February is Black History Month. My remarks from the January 28, 2025 meeting of Calgary City Council.
Thank you. Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once spoke about the dangers of a single story. Ngozi Adichie shares how when the story of a person or a people is made to be so narrow and singular, it removes their humanity. Black History Month is a month of stories. Our stories—Canadian stories—that when we learn them and share the morals found within them, we are embracing our shared humanity. It is in the rejection of these complex stories for simplistic ones that we end up dehumanizing ourselves and begin to make normal acts of inhumanity that we have seen in our history, and that we are also giving rise to again, even now. As mentioned by my colleagues, right now, Black histories, alongside Jewish histories, LGBTQ histories, Muslim histories, immigrant histories, are under a level of scrutiny that seeks to reduce them to a single story that justifies the inhumanity that we continue to bear witness [to].
The reduction can be so galling that the stories of Martin Luther King Jr., John Ware, Viola Desmond are brought down to such a narrow cliché that even those exploiting and oppressing people can proudly quote them in the hopes of obscuring the truths of these leaders’ principles and beliefs. They have tried to reduce Martin Luther King Jr. to his dream, Viola Desmond to a theatre ticket, John Ware to a rancher, while simultaneously attempting to dismantle the infrastructure that they fought to build. This attack on our stories, Canadian stories, global Black stories, is a part of an intentional process of delegitimizing the history from which the infrastructure for progress grew.
When our universities cow to these simple stories and remove DEI initiatives fought for by those feeling the brunt of systemic injustice, we all lose. When members of our communities push to eliminate equity, diversity, Truth and Reconciliation from the vision of our city, they are trying to tell a manufactured story of homogeneity — when diversity has always been our real foundation.
I want you to think that when we delay the Calgary Plan today, just remember that it will feel like vindication for people who dare ask the question, ‘what is an equity denied group?’ A question that they have a clear answer to but a question they ask simply in the hopes that one day we will stop answering it.
Our stories hold our collective morals. They’re what we hand down between generations, they’re what allow us to build our communities on our shared humanity, and not just a single story, they are the bedrock with which we build our society. So, this Black History Month, choose to remember, choose to learn, so that every day after it, you can choose to act. Thank you.
Last week, I voted against the Green Line proposal that envisions an elevated downtown alignment and saddles the City of Calgary with a greater share of costs and risks.
The City has identified $1.3 billion in known costs and risks that were not included in the AECOM proposal.
Calgary City Council protected the Low Income Transit Pass, protected community funding for programs like the HELP team (formerly DOAP team) and the Distress Centre, invested in Downtown safety for everyone, “fixed” the potholes with more investment in streets, and accelerated the development of more housing around our train stations – all while keeping the tax rate below inflation and population growth.