Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

CNMN has been active­ly work­ing on knowl­edge shar­ing and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment events around Equi­ty, Diver­si­ty and Indige­nous resur­gence in the cre­ation, pro­duc­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of cre­ative music and sound since the Ottawa Forum in 2016.

In 2017, CNMN orga­nized the Rolling Con­ver­sa­tion on Diver­si­ty and in 2019, the Equi­ty & Diver­si­ty Con­ver­sa­tion Win­nipeg. Forum 2021: Lis­ten up con­tin­ued and expand­ed on these discussions.

We wel­come you to read our Equi­ty & Access Pol­i­cy and Action Plan.


Some of the cur­rent resources available:

Indige­nous Ally Toolk­it cre­at­ed by the Mon­tre­al Urban Abo­rig­i­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Strat­e­gy NETWORK.How the authors describe this toolk­it: “When it comes to cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive & sus­tain­able impact on the lives of Indige­nous Peo­ples liv­ing in Mon­tre­al, it is impor­tant to under­stand the role that an indi­vid­ual occu­pies and plays with­in the col­lec­tive experience.

The term ally has been around for some time, and recent­ly many crit­ics say that it has lost its orig­i­nal mean­ing. Instead of being used to iden­ti­fy one’s role with­in a col­lec­tive strug­gle, it has come to sym­bol­ize a token iden­ti­ty – a kind of “badge” that peo­ple wear to show they are one of the “good guys”.

There are mul­ti­ple terms a per­son can use when iden­ti­fy­ing the role that they active­ly play with­in anti-oppres­sive work. Nei­ther is bet­ter than the oth­er and regard­less of what you call your­self, each role plays an impor­tant part in this kind of work. Many want to be an ally, which is why this pam­phlet focus­es on that term. How­ev­er, being an ally is not a self-appoint­ed iden­ti­ty and requires you to show your under­stand­ing through actions, rela­tions, and recog­ni­tion by the community.”

The Ontario Arts Coun­cil offers this use­ful video on Indige­nous Arts Protocols.

The Ontario Arts Coun­cil recent­ly pub­lished The Sta­tus of Women in the Cana­di­an Arts and Cul­tur­al Indus­tries: Research Review 2010–2018

Key­change Gen­der Par­i­ty Pledge

Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts’ Expand­ing the Arts: Deaf and Dis­abil­i­ty Arts, Access and Equal­i­ty Strategy

Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Diver­si­ty and Inclu­sion Toolkits

Diver­sité artis­tique Mon­tréal (DAM) has pub­lished a con­sul­ta­tion report on sys­temic racism in the arts, cul­ture, and media sec­tors in Mon­tréal in 2018. They also offer a guid­ance ser­vice to “inform, sup­port, and pro­vide tools to all those who want to include diver­si­ty in their val­ues, actions, and strate­gic posi­tion­ing (French only).”

There are also numer­ous good resources about respect­ful work­places in the arts. Find here the Work­place Vio­lence and Harass­ment Tool­box put togeth­er by Work­place Safe­ty and Pre­ven­tion Ser­vices — the sec­tion on harass­ment begins at p. 74.

The Cul­tur­al Human Resources Coun­cil’s Respect­ful Work­places in the Arts has sev­er­al very use­ful tools:
A Code of Con­duct
A Human Resources Toolk­it
Numer­ous webi­na­rs and train­ing resources.