat is really doing the work?

Komal, perhaps start with you, especially because you highlighted, you’re getting into the nuance, you’re getting into the stuff. I think often, if you’re doing the work right, it is hard.

Komal Bhasin:
Absolutely, I would say. You know, you can think of even performative as a bit of a spectrum. Right? To do equity, diversity, inclusion, work in a truly heart-centered way, in a way that’s really reflective of our values, we should always be assessing, for if our actions are performative. Always. And there will always be an element of critique that we can invite to level up.

So there’s a spectrum of performative, and I think the type of performative that folks are talking about, that this backlash invites a bit of an opening to correct, is the one and doneness. The train once, and everyone’s got it. The tick, the box, “We did it,” The brought in a consultant who did a like a 10 page kind of DEI work plan that sat on a shelf that was unimplementable. The “we understand what an organization needs to do. But at an individual level people still don’t know how to relate to each other.” If a tough moment comes up where there’s a rupture, no one has the competency to walk through.

Any of the efforts that precede those moments would be considered performative because you ticked boxes, you got to say you did it, and then it didn’t actually work. And so there’s this work always is moving in a cyclical way, and it always can deepen and improve. And and there was an interesting question that was brought up around are there any good examples of like the values, the underpinnings of work that we can really be proud of, and I would say they managed to get through difficult moments and sustain the work anyway.

The work that’s not performative takes time, it’s sustained, and there have been difficult moments. People have made it through. Organizations have made it through, and the work continues.

Jennifer Hollett:
Rich. You mentioned this in your talk beyond the lunch and learn it’s not one size fits all. I really like the line “It takes 4,000 ideas to find two that work.” So what is the resistance to that, Rich? Why do you think there’s still this desire for the one size fits all. Is it that checklist that people just want to be quickly done with it?

Rich Donovan:
It’s the opposite of that, right? So, organizations, whether they’re for profit or governments they’re very complex, right? They’re driven by one thing usually. And for the public company that’s profitability. So the good news behind DEI or EDI or whatever you want to call it. It’s a large market voice with lots of complexity, lots of interesting demands, lots of interesting ways to differentiate yourself.

However, this space has never taken the time to understand what those things are relative to a specific company.

So that takes investment. That takes time. That takes effort. And what we find is when companies embed this in what they do already and don’t try to bolt this on as an artificial program with one-off efforts, this is when it becomes successful. For companies like Apple, companies like Google, companies like Amazon. When they make their product easier to use for people with disabilities they’re easier to use for everybody.

And you can scale that up to whatever diversity vertical you want to scale it to.

The one I just called out is women. 52% of the population. Largest household shoppers. Yet if you go talk to retail strategists, they’re all men. You go talk to most retail agencies that do research on advertising, they’re all men. So how the hell do we think we get the desired experiences for women if all of this is coming from men?

So we need to kind of take a step back and say, what are we doing here?

Are we basing this in data? Are we basing this in demand? Or are we basing this in a certain political desire for a perfect world?

Jennifer Hollett:
Thank you for that. Pacinthe, you brought up the article you wrote for The Walrus and for those who aren’t familiar, this dates back to August 2020. As you mentioned, it was about quote unquote objectivity in journalism, and who was seen as objective. It has since been added to curriculum in universities across the country and around the world. I’m curious, almost five years later, what impact do you still hope that has? As well, what have you heard from students and professors who are using that article?

Pacinthe Mattar:
I couldn’t have imagined the impact that it would have. And in fact, I remember on publication day, which I’ll never forget, August 21st at 10 AM was when it was published, and I watched and just waited for my journalism career to crumble. But something else happened, which is that this notion of objectivity, I mean, I wrote about it in journalism, but what I heard was, I heard from people in medicine, in law, in academia, in urban planning, saying everything that you’re writing about, this notion of objectivity is so relevant to our work.

I think it’s been the greatest honor of writing the article is seeing how far it’s traveled in educational spaces. And I know there is a professor watching here today, Professor Shari Okeke from TMU, who up until this year was inviting me into her classroom to speak about its subjects. I’m also very sorry to the students who’ve had to read the article five times every single year in journalism school.

But its longevity five years later speaks to the fact that you know we spoke earlier about when is diversity performative, and when is it real? And I would say that diversity or DEI that does not actively challenge power or change the status quo is performative. It’s decorative. It’s playing around with the edges instead of challenging deeply ingrained power dynamics.

And the fact that the article continues to resonate, that students write to me and say, You know this article made me, I was considering not pursuing journalism, but this article makes me realize that I can speak truth to power. It is so encouraging. And I actually think student journalists are paving a very brave and morally courageous way, and I’m so glad that they’re still reading the work all this time later.

Jennifer Hollett:
I’m glad to hear that. Yabome, I have a question for you then I’m going to get to the audience questions. I know that some organizations are renaming the work of DEI or EDI, but still committing to it. And curious what you think about this approach, if it’s tactical for employees leaders in the US. Or if we’ll see that trend, how important is what we call this work, especially when certain words, and even these terms are under attack.

Yabome Gilpin-Jackson:
That’s a great question. Language matters, and always has mattered. And I’ve been saying that before this moment, in terms of what we call this work in general. I’ve been a proponent long before things like the B were added to EDIB, etc. That what’s the end here? And if you look at the acronym from the beginning, I was also the voice, for I don’t think this way that this work has been marketed, as EDI is going to serve us well in the long run, because this is not about tactics. It’s about transformative change.

That said, I do not believe this is the moment necessarily to change language. But context matters. I think, for those that it makes some strategic sense, okay, have at it. I think personally for me, this is not a time in which I roll back talking about equity centered futures, which I have always talked about. And that fundamentally we need to create institutions, spaces, what have you, where we’re making sure everybody has that sense of belonging which is a fundamental human need.

And I know even that has become overused, and people don’t even know what belonging means anymore. I mean that in the true instinctive sense of walking into a space and going, “do I belong here or not?” And remembering that belonging is also a personal choice, it is also my choice to choose not to belong in a space.

And that’s the sort of two-sidedness of belonging that’s often left out of this conversation. You can set the conditions for belonging as well. But I can also choose. These are not my people. This is not my tribe, this is not my space. Where do I want to be? And where do I want to spend my energies making change?

All to say language matters, but so does context. For those that it may make sense, consider it, but I think there are many contexts in which stay in the course right now, especially on equity, which is the only outcome in the EDI acronym. Diversity and inclusive strategies are strategies. They’re tactics to the end of what? In some context, it’s to the end of justice. In other contexts, it’s to the end of equity. In other contexts, it’s about creating belonging and inclusive excellence. But those are different from how we’ve been thinking about the EDI acronym. So, just to complicate and complexify what you asked me a bit more. That’s my answer.

Jennifer Hollett:
I appreciate that. Okay. Susan, from Saskatoon or Treaty 6 Territory and homeland of the Metis, has a question for you Komal. “Can you identify what characterizes the few deeply embedded and successful EDI initiatives in Canada to which you referred.” Like, what does that look like?

Komal Bhasin:
Yeah, it’s a really good question. First things first, they’re led by people with lived experience.

I’m just gonna say the provocative thing. Those of us that have lived experience of being on the margins, being to othered, being less represented, having those experiences of identity-based adversity, we lead the work really well. And the best examples of equity work, in my view, are in work where the work has been led by people who have experience of being othered.

Also, the best examples are ones where at the heart of the work is a theory of impact that centers co-creation. I think a lot of what we’re talking about, and the critiques of DEI are that a lot of the work has been like done for us, or the policies are set for us, or they’re decided at boardroom tables, or they’re decentered from individuals for whom they make an impact. I would say that anything that happens in equity, diversity, and inclusion needs to include a lens around co-creation with the users, with the end users. With students, with employees, with the customers Rich was referencing. These models that are patronizing, across structures in society, not just EDI, are causing division, are causing polarization. We need to learn to do more with each other.

Rich Donovan:
I’ll just add to that. I think it’s the critical point.

So part of our business model is to go directly to people with disabilities to put them through the experiences that our clients build every day. And what we discovered is, there’s a term for it that we created. We’ve called it the fallacy of the expert, where companies will bring in an expert to tell them what they should do. And the expert may be an expert in going to a good school and building a set of skills that he or she can sell something with. But they don’t actually know what customers go through in a day in day out basis. Right? So we developed panels of thousands of people with disabilities. The data that we get back is granular, it’s context based, it’s usable by clients to improve the experience.

I think one of the problems with DEI, EDI, is it tends to come at things from 70,000 feet and what you really have to do is get two feet above the ground and figure out what the hell is going on down there and fix that, and I don’t think DEI does a good job of that.

Jennifer Hollett:
Thank you for that. Cheryl shares, “we have used the business case and the justice space to support this work, neither are without challenges. What is the new thinking on approaches?” So, Yabome, I’d like to start with you, then come to Pacinthe on that.

Yabome Gilpin-Jackson:
I think the new thinking in a lot of ways is old thinking, so to speak, that we just haven’t done well.

So this idea of deeply transformative ways of doing this work. I think people keep looking for sort of simpler answers, and I think this has been talked to a little bit already, to find a way to do it, and it’s done. But this work is never done. That’s part of the challenge. I think that where we need to go is some of what we just heard in terms of engaging real, like real engagement around the challenges, figuring out solutions. Every context is different. But the fundamentals are the same in terms of if we really want to transform the way that we think, act and interact with each other in this context, what does that look like? Not in terms of surface, feel good, performative, responsive responses, but having the real conversations of what does this look like and making sure that we’re making both structural changes and going to the root, whatever the root is, of where the issues are as well as doing sort of the surveys, cultural things.

I think one of the challenges that happened in in sort of EDI spaces is to start with education and raising consciousness, but not having anywhere for people to go once that work has started or is done. And so you have people all around feeling either terribly exposed or feeling guilt and shame on all the things that come with this work, with nowhere to go in terms of structures and ways for them to take action or to feel like it’s okay to just sit with what they’ve just learned and figure out what that means for themselves.

And so I think fundamentally, what we need to do is to continue to do this work in deeper, more complex ways and in transformative ways, and to not do one-off interventions.

If we look at the arc of time, this work takes time, and I think sometimes it is actually the folks doing equity work that push too quickly. And then we sort of recreate the very loop that we’re trying to get out of, because we’re trying to show that we’re doing something, and that for me is what’s performative and what I am not prone to do.

I’d rather take the criticism, unfortunately, especially as someone that has had a lot of bridger roles in institutions. I’d rather take the criticism and explain myself than try to do things too quickly that are surface and that don’t get to the root of what’s needed.

Pacinthe Mattar:
Yeah, I’ll be honest. The question about approach, like, do we need a different approach? There’s justice, and there’s business. And I’m glad you raised the business case, because one thing I remember literally the first time I heard about the case for diversity at the time, DEI, was in journalism school, and someone said, “diversity is good for journalism, because it’s good for business.”

And I just remember being like, wait. Well, what happens when it stops being good for business?

And we’re seeing this in real terms. I mean, in the US there’s companies like Target, who have rolled back their EDI initiatives, and they’re facing boycotting. And so this idea of linking your EDI work to just business is, I think it’s worrisome to me, because the right thing to do will always be the right thing to do, no matter if the profits follow or not. And as Dr. Yabome said, the arc of time is long and the moral arc of justice is long.

And so, I’m not sure. I’m actually struggling in real time. What better approach is there to this work than one that is rooted in justice?

Is that not what we’re after in our workplaces? I mean in journalism there’s a whole movement called solutions journalism. It’s kind of breaking away from the kind of mainstream idea that journalism is just “here’s what happened,” but how can journalism improve lived outcomes for especially marginalized people? There’s wonderful examples of this journalism happening in Baltimore, for example, with the Baltimore beat.

So, the justice-centered approach to EDI, to diversity, to all of this, is the strongest one, and I think will withstand the test of time.

I’m saying this as someone, you know, I have very deliberately stayed out of mainstream institutions since I left my mainstream job at the CBC. And it is because I feel like within institutions is when you get the most limitations to actual justice-focused work. So I’ve kind of been on the periphery. And I’m saying all this, “Oh, believe in justice and follow justice,” but I’m not someone who has to get people paid at the end of the month. I’m not paying overhead for a business. I’m not, you know, responsible for payroll for people and their families. So I say this, knowing that I am speaking from a place of working solo.

So at the end of the day, you know the question about approach, it has always been justice to me, and sometimes justice will come up against profits, and I think we’re seeing that in droves. And I think the question that I want people to ask themselves is, What do you want the legacy to be?

Is it that you balanced your budget, or that in the work that we’re doing, which I think is all centered around improving people’s lives, what do you want to look back on?

Jennifer Hollett:
I’m gonna get to one more audience question before we have to wrap up. Yabome, you want to jump in?

Yabome Gilpin-Jackson:
Just a quick add. Thank you, Pacinthe, for that. And I would just add a shout out to the companies, especially the publicly traded ones that are staying the course. The ones that have voted down shareholder proposals to cancel EDI initiatives. There’s a whole list of them. There’s a whole tracking of them online, just to also balance and shout out that that is also happening, as in real time there’s the retrenchment. But in real time, like you said, what will withstand the test of time? The right thing will always be the right thing to do. Pacinthe, thank you for that. I just wanted to plus one, and to say, there are also the big corporations out there standing and continuing.

Rich Donovan:
If I can make an observation here. There’s an assumption in this conversation that everybody’s on the same page. It seems the reality is, the four of us are probably in the minority of understanding what this is. So there has to be bridges built. And I’ll be frank with you guys, I don’t see those bridges being built. And I think it is one of the reasons why DEI in the US has gotten valid push back is because there’s been a failure to connect these demands which are valuable, to the people that should care. Listen to you speak as if this was the good thing that we all think it is, not everybody is convinced of that.

Jennifer Hollett:
Rich. You’re bringing the real talk. Thank you for that. And I think we have time for one final question. Komal, I’m going to direct this at you because it speaks to something you brought up in your talk.

Alejandro asks: “As EDI leading practitioners, how can we integrate dissent? Often I find, unless training is mandatory, we only receive participants already convinced in the general idea of EDI. How do we proactively integrate voices of dissent, of resistance, in a way that is constructive?”

Komal Bhasin:
Yeah, I think it’s such a good question, and it’s exactly at the heart of how I’ve shifted how I’m working. And I think it sort of speaks to this idea that there is more and more disagreement, polarization, lack of trust, lack of safety happening in complex workplaces. I’ve heard in the US, after the most recent election, people went back to work, and they weren’t sure like, did you vote for racism? Can I trust the person in the cubicle next to me?

So that’s like, it’s pretty intense down South. But I still think similar things are happening up here, and what I would say is that for those of you that are practitioners in this work, to the extent that you are able to expand out your offerings, to include conversations around how to sit in dissent with each other, how to disagree, how to repair conversations. I’m a psychotherapist. So I learned this stuff in school as it relates to couples therapy and parents and kids. And I’m applying it in workplaces. But it’s that that same thing around the difference between our very firm positions, the positions that we hold versus, for example, the interests that we share because we work together, and because I want to have a pleasant go at work today, and so do you.

So how do we hold discomfort? And some of this distills down into what I call like trauma informed workplaces. Simply how to sit with discomfort without becoming dysregulated. And this is important work around, you know. I think of Audre Lorde, and self care as an act of activism, to take care of yourself. To the extent that we can sit with the discomfort of the discord that we see, the polarization we see and stay regulated and stay in relationship.

That is what will define how much I believe many workplaces will be willing to lean into DEI work going forward because they will see that it brings benefits.

We have to reshape it, I believe, and really level up the level of complexity we’re willing to deal with.

Jennifer Hollett:
And I think that’s something we can all take away from this conversation tonight. To create those spaces where we can disagree better.

Thank you so much to all of our talkers as they turn their cameras off. I’m going to tell our audience a little bit more about what we have coming up at The Walrus.

Thank you again to our talkers tonight. Dr. Komal Bhasin, Rich Donovan, Pacinthe Mattar, and Dr. Yabome Gilpin-Jackson.

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