Improving post-secondary curriculum, training and socialization

Reform and promote accurate representation of PADs

Recommendation 64: The Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training must fund and promote the teaching of Black Canadian studies in BC’s post-secondary schools.

Improving access to housing

Increase the recruitment of PADs

Recommendation 70: BC Housing should improve diversity in staffing and include People of African Descent on teams that interview applicants of affordable housing units to support the development of culturally-appropriate housing for the People of African Descent community across the province including having homes that can accommodate bigger families and support communal and co-op living.

Improving access to housing

Deepen equity in service delivery by and to PADs

Recommendation 71: The Province should increase funding for People of African Descent organisations and tenant support agencies to provide free advice on housing investments, and rent support programs targeted at People of African Descent in economic precarity.

Improving PAD’s civic and democratic engagement

Reform and promote accurate representation of PADs

Recommendation 79: The Province should make funding available to civil society organizations, including political parties, to highlight and celebrate People of African Descent leaders across all spheres of society. This should include funding of a People of African Descent leadership conference and youth leadership bootcamp to provide opportunities for various People of African Descent leaders across multiple sectors to interact, share experiences and build solidarities.

Improving anti-racism accountability systems in media and arts

Reform and promote accurate representation of PADs

Recommendation 84: The Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport should promote the positive contributions that People of African Descent have made, and continue to make, to the advancement of BC. It’s strongly recommended that Black Canadian histories and identities be promoted in schools and across the media through collaborative enhancements of classroom and extracurricular content to promote a reflective, positive immersion into, and familiarization with, People of African Descent histories and cultures. The recent exhibit on BC’s pioneers of African Descent organized by the Black History Awareness Society with support from Digital Museums Canada or the commemorative naming of the Henry Houston Scott Park in Cloverdale, Surrey could serve as models.

Deepening PAD art presence and media representation

Support PAD-led models and community collaboration

Recommendation 86: The Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport and the Gaming Commission should consult with the Canadian Association of Black Journalists alongside other bona-fide actors in this context, to design and provide incentives, targeted grants, and dedicated strategic support, including merit-based grants to Black journalists, content creators and media entrepreneurs to support their critical work of accurately telling People of African Descent stories and creatively highlighting Black issues.

Improving promotion and support of PAD art, craft and media

Support PAD-led models and community collaboration

Recommendation 88: The Ministry of Municipal Affairs should work with the City of Vancouver to follow through on the promise, under the Northeast False Creek plan, to construct a Black Cultural Centre as part of the Hogan’s Alley Redevelopment project on the 898 Main Street block. In designing this space, the National Museum of African American History & Culture may serve as a great inspirational reference.

Improving promotion and support of PAD art, craft and media

Support PAD-led models and community collaboration

Recommendation 89: The Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport must support and the Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Division at the Ministry of Attorney General should fund the establishment of major People of African Descent community cultural centres at suitable locations across the province. This strategic support should enhance ongoing community efforts toward establishment of vital cultural spaces through grants, material support, donation of available physical facilities. These physical gathering spaces are critical to serve as hubs for cultural education, migrant settlement services, targeted training, mentorship and mental health support, intra-community dialogue, cathartic social gathering as well as multi-cultural socialization. The Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia, opened in September 1983 could serve as a model. The African Descent Society in BC is seeking funds towards an African heritage centre in BC.

Improving anti-racism accountability systems in migration and inclusion

Implement policy and legislative safeguards for PADs

Recommendation 90: The Ministry of Municipal Affairs in collaboration with the Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Division at the Ministry of Attorney General should consider creating a BC Ministry of Immigration to improve its accountability and ability to respond to changes in immigration paradigms. This is particularly critical to provide a more intersectional response in designing and improving settlement services for students, refugees, and other types of People of African Descent immigrants.

Improving anti-racism accountability systems in migration and inclusion

Enable data collection to measure and report progress in equity and diversity

Recommendation 91: The Minister of Municipal Affairs should ensure that the “Race-based” data legislation provides resettlement service providers with sufficient room to collect and use contextual data to understand the number of People of African Descent that come to settle in the province, versus the number that eventually leave because they are not able to find the community or support systems they require to thrive. It is also recommended that the Province commission a study to understand the settlement patterns of People of African Descent in BC to establish clear baselines for assessment of its performance during the last 3 years of the Decade.