GVPDAC Launches Courageous Community Conversations: Listening Sessions For Change

Date: Monday, September 13, 2021  

Greater Victoria, BC – The Greater Victoria Police Diversity Advisory Committee (GVPDAC)   will bring together representatives of community groups to participate in a series of five courageous community conversations. These listening sessions will guide future work to  improve community and police relations in Greater Victoria.

 The Greater Victoria Police Chiefs, which includes all municipal police departments and RCMP detachments in Greater Victoria, are responding to calls from the public to improve community and police relations. They have asked the GVPDAC to engage with Greater Victoria’s diverse communities and make recommendations for action.  The GVPDAC will therefore host five direct community conversations on community–police relationships and issues of systemic discrimination.  These five sessions are the first steps in this process.

 Members of the GVPDAC see their role in these conversations as an opportunity to listen to community concerns and learn about their lived experiences with the police. These courageous conversations are listening sessions for change that will be facilitated by Dr. Moussa Magassa, a local human rights advocate and professor of social justice at the University of Victoria. Dr. Magassa will prepare a report capturing all the recommendations from community participants. This report will be submitted to the GVPDAC members who will then provide the report the Greater Victoria Police Chiefs. It is anticipated the report will be shared publicly in Spring of 2022.

 “We are hoping that these courageous conversations will yield effective change in community-police relationships as we take steps to address systemic discrimination,” GVPDAC Community Co-chair and Victoria Native Friendship Center Family Service Team Leader Brenda Freeman said.

 “As the police co-chair, on behalf of the Greater Victoria Police agencies, I am thankful for the opportunity to hear from a wide range of voices within each community, and to learn from many different perspectives on how we can work together to create lasting change in community-police relationships,” GVPDAC Police Co-chair VicPD S/Sgt. Jennifer Ames said.

 These courageous conversations and listening sessions for change run from September 16th to October 28th, 2021. They will include input from Greater Victoria’s Indigenous, Black, South Asian, East and Southeast Asian, LGBTQ2S+ and other communities across Greater Victoria. These will be followed by a session with representatives from all attending communities and the Greater Victoria Police Chiefs. 

 In an effort to ensure participants are able to speak freely, information collected at these sessions, including participants’ names, will be kept confidential. In order to help facilitate free and open conversations, each session will be held to 25 people. The sessions will be conducted in line with provincial COVID-19 protocols, including requirements to show proof of vaccination, per the Provincial Health Order. 

 For inquiries, please email: gvpdacvictoria@gmail.com