HRLSC Chair Gives Keynote Address at Peel Police South Asian Community Engagement Summit

HRLSC Chair Gives Keynote Address at Peel Police South Asian Community Engagement Summit

On June 5, 2024, the HRLSC’s Chair Ena Chadha gave the keynote address at the Peel Regional Police‘s (PRP) South Asian Community Engagement (SACE) Summit, with more than 250 stakeholders participating including community members, elected officials and representatives from police services across Canada. The SACE Summit is focused on the needs of diverse South Asian communities in Peel. At the Summit, PRP unveiled its new culturally responsive policing framework and recommendations to better support South Asian residents. The framework is built on PRP’s extensive year-long community consultations with 120 community organizations.

In her keynote address, Chair Chadha spoke about the history of systemic, discrimination and violence and police services. Chadha hopes the SACE initiative achieves a tangible commitment to forge a path toward deeper understanding and respect of the various languages, religions, customs and viewpoints of diverse communities in Peel. In her remarks, she spoke directly to Peel Police leadership and cautioned that if leadership did not commit the resources to prioritize the initiative, as well as model equity principles in the workplace, the efforts were doomed to simply be a public relations exercise.