We have taken the last week to feel and hear the collective pain of the Black community. This opened our eyes to our own shortcomings. The past week we have begun the reflection process – asking ourselves and the brands we represent the uncomfortable questions you see here.

We stand with the BIPOC community. We stand against systemic racism. We stand humbled by the reality that actions – not just words – are needed. And we are sorry it’s taken until now for us to do something about it.

Talk is cheap. Actions are the first step to systemic change. As an organization, we have committed to the following actions (effective immediately):

• Corporate contributions to fight violence, brutality and systemic racism supporting NAACP Legal Defence Fund, Black Lives Matter Toronto, and Campaign Zero.

• 1-for-1 donation match of all employee donations to registered NGOs supporting anti-racism efforts.

• Paid time-off (5 days/ 40 hrs per individual) to take part in rallies, volunteer causes and gain education that serves the following purposes:

  • Dismantles racism in our community, organization and industry

  • Establishes awareness of diversity in the community

  • Lends support to marginalized groups within our country

• Company-wide implicit bias training (completed before June 30, 2020).

• Transparent and measurable goals including 25% of our workforce meeting Canadian diversity standards by 2021.

• Improve the representation of diverse people and perspectives in the influencer and ad campaigns we manage. We will increase our representation of racial diversity in influencer campaigns to 33% with additional visibility of LGBTQ2S individuals to 33% (including visibility of trans and gender non-conforming individuals).

• Committing that 100% of the panels we speak on or organize have fair and equal representation of people of colour and diverse perspectives.

• Commitment to reassessing all vendors and suppliers and supporting 30% of our supplier dollars now go to businesses owned by Black, Indigenous, People of Colour and other marginalized communities.

• Clear and explicit policies for unbiased hiring and performance management implemented by September 2020.

• Clear and explicit anti-racism policies that outline zero tolerance towards any hateful, racist and discriminatory words or actions that occur within our organization.

• Roll out and education on a company vernacular to help us be more mindful of our vocabulary (completed before June 30, 2020).

• We will sustain our efforts and share our progress transparently.