Wait… Something is missing here.
As reported earlier this week, 24% of respondents to Niagara Regions discrimination survey reported that they experienced ‘vaccine status’ discrimination. This type of discrimination was not one of the suggested options, which means hundreds of respondents wrote it in. The subsequent focus groups, analyses, and documentation did not examine it further. And now, in the final document, as per the latest committee meeting, the “Key Findings” have a key omission.
The survey report, published in January 22, shows that Vaccination status (24%) is listed in fourth place, but this is excluded from the final Five Year Plan document, which does not acknowledge this omission.
Discrimination categories that were prior in fifth and sixth place were bumped up to fourth and fifth, as published on pages 20 and 21 as “Key Findings”.
There is a graphic on the second page with text that says “DIVERSITY MAKES US STRONGER, SMARTER, GREATER THAN.”
Left: Niagara Region COMMUNITY DEI EXPERIENCES REPORT (January 2022) (Page 7)
Right: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Action Plan 2023–2027 (June 2022) (Page 21)
Update: vaccine status discrimination excluded “to ensure that the items listed met the standards of the Ontario Human Rights Code”
Niagara Independent coverage: Niagara Region intentionally omits discrimination based on ‘vaccination status’ from equity and inclusion report (Nicholas Tibollo, July 12, 2022)
In any case, draft or not, vaccination status was purposefully left on the cutting room floor, per O’Brady.
“Vaccination status was omitted from the list in the Niagara Region’s Diversity, Inclusion and Equity draft report to ensure that the items listed met the standards of the Ontario Human Rights Code, which prohibits actions that discriminate against people based on a protected ground in a protected social area.”
Again, the Action Plan report offers no additional notes clarifying this. It simply presents an incomplete, and indeed erroneous, version of the community survey’s top five as if it accurately and fully reflects reality.
Multiple attempts to find out who, exactly, decided to omit vaccination status went unanswered.
Niagara Independent
