At its two-day in-person meeting on October 22 and 23, 2023, and via a follow-up online vote, Equity Council amended a number of Bylaws related to diversity and inclusivity on Council and throughout the Council election process. Other Bylaws pertaining to the election process, as well as accessibility at Equity meetings were also amended.
A new
Bylaw 107 was added, providing language to ensure all in-person Equity meetings are held in accessible facilities, and that accommodations are provided, upon request, for members requiring accessibility services.
Bylaw 107, requiring Equity to hold a National Annual General Meeting was moved to Bylaw 107.1.
Bylaws 126 (B), (C), and
(D) were deleted. These articles spoke to the number of seats Council would strive to fill with members from historically underrepresented demographic groups. As Council seats are only filled through a democratic election by the membership, these articles were not actionable for Council. Instead, Council has opted to make changes to the nomination process to achieve its goals of promoting representative diversity in the candidates running for Council election.
Bylaw 136, which speaks to Council’s obligation to promote diversity and the role of Council Recruitment Committees in the election process, was restructured and amended to reflect Council and the Recruitment Committees’ shared responsibility to promote representative diversity in encouraging candidates to run for Council election.
As per the amendment, all election communications shared by either the Association or the members working on the Committees will include a diversity statement with appeals for candidates from historically under-represented identities or communities within the membership.
A further amendment removes the Recruitment Committee’s obligation to seek out specific candidates from specific communities, in favour of a broad appeal for candidates from all historically under-represented communities. And finally, an amendment was made to reaffirm the intent of having more candidates than seats in a region.
Bylaw 137, which speaks to the timeline for notifying members and conducting the Council election, was amended to remove references to specific calendar dates, in favour of a timeline based on the length of each phase of the election process.
Bylaw 137.1 was added to establish that the nomination phase will last at least one month and end no later than one month prior to the start of the election. Further amendments were made to clarify how to nominate a candidate, and 137 (ii) was divided into (ii) and (iii) for clarity as well.
Bylaw 138 was deleted. As such, incomplete nominations will no longer be accepted once the nomination deadline has passed.
Bylaws 141 and
142 were flipped to reflect the order that each element unfolds during the election process. The new Bylaw 142, which now speaks to the length of the voting period, also states the close of the election process as being the last Thursday in November, information that had previously appeared in Bylaw 143.
Bylaw 143 was simplified to state that only ballots received by the established voting deadline would be valid.
Bylaw 145 was amended to require that Council announce the names of the elected candidates in each race only. For the sake of transparency, vote counts for all candidates will be shared with all candidates and available to all members through a link, but it was felt that publishing the vote counts in an Equiflash may unnecessarily embarrass unsuccessful candidates and dissuade them from seeking future candidacy.
Equity's Council encourages all members to be familiar with the rules that govern membership in our Association. For copies of Equity's Constitution and Bylaws, please visit
www.caea.com or email
info@caea.com for assistance.