See what Windsor's mayor says about the city's derailed anti-racism project

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said he's committed but unsure how council will move forward with their anti-racism initiative after the Multicultural Council of Windsor-Essex (MCC) announced they would not go ahead with their council-approved proposal. 

The MCC backed out this week after both the chair of Windsor's diversity committee and the Black Council of Windsor-Essex voiced strong criticism of the consultation process. 

"It's just very disappointing that there is this amount of sort of hate swirling around that universe when everyone should be supporting an anti-racism initiative and that there are just a few skeptics out there who are trying to derail the great work that the Multicultural Council does," said Dilkens. 

Earlier this week, Windsor's diversity committee chair Peter Ijeh said he was angered by how council went about awarding the $200,000 anti-racism initiative to the MCC.

Some members of the committee, which operates under a mandate that includes "acting as a visible lead agent on communicating and recommending solutions to City Council on race relations issues", considered resigning in protest of the decision. 

"We are the most ineffective and the most toothless committee that you would ever find, because the city set it up that way and intended to ignore that committee from day one anyway," Ijeh told CBC News.

Ijeh said council had approved a similar project to be led by the diversity committee in partnership with Windsor-Essex Local Immigration Partnership.

Committee chair feels ignored

Dilkens said the anti-racism initiative was launched in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

That summer, Ijeh told CBC News that he felt the committee was being ignored.

""I think it goes into the whole notion of systemic racism that we talk about...this is one of the ways. You create a smoke screen organization, in my opinion, and you intentionally neglect it when you want to do something in the area for which it was created," he said in July 2020.

He repeated those concerns while criticizing the city for how it handled the anti-racism initiative. Dilkens said he consulted with over 16 organizations and that he is trying to arrange a meeting with Ijeh. 

"He had never reported his complaints to anyone at the city. He went right to the media. And I've never met this man," said Dilkens.

Ijeh was elected chair of the diversity committee in May 14, 2020.

"First thing I did was reach out and ask us to sit down and meet him to understand what the nature of complaint is, because clearly it's very odd to have someone assigned by city council to go directly to the media when they have a concern and they haven't addressed that concern internally," said Dilkens. 

Dilkens could not provide details on what will happen next with the anti-racism initiative.