Series 5 - City of Toronto

1.82 m of textual records

This series documents Ramkhalawansingh’s 29-year career with the City of Toronto (1981-2010) where she led several diversity and equity initiatives within the municipal government. While she held multiple roles during her tenure, the files predominantly capture her activities as the Equal Opportunity Director at the old City of Toronto, later becoming the Manager, Access and Equity Unit, and Corporate Manager, Diversity Management and Community Engagement in the new City of Toronto after amalgamation in 1998.

The series begins with files related to the planning of the City of Toronto’s Sesquicentennial celebrations in 1984 while Ramkhalawansingh was the Interim Coordinator. These include the excavation of Fort Rouillé (1982-1983) on the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. The excavation was a Sesquicentennial Project undertaken by the Toronto Board of Education and involved the participation of students through a special summer course in 1982.

A second grouping of files document the City’s Contract Compliance Program, a program whereby organizations who obtain funds from the City of Toronto agree to fulfill certain conditions regarding employment equality. The City's objective was to influence labour market conditions and reduce workplace discrimination. Ramkhalawansingh served as the Manager of the Contract Compliance Program after working as the policy consultant to the Task Force which recommended the establishment of the program. The Task Force conducted studies on suppliers and civic agencies. City Council approved a program be applied to all recipients of grants, civic agencies, and all suppliers of goods and services. The Program had two requirements:

1. All recipients of city funds were required to file data on the characteristics of their workforces, including salary (work force profiles)
2. All recipients of city funds had to agree to adopt, post and uphold the City’s non-discrimination policy.

In 1984, City Council specifically approved the definitions for the non-discrimination policy to include sexual orientation. A declaration which contained this definition was required of all recipients of city funds. These requirements carried on until the Province of Ontario, under Bob Rae, introduced employment equity legislation.

Finally, the series includes files related to the City’s Equal Opportunity Program, Access and Equity Unit, and Diversity Management and Community Engagement Unit. These relate to the Employment Utilization Study on Visible Minorities (1981-1982), the first study of its kind in Canada to document the representation of racialized employees in an organization’s work force; the drafting of a Civil and Human Rights Work Plan for Toronto’s 2008 Olympic bid (2000-2001); attempts to include employment equity principles into firefighter recruitment; a review by the City of the Toronto Police Services’ handling of the investigation of sexual assaults; minutes; and a report of the Task Force on Community Access and Equity (1998-2000), which harmonised the equity policies of six municipalities and Metro Toronto.

All files are open, with the exception of:

• B2022-0030/031(03): [City of Toronto. Long term temporary employees and designated group members], 1996-1997

This file is closed for 50 years until 2047-01-01, to protect third-party privacy. Please contact the University Archivist for additional information.