By Kari Janzen, Staff Reporter
Tofield Town Council has approved the updated Human Rights policy on equity and diversity, which Council decided to review after residents questioned whether or not the Town should have allowed the community hall to be rented by an organization that was using the facility to collect signatures for an Alberta independence referendum petition in late January.
“This is the policy that effectively came into question as we were navigating questions about the use of the hall,” Mayor Adam Hall told Council during their regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 9. “I believe that we need to spend some time to update this policy.”
Hall said that the Town cannot refuse to rent out the hall without reason, but said that the policy could say that the facility would not be rented out to groups who were going to be using hate speech, conducting illegal activities, or who would affect individuals in a way that would be a detriment to their lives.
Councillor Dustin Terpstra asked if there was anything in the policy related to political affiliations.
“There is,” Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Edwards said.
“It is important to recognize that is how not only Council, but the Town as a whole, had approached the rental that has been in question, that we will not show bias towards political affiliation.
“The background of policy is to make sure that we are providing an inclusive community for all, and that discrimination is not something that comes into question,” Edwards said.
Hall said that overall, he believed that the policy was a good one, just that it needed to be refined to clearly state what is and what is not tolerated.
“I just think we need to clean it up a little bit so that we can point to specific areas to say, as in this case, we can say no, that doesn’t fit under this.
“Whereas, when we presented this back, people were saying, well, it doesn’t specifically say, and so then you’re sort of dancing,” Hall said.
Council agreed to send their comments and questions to Edwards to edit the policy and to review the amendments at a future meeting, which was held Feb. 23.
“You can see it has changed substantially,” Hall said.
“I would say it is much clearer now as to what the responsibilities are, what the principles are, and how we’re defining things.”
“This was a good exercise in looking to really dive in and to broaden the policy itself,” Edwards said.
“I feel as though there were likely areas that were not correctly identified, and I do hope that that has now been captured.”
Hall told Council that the policy could be approved or if any member of Council wanted to discuss further amendments, the policy could be brought back again.
“I think the changes encompass everything we discussed,” Councillor Jennifer Durrant said, “and it ties up any of those loose ends that we were concerned about.”
Councillor Elaine Taylor moved that the current Policy 1.13 be replaced with the amended version, which was carried. The updated policy can be found on the Town of Tofield’s website.
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