Montreal mayor invites cultural communities to tackle discrimination in city

MayorValriePlante has assembled a group of Montrealersfrom diverse backgrounds in an effort to curb discrimination in the city and address criticism directed at her own administration.

Plante announced Monday the creation of a roundtable group that will meet regularly at City Hall during the next year, with the goal of making municipal services more inclusive and representative of the city's diverse population.

After campaigning on a promise to do that, Plante was criticized for naming an executive committee that had no councillorsfrom visible minorities.

Plante said the group's members will put their "expertise to work so that we can put in place concrete actions that will enable us to make public service, municipal services and programs more innovative and more representative of the Montreal population."

Specifically, the roundtable has four goals:

• to make the City of Montreal workforce more diverse.
• to come up with recommendations to address the problem of racial profiling.
• to encouragediversity among business leaders.
• to increase diversity in politics and culture.

The group will be headed by Myrlande Pierre. The other members are:

• Marie-Pier Boisvert.
• Marie-ve Bordeleau.
• May Chiu.
• Karla tienne.
• Paul Evra.
• Odile Joannette.
• Queen Ka.
• Myrna Lashley.
• Bochra Mana.
• Kerlande Mibel.
• Will Prosper.
• Shahad Salma.
• Marie Turcotte.
• Joshua Wolfe.